COMPENDIOSA.

meridian, is called the Southern Hemisphere, and the part opposite to it is called the Northern Hemisphere.

Now, the Globe having been distributed into five parts, which is its proper partition, it remains for us to undertake the designation of the other circles, which is necessary to know.

A certain principal circle stands in the eighth orb, which we must express and demonstrate in an armillary instrument, or in that which they call the material Sphere, so that the matter may be explained more clearly.

For we will hardly be able to attain the knowledge of it by mere mental agitation alone. It is, therefore, a certain wide circle like a belt, which is placed obliquely over the Torrid Zone, and in certain places carries itself outside the circuit of the Tropics, and cuts the Equator obliquely. Twelve signs are ascribed to this circle, and it is called by the Greeks ζωδιακός Zodiac, both because these signs represent the forms of certain animals by a certain arrangement of the stars, and also because they are said to have the nature or temperament of those animals whose names they have obtained.

For this reason, this circle is distributed into twelve parts, which are designated by these names.

Vocabulary: Cosmography, Hemisphere, Torrid Zone, Tropics, Equator, Zodiac