Event

Feb 26, 2025
A Practitioner’s Bond to His 'Theorica': Conrad Heingarter’s Intellectual Journey in the Margins of His Manuscripts of the 'Theorica Planetarum'

Manuscript page with colorful illustrations

Source: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 7432, f. 160r.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) preserves eleven manuscripts related to Conrad Heingarter, a Swiss astrologer and physician active in the latter half of the fifteenth century. These manuscripts provide a unique insight into Heingarter’s intellectual journey within the astral sciences, tracing his progression from a student to a proficient practitioner and, ultimately, a teacher. The Theorica planetarum, attributed to Gerard of Cremona, occupies a pivotal position in the development of Heingarter’s career, as reflected in three key manuscripts preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In Paris, BnF, lat. 7197, the Theorica, preceded by John of Sacrobosco’s De sphaera and extensively annotated by Heingarter, provides evidence of his university education in the astral sciences. The detailed commentary in BnF, lat. 7333, found in a somewhat abbreviated version in a manuscript once owned by his student Wilhelm Copp (Vatican, Reg. Lat. 1241), highlights Heingarter’s role as a teacher. Finally, in BnF, lat. 7432, the margins of the final two chapters of the Theorica, housing Heingarter’s treatise on planetary latitude (explicitly written for students, addressed to a university member and framed in the ‘Era of the Illustrious John, duke of Bourbon and Auvergne’) reflects Heingarter’s teaching commitment across both courtly and university contexts, as well as his ability to integrate and synthesize sources from diverse traditions. Far from serving merely as a convenient spot in his manuscript copies, the margins surrounding the Theorica planetarum acted as a conceptual space in which Heingarter’s intellectual journey can be traced in great detail. In this paper, Eleonora Andriani will demonstrate this by analyzing Heingarter’s engagement with the Theorica across these three manuscript copies, shedding light on its impact at different stages of Heingarter’s career and within the diverse institutional and professional contexts in which he operated.

Biography

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For more information, please contact Matteo Valleriani (valleriani@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de)

2025-02-26T11:00:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2025-02-26 11:00:00 2025-02-26 13:00:00 A Practitioner’s Bond to His 'Theorica': Conrad Heingarter’s Intellectual Journey in the Margins of His Manuscripts of the 'Theorica Planetarum' Source: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 7432, f. 160r. The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) preserves eleven manuscripts related to Conrad Heingarter, a Swiss astrologer and physician active in the latter half of the fifteenth century. These manuscripts provide a unique insight into Heingarter’s intellectual journey within the astral sciences, tracing his progression from a student to a proficient practitioner and, ultimately, a teacher. The Theorica planetarum, attributed to Gerard of Cremona, occupies a pivotal position in the development of Heingarter’s career, as reflected in three key manuscripts preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In Paris, BnF, lat. 7197, the Theorica, preceded by John of Sacrobosco’s De sphaera and extensively annotated by Heingarter, provides evidence of his university education in the astral sciences. The detailed commentary in BnF, lat. 7333, found in a somewhat abbreviated version in a manuscript once owned by his student Wilhelm Copp (Vatican, Reg. Lat. 1241), highlights Heingarter’s role as a teacher. Finally, in BnF, lat. 7432, the margins of the final two chapters of the Theorica, housing Heingarter’s treatise on planetary latitude (explicitly written for students, addressed to a university member and framed in the ‘Era of the Illustrious John, duke of Bourbon and Auvergne’) reflects Heingarter’s teaching commitment across both courtly and university contexts, as well as his ability to integrate and synthesize sources from diverse traditions. Far from serving merely as a convenient spot in his manuscript copies, the margins surrounding the Theorica planetarum acted as a conceptual space in which Heingarter’s intellectual journey can be traced in great detail. In this paper, Eleonora Andriani will demonstrate this by analyzing Heingarter’s engagement with the Theorica across these three manuscript copies, shedding light on its impact at different stages of Heingarter’s career and within the diverse institutional and professional contexts in which he operated. Biography Eleonora Andriani Eleonora Andriani is the scientific director of the project PATHS (Philological Approaches for Texts in the History of the Astral Sciences; Access ERC Starting 2023–ANR). She is a special editor for sources concerning History of Medieval Astronomy, Astrology, Magic and Divination for the Journal of the History of Science ISIS. Additionally, she is a member and social network coordinator of CHAMA (Commission for the History of Ancient and Medieval Astronomy) and member of CETEFIL (Centro per l’edizione di testi filosofici medievali e rinascimentali; Trento Unit). She is also currently a Research Guest of the project Ptolomaeus Arabus et Latinus (PAL) based at the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Munich and the project Editing and analysing historical astronomical Diagrams with Artificial intelligence (EIDA) in Paris. After completing her B.A. and M.A. in Classics, she earned her doctorate in medieval philosophy (Università del Salento—Universität zu Köln) in 2019. Her doctoral thesis is titled Astrological Studies at the Court of Frederick II: the Liber introductorius of Michael Scot (Critical Edition of the Prohemium of the Liber introductorius). Her primary research interests revolve around Latin texts in the field of astral sciences from the 13th to the third quarter of the 15th century, as well as medieval magic and divination. She was Occasional Student at the Warburg Institute of the University of London (2016–2018) and research assistant at the Thomas-Institut der Universität zu Köln (2015–2016) on the project Maimonides Latinus. In Cologne she received an academic training by ‘a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne,’ having the opportunity to develop a doctoral dissertation project (2015–2016). From September 2020 to November 2022 she was post-doctoral researcher at the Paris Observatory, where she worked on the history of Alfonsine astronomy in Europe as a team member of the project ALFA (an ERC funded project; principal Investigator: Dr Matthieu Husson). From December 2022 to August 2022 she was at the IRHT (Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes) in Paris as a team member of the SourcEncyMe project directed by Isabelle Draelants. MPIWG, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany Room 219 Europe/Berlin public