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Lapidary (text)
A lapidary is a text in verse or prose, often a whole book, that describes the physical properties and metaphysical virtues of precious and semi- precious stones, that is to say, a work on gemology. It was frequently used as a medical textbook, since it also includes practical information about the supposed medical application of each stone. Several lapidaries also provide information about the countries or regions where some rocks were thought to originate, and others speculate about the natural forces in control of their formation. Lapidaries were very popular in the Middle Ages, when belief in gems' inherent power for various purposes was widely held. Among the wealthy, collecting jewels was often an obsession and a popular way to store and transport capital.Wheaton In the Middle Ages, scholars often distinguish three different kinds of lapidaries: # the scientific lapidary, # the magical or astrological lapidary that sets the relationship between the Signs of the Zodiac and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abnu šikinšu
Abnu šikinšu, inscribed NA4 GAR-''šú'', “the stone whose appearance is…,” is one of the most prominent Mesopotamian examples of a lapidary, or “stone identification handbook.” It provides a list of the names of minerals and highlights their therapeutic or magical use. It is currently extant in six fragments: from Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina,STT 108 tablet VAT 13940+ STT 109 , BAM IV 378.BAM 194 vii (=KAR 185, VAT 9587). Kuyunjik, ancient |
Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus ( 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great, Albert of Swabia, Albert von Bollstadt, or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop, considered one of the greatest medieval philosophers and thinkers. Canonized in 1931, he was known during his lifetime as ''Doctor universalis'' and ''Doctor expertus''; late in his life the sobriquet ''Magnus'' was appended to his name. Scholars such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church distinguishes him as one of the Doctors of the Church. Biography It seems likely that Albertus Magnus was born sometime before 1200, given well-attested evidence that he was aged over 80 on his death in 1280. Two later sources say that Albert was about 87 on his death, which has led 1193 to be commonly given as the date of Albert's birth, but this information doe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Of Beauvais
Vincent of Beauvais ( or ; ; c. 1264) was a Dominican friar at the Cistercian monastery of Royaumont Abbey, France. He is known mostly for his '' Speculum Maius'' (''Great mirror''), a major work of compilation that was widely read in the Middle Ages. Often retroactively described as an encyclopedia or as a ''florilegium'', his text exists as a core example of brief compendiums produced in medieval Europe. Biography The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, and not much detail has surfaced concerning his career. Conjectures place him first in the house of the Dominicans at Paris between 1215 and 1220, and later at the Dominican monastery founded by Louis IX of France at Beauvais in Picardy. It is more certain, however, that he held the post of "reader" at the monastery of Royaumont on the Oise, not far from Paris, also founded by Louis IX, between 1228 and 1235. Around the late 1230s, Vincent had begun working on the ''Great Mirror'' and in 1244 he had completed the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marbode Of Rennes
Marbodus, Marbod or Marbode of Rennes ( 1035 – 11 September 1123) was archdeacon and schoolmaster at Angers, France, then Bishop of Rennes in Brittany. He was a respected poet, hagiographer, and hymnologist. Biography Marbod was born near Angers in Anjou, France, presumably in the mid-1030s. He received at least part of his early education at Angers under archdeacon and schoolmaster Rainaldus (d. c. 1076), who may have been trained by Fulbert of Chartres. He was a well-known and highly praised scholar in Angers. Marbod had three known named relatives: a brother named Hugo, who was a canon of Saint-Maurice of Angers, a mother most likely named Hildeburgis, and a nephew named Herveus. Two of Marbod's family members were in the entourage of Count Fulk le Réchin of Anjou. The power of the episcopate in Northern France during the twelfth century was immense. The position came with land, economic, political, and spiritual power which had been continued on from the time of Caroling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism. His most famous works are ''The Book of Healing'', a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and ''The Canon of Medicine'', a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval European University, universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on Astronomy in medieval Islam, astronomy, Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, alchemy, Geography and cartography in medieval Islam, geography and geology, Psychology in medieval Islam, psychology, Islamic theology, Logic in Islamic philosophy, logic, Mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isidore Of Seville
Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world". At a time of disintegration of classical culture, aristocratic violence, and widespread illiteracy, Isidore was involved in the conversion of the Arianism, Arian Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville and continuing after Leander's death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville. His fame after his death was based on his ''Etymologiae'', an etymology, etymological encyclopedia that assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would otherwise have been lost. This work also helped to standardise the use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Julius Solinus
__NOTOC__ Gaius Julius Solinus, better known simply as Solinus, was a Latin grammarian, geographer, and compiler who probably flourished in the early 3rd century AD. Historical scholar Theodor Mommsen dates him to the middle of the 3rd century. Solinus was the author of ("On the Wonders of the World") which circulated under the titles ("A Collection of Curious Things"), , and , the latter title being favoured by the author himself. The work is indeed a description of curiosities in a chorographic framework. Adventus, to whom it is dedicated, is identified with Oclatinius Adventus, Roman consul in AD 218. It contains a short description of the ancient world, with remarks on historical, social, religious, and natural history questions. The greater part is taken from Pliny's ''Natural History'' and the geography of Pomponius Mela. According to Mommsen, Solinus also relied upon a chronicle (possibly by Cornelius Bocchus) and a , an epitome of Pliny's work with additions made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History (Pliny)
The ''Natural History'' () is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of Pliny the Elder#Death, his death during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean D'Outremeuse
Jean d'Outremeuse or ''Jean des Preis'' (1338 in Liège – 1400) was a writer and historian who wrote two romanticised historical works and a lapidary. ''La Geste de Liége'' is an account of the mythical history of his native city, Liège, written partly in prose and partly in verse. It was probably based on an existing text and consists of three books: book one, in 40,000 lines, book two, in 12,224 lines with prose summaries, book three, has been lost, but a few passages have been found. ''Ly Myreur des Histors'' ("The Mirror of Histories") is a more ambitious narrative, purporting to be a history of the world from the flood up to the 14th century. It combines Vincent de Beauvais's early works ''Ogier le Danois'' and the ''Geste de Liège'' into a universal history, from the fall of Troy to 1340, mixing real and legendary events. The Liège herald, Louis Abry (1643–1720), refers to the lost fourth book of the ''Myreur des Hystors'' of Johans des Preis, styled d'Oultremeu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgius Agricola
Georgius Agricola (; born Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, he was broadly educated, but took a particular interest in the mining and refining of metals. He was the first to drop the Arabic definite article ''al-'', exclusively writing ''chymia'' and ''chymista'' in describing activity that we today would characterize as chemical or alchemical, giving chemistry its modern name. For his groundbreaking work '' De Natura Fossilium'' published in 1546, he is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and the founder of geology as a scientific discipline.Rafferty, John P. (2012). ''Geological Sciences; Geology: Landforms, Minerals, and Rocks''. New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, p. 10. He is well known for his pioneering work '' De re metallica libri XII'', that was published in 1556, one yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
