On Transmitting, Transcribing, and Arranging Astronomical Knowledge in 14th/15th Century Byzantine Manuscripts

Byzantine scribes and copyists working with manuscripts stemming from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries employed several strategies on arranging and presenting knowledge with regard to astronomy and astrology, especially reworking Greek-Ptolemaic astronomy and incorporating Islamic astronomical materials. From manuscript evidence we are able to reconstruct some significant cases of strategies that lead to cases of circulation of knowledge, as well as learning, teaching, comparing, and studying. Scribes and copyists carefully crafted their instructions on how to use astronomical tables and arranged quires thematically in manuscripts. Writing astronomy is thus learning how to be able to master a stylistic code. To explore these topics, I will examine the 14th/15th century Greek manuscripts Vaticanus graecus 1059, Vaticanus graecus 792, Marcianus graecus Z 323 and Z 333, which illustrate important decisions about textual arrangement and selection of manuscripts in single volumes with regard to astronomical and astrological texts.