De astronomia

Two pages from the Ratdolt edition of the De astronomia showing woodcuts of the constellations Cassiopeia and Andromeda. Courtesy of the US Naval Observatory Library

De astronomia (Latin: [deː äs̠t̪rɔˈnɔmiä]; Concerning Astronomy)[nb 1] is a book of stories written in Latin, probably during the reign of Augustus (c. 27 BC – AD 14). Attributed to "Hyginus", the text describes 47 of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, centering primarily on the Greek and Roman mythology surrounding the constellations, though there is some discussion of the relative positions of stars.

The book's true author has been long debated. Many scholars, such as the art historian Kristen Lippincott and the Latinist Ghislaine Viré, argue that the author was likely Gaius Julius Hyginus, who served as the superintendent of the Palatine library under Caesar Augustus.[4][5] Conversely, the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–11) argued that the work's rough style suggested that its author was unlikely to be someone "so distinguished" as C. Julius Hyginus.[6]

The text describes 47 of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, centering primarily on the Greek and Roman mythology surrounding the constellations, though there is some discussion of the relative positions of stars. The stories it contains are chiefly based on Catasterismi, a lost work traditionally attributed to Eratosthenes of Cyrene.

The Astronomia is a collection of abridgements. The star lists in the Astronomia are in exactly the same order as in Ptolemy's Almagest, reinforcing the idea of a 2nd-century compilation.[7]

The editio princeps of De astronomia was published in 1475 by Augustinus Carnerius.[8] Less than a decade later, in 1482, Erhard Ratdolt published an edition of De astronomia, which carried the full title Clarissimi Viri Hyginii Poeticon Astronomicon Opus Utilissimum. For this print, Ratdolt commissioned a series of woodcuts depicting the constellations to accompany Hyginus's text.[9] As with many other star atlases that would follow it, the positions of various stars are indicated overlaid on the image of each constellation. However, the relative positions of the stars in the woodcuts bear little resemblance to the descriptions given by Hyginus in the text or the actual positions of the stars in the sky.[10]

As a result of the inaccuracy of the depicted star positions and the fact that the constellations are not shown with any context, the De astronomia is not particularly useful as a guide to the night sky. However, the illustrations commissioned by Ratdolt served as a template for future sky atlas renderings of the constellation figures. The text, by contrast, is an important source, and occasionally the only source, for some of the more obscure Greek myths.

• Catana, Leo (2000). "Bruno's 'Spaccio' And Hyginus' 'Poetica Astronomica'". Bruniana & Campanelliana. 6 (1): 57–77. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hyginus, Gaius Julius". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Condos, Theony (1997). Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook, Containing The Constellations of Pseudo-Eratosthenes and the Poetic Astronomy of Hyginus. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press. ISBN 1890482927.
• Copeland, Rita, ed. (2016). The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Vol. 1 (800-1558). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Eratosthenes (2015). Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths, with Aratus's Phaenomena. Translated by Hard, Robin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198716983.
• Fratantuono, Lee (2021). "Hyginus' De Astronomia and Virgil's Aeneid". Lucida Intervalla. 51: 153–168. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
• Gordon, D. J. (1975). Orgel, Stephen (ed.). The Renaissance Imagination. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Lippincott, Kristen (2011). "The Textual Tradition of the De Astronomia of Hyginus" (PDF). The Saxl Project. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
• Viré, Ghislaine, De astronomia, Teubner, De Gruyter, 1992. ISBN 9783598714382. doi:10.1515/9783110951219.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hyginus, Gaius Julius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 175.

• High-resolution images of some pages from the Ratdolt edition
• Theoi Project: Astronomica (translated by Mary Grant)
• English Translation by Mark Livingston, 1985