In medieval and Renaissance society and culture, celestial events were not mere spectacles in the sky. Rather, they were omens, predictors of the future, and windows into the workings of the universe.

When astronomers hunt for the remnants of ancient stellar explosions, they increasingly find themselves reading the night sky through the eyes of medieval scholars. Arabic chronicles, astronomical ...

Foreword; Preface; Contents; Chapter-1; The Origins of Astronomy; Human Experience of the Sky; Figures in the Sky: The Constellations; The Ancients' Astronomy; Chapter-2; The Babylonians; The ...

In a monastery library on the Sinai Peninsula, a devotional handbook by the monk John Climacus sat quietly for centuries while a far older scientific treasure hid beneath its ink. Medieval scribes had ...

LONDON — A rare astronomy tool that helped medieval scientists tell time will remain in Britain after the British Museum scrambled to come up with the money to buy it. The brass device, called an ...