Abstract Summary
The constellations pictured in the manuscripts commissioned by ‘Alfonso X el Sabio’ (Lapidario, El Escorial, RBME, Ms. h-I-15, Libro del saber de astrología, Madrid, UCM BH, Ms. 156, Libro de astromagia, Città del Vaticano, BAV, Ms. Reg. Lat. 1283a) stem from the figurative cycle illustrating the text of al-Sufi´s Kitab Al-Kawakeb Al-Thabita, the Book of the Fixed Stars. This repertoire adapted Classical representations of the constellations, adding specific elements from the Islamic and the Bedouin tradition. Al- Sufi´s forms also changed the Classical aesthetic and attributes and adapted them to the Eastern fashion, just as the figures of the Alfonsine manuscripts later added a Western touch, more suited to the cultural context and the audience for which this visual repertoire was designed, while simultaneously respecting al-Sufi´s iconographical structure. The Ludwig XII.7 manuscript, nowadays preserved at the Getty Museum, a scientific miscellany provably made in Oxford in the last quarter of the 14th century, has a direct relationship with the Alfonsine production. One of its parts seems to be inspired by a fragment of the Libro de las estrellas fixas, the first treatise of the Libro del saber de astrología, keeping the same iconographical features than the Alfonsine manuscript, documenting the circulation and preservation of the visual culture of Alfonsine astronomy in other territories and chronologies.
