FIRST BOOK

WHAT MANNER OF THING THE WORLD IS, AND

how it is composed of the Heavens and elements, with the number of these and their movements.

CHAPTER I.

Ptolemy.

The world is composed and ordered into two regions, namely the celestial and the elementary.

Ptolemy, Thabit, Alfraganus, and Albategnius.

King Alfonso, Johannes de Lineriis, Georg von Peuerbach, and Johannes Regiomontanus.

A large decorative initial 'L' is set inside an ornamental square block featuring floral and leaf-like scrollwork.
THE World, according to the Philosophers, is the universality of things the sum total of all existence: it contains heaven, stars, earth, and sea, along with all other elements, which, altogether, are called the world: For (as Ptolemy says) it is always in motion, without intermission or rest. Furthermore, the world is composed and ordered into two separate regions, that is to say, the celestial region and the elementary region. The celestial region is most shining, separate, and free from all variation, alteration, and corruption. This region (according to the opinion of some ancient authors) is divided into nine heavens: namely, seven of the planets, and the eighth, which is the firmament, where the fixed stars are, and the ninth, which is the first mover Primum Mobile. Thus Ptolemy estimated it, and after him, Thabit Thabit ibn Qurra, a 9th-century astronomer, Alfraganus Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani, Albategnius Al-Battani, and other excellent astrologers In the 16th century, the terms 'astrologer' and 'astronomer' were often used interchangeably to describe the study of the heavens. But the modern astronomers, such as the learned King Alfonso Alfonso X of Castile, sponsor of the Alfonsine Tables, Johannes de Lineriis Jean de Lignières, Georg von Peuerbach, Johannes Regiomontanus, and others, argue quite probably that there is another tenth heaven above the nine spheres, which is the unique first mover, proving that there are ten mobile heavens by the movement of the eighth sphere, of which it is written in the first chapter of the Sphere Referring to Johannes de Sacrobosco’s De Sphaera Mundi, the standard astronomical textbook of the era, that modern astronomers have seen fixed stars in the heavens which have three movements. Which three movements, found in the eighth sphere, are those that follow: the first is from the first mover, that is to say, the tenth sphere, which is the diurnal movement daily motion, which completes one revolution from East to West in twenty-four hours, upon the two poles of the world, namely the Arctic and the Antarctic. The second movement belongs to the ninth sphere, which is the second mover, which always moves according to the succession of the signs from West to East, against the movement of the first mover; this movement occurs upon the shoulder of the Zodiac: and according to the

Alfonso.

said King Alfonso, it is called the apogee original: "l'auge", an astronomical term for the highest point of an orbit or the movement of the stars' positions of the fixed stars. The third movement is its own proper motion, and is called the movement of trepidation trepidation A discarded astronomical theory that the equinoxes oscillate or "wobble" back and forth, and according to the same Alfonso, is called the accessory and recessory movement motion toward and away of the eighth sphere: and it is made upon two small circles

Aries and Libra.

described in the concavity of the ninth sphere at the beginnings of Aries and Libra, equally. So that just as one must not give to