Illustration of an Armillary Sphere

Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor

Artist Unknown

1576

Illustration of a sphere circled by rings at various angles, including illustrations of zodiac symbols. — This illustration of an armillary sphere is from a treatise on astronomy, *Sefer mareh ha-ofanim* (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a translation of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s thirteenth-century Latin text *De sphaera mundi* (On the Sphere of the World), considered the standard textbook on astronomy until the mid-seventeenth century. This manuscript was written in Mantua, Italy.

This illustration of an armillary sphere is from a treatise on astronomy, Sefer mareh ha-ofanim (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a translation of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s thirteenth-century Latin text De sphaera mundi (On the Sphere of the World), considered the standard textbook on astronomy until the mid-seventeenth century. This manuscript was written in Mantua, Italy.