This anthology examines the workings of historical imagery in fourteen essays, offering fresh perspectives from leading researchers on a wide range of medieval and early modern artworks in a similarly wide range of functional contexts.

The fourteen contributions in this volume provide a broad coverage of astronomical traditions throughout Eurasia and North Africa, which, with very few exceptions, find their roots in the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy.

This innovative volume of pre-modern cultural history offers the opportunity to compare the ways in which gender and status competition intersect across periods and places.