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Article ID: CBB604794925

The Astronomical Instruments in Saint Catherine's Iconography at the Holy Monastery of Sinai (2017)

Flora Vafea (Author)

Almagest
Volume: 8
Issue: 2
Pages: 85-109
Publication date: 2017
Language: English

URI: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.ALMAGEST.5.114932

DOI: 10.1484/J.ALMAGEST.5.114932

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The aim of this paper is to highlight the scientific instruments depicted in the icons of St. Catherine at the Holy Monastery of Sinai. St. Catherine, who became a martyr at the beginning of the 4th century, was of aristocratic decent and well educated. In the iconography up to 16th century, she is depicted standing and dressed with imperial garments, holding a cross in her hand. The Cretan school of iconography inaugurated a new model; the earliest known icon is that of the iconostasis of the Katholikon by Jeremiah Palladas (1612), where St. Catherine is depicted sitting, wearing a Venetian dress and surrounded by the wheel of her martyrdom and several symbols of wisdom, among them a fine elaborated astronomical instrument. This instrument is composed of two different elements: a celestial globe and a system of nested spheres according to the Ptolemaic model of the world. The celestial globe is close to that described by Geminos (~1st century B.C.) and Leontius (7th century A.D.). The equator, the tropics, the arctic and antarctic circles, and the zodiac divided into zodiacal signs are depicted in detail. The celestial sphere rests on a stand with a meridian and a horizontal ring. The system of the concentric nested spheres has the Earth in the centre followed by the spheres of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and that of the fixed stars. Other detailed celestial globes are drawn in icons by Ioannis Cornaros in 1780. The tradition of drawing astronomical instruments near St. Catherine is found not only in numerous icons, but also in copper engravings and embroideries, stored in the Monastery.

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