System of Geography Vol. I. Pl. II.

Title

System of Geography Vol. I. Pl. II.

Description

Images of nine geographic systems

ca. 1860

Artist

Anonymus

Historical Description

The history of western astrology can be traced back to pre-Christian times in Babylonia or Mesopotamia and Egypt. Its basic principles of interpretation and calculation, which are still recognizable today, were learned by astrology in the Hellenistic Greek-Egyptian city of Alexandria. Astronomy emerged from it as meaningless observation and mathematical recording of the starry sky, and it remained associated with it for a long time as an auxiliary science. Astrology had an eventful history in Europe. After the elevation of Christianity to the state religion in the Roman Empire, it was partly fought, partly adapted to Christianity and temporarily pushed aside. In the course of the early Middle Ages, astrology, especially the learned astronomy-astrology, revived in the Byzantine Empire from around the late 8th century, as also somewhat later in the Muslim Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula. From the later High Middle Ages and especially in the Renaissance to the 17th century, it was widely regarded as a science in Europe, always combined with astronomy in the quadrivium of the seven liberal arts that had been taught at universities. In the course of the Enlightenment, however, it lost its plausibility in educated circles.