About this project

Alfonsine astronomy is a late medieval mathematical astronomy tradition which was born in the court of Alfonso X king of Castille in the second half of the 13th century and flourished in Europe until the middle of the 16th century when it was progressively replaced by Copernician astronomy. This digital exhibition is designed to give you a glimpse of the wonders of this astronomical tradition, in some sense the last mathematical astronomy tradition which adheres to a medieval cosmos where earth and humans are the center of the universe and celestial phenomena were grasped only through naked eye observations.

You will be able to learn about this tradition which marks a transition between two worlds, at your own pace, by navigating with us through a sample of about 15 manuscripts selected by a group of experts of medieval astronomy and scientific manuscript in a corpus of nearly a thousand manuscripts.

Each of these selected manuscripts was closely analyzed and overall more than 300 different points of attention in them have been spotted and commented on so that you can be guided through them. To navigate in this rich and fascinating landscape we have organized different interconnected trails which are grouped in four main sections. In the “seeing” section you will mostly learn about manuscripts themselves, in the “learning” section you will discover the main most important moments in the history of Alfonsine astronomy, and in the ‘understanding’ section you will be introduced to different medieval astronomical concepts. In the ‘reading’ section you will be able to explore each of the manuscripts ‘cover to cover’.

If you want to know more about Alfonsine astronomy we encourage you to visit the research project website.