 Giordano Bruno (1548 – 17 February 1600) ...was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets, and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a philosophical position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no "center".  The Order of Preachers (Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum, postnominal abbreviation OP), also known as the Dominican Order Starting in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was also a matter of grave concern, as was his teaching of the transmigration of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science,[6] although historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his astronomical views but rather a response to his philosophy and religious views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences. Bruno lectured on the Sphere of Sacrobosco...  |
| Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256), was a scholar, monk and astronomer who was a teacher at the University of Paris. He wrote a short introduction to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system which became the most widely read introduction to that subject in the later medieval centuries. He also wrote a short astronomy textbook, Tractatus de Sphaera, which was widely read and influential in Europe during the later medieval centuries as an introduction to astronomy. In his longest and most original book, Sacrobosco correctly described the defects of the then-used Julian calendar, and, three centuries before its implementation, recommended a solution much like the modern Gregorian calendar.  Heavily annotated copy of De Sphaera of Sacrobosco. The first printed edition appeared in 1472 in Ferrara. De sphaera mundi (Latin title meaning On the Sphere of the World, sometimes rendered The Sphere of the Cosmos; the Latin title is also given as Tractatus de sphaera, Textus de sphaera, or simply De sphaera) is a medieval introduction to the basic elements of astronomy written by Johannes de Sacrobosco (John of Holywood) c. 1230. Based heavily on Ptolemy's Almagest, and drawing additional ideas from Islamic astronomy, it was one of the most influential works of pre-Copernican astronomy in Europe.  A volvelle from a sixteenth-century edition of Sacrobosco's De Sphaera. A volvella of the moon. A volvella is a moveable device for working out the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac, 15th century  A sixteenth-century wheel chart, a page of Astronomicum Caesareum by Petrus Apianus, 1540, apparently relating to the Moon. The red dragons mark out one odd-sized and 26 equal-sized central divisions; the orbital period of the moon is 27.3 days.  Sacrobosco.Spaerae mundi.1488 The 'sphere of the world' is not the earth but the heavens, and Sacrobosco quotes Theodosius saying it is a solid body. It is divided into nine parts: the "first moved" (primum mobile), the sphere of the fixed stars (the firmament), and the seven planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury and the moon. There is a 'right' sphere and an oblique sphere: the right sphere is only observed by those at the equator (if there are such people), everyone else sees the oblique sphere. There are two movements: one of the heavens from east to west on its axis through the Arctic and Antarctic poles, the other of the inferior spheres at 23° in the opposite direction on their own axes.  THEODOSIUS, of Bithynia (1st century BC). De sphaericis libri tres 1529 Sphaerics was a set of three volumes on spherical geometry written by Theodosius of Bithynia in the 2nd century BC. These proved essential in the restoration of Euclidean geometry to Western civilization, when brought back from the Islamic world during the crusades and translated back from Arabic into Latin. Theodosius appears to have written Sphaerics as a supplement to Euclid's Elements, allowing its application in astronomy. Elements had lacked spherical geometry.  The frontispiece of Sir Henry Billingsley's first English version of Euclid's Elements, 1570 John Dee provided a widely respected "Mathematical Preface", along with copious notes and supplementary material. The Elements is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt c. 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions (theorems and constructions), and mathematical proofs of the propositions. The books cover plane and solid Euclidean geometry, elementary number theory, and incommensurable lines. Elements is the oldest extant large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics. It has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science, and its logical rigor was not surpassed until the 19th century. ...second only to the Bible in the number of editions published since the first printing in 1482.  De sphaera mundi (Latin title meaning On the Sphere of the World, sometimes rendered The Sphere of the Cosmos The world, or universe, is divided into two parts: the elementary and the ethereal. The elementary consists of four parts: the earth, about which is water, then air, then fire, reaching up to the moon. Above this is the ethereal which is immutable and called the 'fifth essence' by the philosophers. All are mobile except heavy earth which is the center of the world. Sacrobosco spoke of the universe as the machina mundi, the machine of the world, suggesting that the reported eclipse of the Sun at the crucifixion of Jesus was a disturbance of the order of that machine. This concept is similar to the clockwork universe analogy that became very popular centuries later, during the Enlightenment.  Picture from a 1550 edition of De sphaera. Though principally about the universe, De sphaera contains a clear description of the Earth as a sphere which agrees with widespread opinion in Europe during the higher Middle Ages, in contrast to statements of some 19th- and 20th-century historians that medieval scholars thought the Earth was flat. As proof, he uses the fact that stars rise and set sooner for those in the east, and lunar eclipses happen earlier; that stars near the North Pole are visible to those further north and those in the south can see different ones; that at sea one can see further by climbing up the mast; and that water seeks its natural shape which is round, as a drop.  Bruno's Magical Art of Memory Graphical memory devices from the works of Giordano Bruno   The Escape of Simonides of Ceos Scopas...fond of drinking, convivial company and vain displays of wealth, this aristocrat's proud and capricious dealings with Simonides are demonstrated in a traditional account related by Cicero and Quintilian, according to which the poet was commissioned to write a victory ode for a boxer. Simonides embellished his ode with so many references to the twins Castor and Pollux (heroic archetypes of the boxer) that Scopas told him to collect half the commissioned fee from them — he would only pay the other half. Simonides however ended up getting much more from the mythical twins than just a fee: He owed them his very life (see Miraculous escapes). According to this story he was called out of the feast hall to see two visitors who had arrived and were asking for him – presumably Castor and Pollux. As soon as he left the hall, it collapsed, killing everyone within. These events were said to have inspired him to develop a system of mnemonics based on images and places called the method of loci. The method of loci is one component of the Art of memory.  Metrodorus of Scepsis used the zodiac as the foundation of his memory-system. "I suspect that Metrodorus was versed in astrology, for astrologers divided the zodiac not only into 12 signs, but also into 36 decans, each covering ten degrees; for each decan there was an associated decan-figure. Metrodorus probably grouped ten artificial backgrounds (loci) under each decan figure. He would thus have a series of loci numbered 1 to 360, which he could use in his operations. With a little calculation he could find any background (locus) by its number, and he was insured against missing a background, since all were arranged in numerical order. His system was therefore well designed for the performance of striking feats of memory."--Yates  Sermon of Saint Albertus Magnus. Friedrich Walther (German, ca. 1440-1494) ...the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church distinguishes him as one of the 36 Doctors of the Church. [36 deacons]  Dominican order. Albert was the first to comment on virtually all of the writings of Aristotle, thus making them accessible to wider academic debate. The study of Aristotle brought him to study and comment on the teachings of Muslim academics, notably Avicenna and Averroes.  Prudence (Latin: prudentia, contracted from providentia meaning "seeing ahead, sagacity") is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. It is classically considered to be a virtue, and in particular one of the four Cardinal virtues (which are, with the three theological virtues, part of the seven virtues). Prudentia is an allegorical female personification of the virtue, whose attributes are a mirror and snake, who is frequently depicted as a pair with Justitia, the Roman goddess of Justice. ...the virtue is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place. Although prudence itself does not perform any actions, and is concerned solely with knowledge, all virtues had to be regulated by it. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives a lengthy account of the virtue phronesis (Ancient Greek: ϕρόνησις), traditionally translated as "prudence".  An image personifying the four virtues (Ballet Comique de la Reine, 1582)
Prudence was considered by the ancient Greeks and later on by Christian philosophers, most notably Thomas Aquinas, as the cause, measure and form of all virtues. It is considered to be the auriga virtutum or the charioteer of the virtues.
...the perfected ability to make right decisions
The following are the integral parts of prudence:
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero defined prudentia as a rhetorical norm in De Oratore, De officiis, De Inventione, and De re publica. He contrasts the term with imprudens, young men failing to consider the consequences before they act. The prudens, or those who had prudence, knew when to speak and when to stay silent. Cicero maintained that prudence was gained only through experience, and while it was applied in everyday conversation, in public discourse it was subordinated to the broader term for wisdom, sapientia.
 First page of a miniature of Cicero's De oratore, 15th century Cicero wrote De Oratore to describe the ideal orator and imagine him as a moral guide of the state. He did not intend De Oratore as merely a treatise on rhetoric, but went beyond mere technique to make several references to philosophical principles. Cicero understood that the power of persuasion—the ability to verbally manipulate opinion in crucial political decisions—was a key issue. The power of words in the hands of a man without scruples or principles would endanger the whole community.  The Allegory of Prudence (c. 1550–1565) is an oil-on-canvas painting attributed to the Italian artist Titian ...a barely visible inscription above the portraits: EX PRÆTE/RITO // PRÆSENS PRVDEN/TER AGIT // NI FVTVRA / ACTIONĒ DE/TVRPET (Latin for "from the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions".) ...an animal with three heads (wolf, lion, dog) to represent the passage of time (past, present, future) is associated with Serapis in Macrobius's Saturnalia, and associated with Apollo by Petrarch, and the iconography is repeated for example in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna (1499), the Hieroglyphica of Pierio Valeriano (1556), and the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (1643).  ... concept of Prudence, which combined memory (to remember the past), intelligence (to draw lessons in the present) and foresight (to use these lessons to anticipate wise action in the future)... the presence of the animal heads, was traced back to a creature which accompanied the Hellenistic Egyptian god Serapis. This creature had the heads of a wolf, lion and dog (Fig 4). At least since the fifth century. this three-headed creature has been regarded as an embodiment of Time, with the voracious wolf representing the past which devours the memory of all things, the vigorous lion representing the present and the dog representing the future bounding forward...Serapis’s accomplice as “time monster”  Prudentia, with her attributes of mirror and snake, detail from the 1515 monument of King Louis XII in St Denis, Paris  The Memory Theater of Giulio Camillo L’Idea del Theatro is concerned with ‘the eternal aspect of all things’. ...a system that, as he says, makes ‘scholars into spectators’. Camillo suggests that the world was made of ‘primary matter’. This primary matter was sometimes called ‘hyle’; it is the material of all that is manifest. Camillo thought that by reducing knowledge into its constituent parts, you could come closer to comprehending hyle, the original essence, and consequently understand what makes the world tick. The entire Theatre, says Camillo, rests on Solomon’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. On the Seven Pillars rest the planets, which govern, or administrate, ‘cause and effect’. Camillo names these planets: the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He omits the name of the earth. Arranged in an ascending order from the planets, and affected by their influence, are a further six levels, which, broadly speaking, represent a gradual development from nature to art. These upper levels are named: The Banquet, The Cave, The Gorgons, Pasiphae, The Sandals of Mercury and Prometheus. The Banquet and the Cave, are the most ‘elemental’ of the levels; these are the levels where creation first began. The levels of the Gorgons, and Pasiphae, are where the ‘inner’ man is revealed in relation to the cosmos; these levels are part nature, part art. The levels of the Sandals of Mercury and Prometheus are concerned specifically with man as an active agent within the world, or art and man.  Song of Songs (Cantique des Cantiques) by Gustave Moreau, 1893 De Umbris Idearum (Latin for "On the Shadows of Ideas") is a book written in 1582 by Italian Dominican friar and cosmological theorist Giordano Bruno. In this book, he proposes a system integrating mnemonics, Ficinian psychology, and hermetic magic. It is the first book he wrote covering the subject of memory, a topic on which he will focus the rest of his works.       Ramon Llull's Ars Magna  Cecco d'Ascoli Having published a commentary on the Sphere of John de Sacrobosco, in which he propounded audacious theories concerning the employment and agency of demons, he got into difficulties with the clerical party, and was condemned in 1324, burned at the stake in Florence.  Acerba by Cecco d'Ascoli  But few are aware of another mystical memory master and member of the court of then James VI of Scotland - Alexander Dicsone. His mastery led to great fame in the British Isles with many authors referring to the more magical side of memory as "Dicsones Art".  University of St Andrews, 1413
Alexander Dicsone (also Dicson and Dickson, Italian: Alessandro Dicsono) (1558–by 1604) was a Scottish writer and political agent (spy). He is known also as the leading British disciple of Giordano Bruno, he used the pseudonym Heius Scepsius (after Metrodorus of Scepsis [use of zodiacal imagery] ).
Dicsone opposed Ramism, and was attacked in the Antidicsonus by "G.P."Ramism was a collection of theories on rhetoric, logic, and pedagogy based on the teachings of Petrus Ramus, a French academic, philosopher, and Huguenot convert, who was murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August 1572.  Petrus Ramus...[the Protestant/Puritan Art of Memory] Outside France, for example, there was the 1574 English translation by the Scot Roland MacIlmaine of the University of St Andrews. After Ramus died, his ideas had influence in some (but not all) parts of Protestant Europe, his influence was strong in Germany and the Netherlands, and on Puritan and Calvinist theologians of England, Scotland, and New England.  William Perkins (1558–1602)--possibly Antidicsonus by "G.P." ...was an influential English cleric and Cambridge theologian, receiving both a B.A. and M.A. from the university in 1581 and 1584 respectively, and also one of the foremost leaders of the Puritan movement in the Church of England during the Elizabethan era. Perkins represented the Puritan view of mnemonic techniques based on images, which considered them tainted with idolatry, heresy, Catholicism and obscenity. Frances Yates argued that it [the debate between Perkins and Dicsone] should be considered as "over-lapping" with the debate of Bruno with the Aristotelians at Oxford. 
Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age.
Dicsone was said to have worked for Philip Sidney. By 1588 Dicsone was working for Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll. Hay was a Catholic and rebel, and Dicsone acted as a go-between for his master and the Scottish Kirk, he was mixture of spy and double agent, a position eventually untenable.  Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; Scots: The Scots Kirk; Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais na h-Alba), also known by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is the national church of Scotland. Presbyterian tradition, particularly that of the Church of Scotland, traces its early roots to the Church founded by Saint Columba, through the 6th century Hiberno-Scottish mission.Tracing their apostolic origin to Saint John, the Culdees practised Christian monasticism, a key feature of Celtic Christianity in the region, with a presbyter exercising "authority within the institution, while the different monastic institutions were independent of one another."  Iona Abbey in Scotland was founded by Saint Columba. In Scotland, Culdees were more numerous than in Ireland: thirteen monastic establishments were peopled by them, eight in connection with cathedrals; the Ionan monks had been expelled by the Pictish king Nechtan son of Derile in 717.  The St Andrews Sarcophagus.  'St Mary on the Rock' and is cruciform... Culdee chapel in St Andrews It is used by the local St Andrews churches for their Easter morning service. ...the Synod of Whitby in 664, however, ended these distinctives [Celtic Christianity] as it ruled "that Easter would be celebrated according to the Roman date, not the Celtic date."  Cathedral of St. Andrews ...remains the square tower, 33 metres (108 feet) high St Andrews is also known worldwide as the "home of golf".  The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews  Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, by Juan Correa de Vivar (1540–1545) Saint Andrew, was a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter, likewise a son of John, or Jonah. [Andrew being not a Hebrew, but a Greek name] Andrew had been crucified (at Patras, Greece.) on a cross of the form called crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire" Middle Latin saltatoria ("stirrup")), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross"  The Saltire (or "Saint Andrew's Cross") is the national flag of Scotland ...two crossing diagonal lines in a rectangle, someties with four dots or balls in the four quarters, as an emblem or vexillum (standard) of Persepolis during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC.   The Gate of All Nations also known as the Gate of Xerxes, is located in the ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis, Iran. [UNESCO site, of course...]   Cross of Burgundy Andrew's remains were preserved at Patras. According to one legend, Saint Regulus (Rule), a monk at Patras, was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. Shortly thereafter, most of the relics were translated from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II around 357 and deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles.  St Rule (St Regulus) Tower at St. Andrews Regulus was said to have had a second dream in which an angel advised him to take the hidden relics "to the ends of the earth" for protection. Wherever he was shipwrecked, he was to build a shrine for them. St. Rule set sail, taking with him a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth. He sailed west, towards the edge of the known world, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Fife, Scotland. According to legend, St Regulus (or Rule) brought the relics to Kilrymont, where a shrine was established for their safekeeping and veneration while Kilrymont was renamed in honour of the saint. the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761).  Pictish king Oengus II on his sarcophagus Óengus II in AD 832 led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. In the Western Esoteric tradition, Andrew is associated with the astrological sign of Virgo. The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November While the Church of Scotland traces its roots back to the earliest Christians in Scotland, its identity was principally shaped by the Scottish Reformation of 1560.  John Knox John Knox (c. 1513 – 24 November 1572) was a Scottish minister, theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.  (Circe's Song, 1582) ... based on his mnemonic models of organised knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of Petrus Ramus.  Michel de CastelnauMichel de Castelnau, Sieur de la Mauvissière (c. 1520–1592), French soldier and diplomat, ambassador to Queen Elizabeth. Bruno lived with him while in London.  George Abbot (Bishop of Canterbury)  Astraea in the Old Supreme Court Chamber at the Vermont State House. Circe asks where is Astraea, goddess of Justice in the Golden Age.    Justice   Circe and the swine  Great Seal of the French Republic   Gallic rooster on the garden gate of the Palais de l'Elysée in Paris, the official residence of the President of the French Republic.  Henry III by Étienne Dumonstier, c.1578 Son of Catherine de Medici.  Le Ballet Comique de la reine    John Charlewood, Bruno's printer in England. ...one of the first printers to print Italian works in England. His address was the Half-Eagle and Key in the Barbican.  The main fort of Roman London was built between 90 and 120 AD southeast of where the Museum of London now stands at the corner of London Wall and Aldersgate Street. Around 200 AD walls were built around the city that incorporated the old fort, which became a grand entrance known as Cripplegate. The word barbican comes from the Low Latin word Barbecana which referred to a fortified outpost or gateway.   William Jaggard, printer of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays. Jaggard's shop was "at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key in Barbican," as well...  Johannes à Lasco (1499 – 8 January 1560) ...was a PolishReformed reformer. Owing to his influential work in England (c. 1543–1555) during the English Reformation, he is known to the English-speaking world by the Anglicised form John à Lasco  cena de le ceneri  University of Oxford: "Lord is my light."  In 1605 Oxford was still a walled city, but several colleges had been built outside the city walls  1630 printing of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. The engraving shows the magical talking Brazen head at top [of Roger Bacon]. ...is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene. The title page of the play's first edition states that Bacon and Bungay was acted by Queen Elizabeth's Men, as were several of Greene's other plays.  Richard Tarleton, the company's principal comic actor and main star  Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers  Edward White (printer), at St. Paul's under the Sign of the Gun.  Lord Strange's Men performed the play on 19 February 1592 at the Rose Theatre.  Lord Strange, Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby  Model of The Rose in the Museum of London.  The Rose excavation of 1988  The Rose today.  The Spaccio de la bestia trionfante (1584; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast), the first dialogue of his moral trilogy, is a satire on contemporary superstitions and vices, embodying a strong criticism of Christian ethics—particularly the Calvinistic principle of salvation by faith alone, to which Bruno opposes an exalted view of the dignity of all human activities.    Origen, Contra Celsum (1676 edition)     Momus Criticizes the Gods' Creations, by Maarten van Heemskerck, 1561 Lucian’s “The Gods in Council” Momus was in Greek mythology the personification of satire and mockery. As a sharp-tongued spirit of unfair criticism, Momus was eventually expelled from the company of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is related to μομφή, meaning 'blame', 'reproach', or 'disgrace'. Hesiod said that Momus was a son of Night (Nyx), “though she lay with none”, and the twin of the misery goddess Oizys. “The story goes that Zeus, Poseidon and Athena were arguing about who could make something truly good. Zeus made the most excellent of all animals, man, while Athena made a house for people to live in, and, when it was his turn, Poseidon made a bull. Momos (Complaint) was selected to judge the competition, for he was still living among the gods at that time. Given that Momos was inclined to dislike them all, he immediately started to criticize the bull for not having eyes under his horns to let him take aim when he gored something; he criticized man for not having been given a window into his heart so that his neighbour could see what he was planning; and he criticized the house because it had not been made with iron wheels at its base, which would have made it possible for the owners of the house to move it from place to place when they went travelling.” Aesop, Fable 518  Isis, Horus, and Momus   Minerva Mundi, translation by Patrizi  Francesco Patrizi da Cherso Franciscus Patricius (1529 – 1597) was a philosopher and scientist from the Republic of Venice of Croatian descent. He was known as a defender of Platonism and an opponent of Aristotelianism. Patrizi of Cherso focused his attention on a wide variety of philosophical, scientific, artistic and literary issues, providing in his “New Philosophy” a major alternative to earlier schools of thought and a model which later thinkers such as Galileo Galilei no doubt found valuable in developing the mathematized physics which would prove the dominant force in the rise of early modern science.  Joannes Stobaeus (5th-century AD), from Stobi in Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors...original Kore Kosmou, found in his Anthologium.  Gaius Julius Hyginus (64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the famous Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus. It is not clear whether Hyginus was a native of the Iberian Peninsula or of Alexandria. Bruno has taken much of his mythology from this illustrated work on the constellations.  CONSTELLATION HERCULES. Personification of Hercules. Woodcut from Gaius Julius Hyginus' 'Poeticon Astronomicon,' Venice, Italy, 1482.  Two pages from the Ratdolt edition of the De Astronomica showing woodcuts of the constellations Cassiopeia and Andromeda. |
Cassiopeia Cassiopeia The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, the queen of Aethiopia . Cassiopeia was the wife of King Cepheus of Aethiopia and mother of Princess Andromeda . Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next to each other among the stars, along with Andromeda. She was placed in the sky as a punishment after enraging Poseidon with the boast that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids or, alternatively, that she herself was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. She was forced to wheel around the North Celestial Pole on her throne, spending half of her time clinging to it so she does not fall off, and Poseidon decreed that Andromeda should be bound to a rock as prey for the monster Cetus . Andromeda was then rescued by the hero Perseus , whom she later married. Cassiopeia in her chair, as depicted in Urania's Mirror Hyginus Cassiopeia It was Poseidon who placed Cassiopei...
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