Introduction to Astronomy

The Sun follows its goings and returnings through the quadrants of the circle. Then, throughout individual days and hours, we see the Sun follow not a little of what is new and varied in the accidents of things. To these, indeed, it arises, agrees, descends, and sets. It alters the air, the lands, the water, and the natures and states of the living, grasses, and metals through individual movements, in the alternations of cold, heat, dryness, and moisture, between generation and corruption, increase and decrease. Indeed, the movement of every man and every other animal follows the path of the Sun. For when the Sun rises, they rise; they progress as it ascends, decrease as it descends, and return as it sets. And they rest, as if the movement’s leader were absent, to come forth again at its emergence. In grasses, also, the Sun's virtue is manifest, whose generations, increases, and maturity are most committed to the Sun; it appears more manifestly in some, as in solsequium sun-follower/sunflower and the herb elmosar, which the Arabs call the herb thelancianila and the Latins necessarily call apium parsley/celery. For not even the nature of metals escapes this. Some things, indeed, coagulate in the absence of the Sun; others are strengthened by its rays, whose virtue is manifest in the gem eliodropia heliotrope, as well as in certain pearls unio and sea-pearls margarita. In these, therefore, this kind of solar force and effect is manifest.

A woodcut illustration represents the planet Luna personified. A female figure (Luna) sits in a four-wheeled chariot, wearing a crown topped with a crescent moon and holding a large arrow in her right hand. The chariot is drawn by two long-haired women in flowing gowns. On the front wheel of the chariot is an emblem of the zodiac sign Cancer (a crab), representing the astrological house of the Moon.