Above: Diagram of the terrestrial climate zones with the Riphaean mountains; Below: Diagram of the circuit of the moon in the zodiac — "In the diagram in the top half of the page, the observer’s point-of-view is the North Pole. This diagram is similar to the one in the lower part of fol. 6v, except that it also shows the Riphaean Mountains – a mythical range of peaks thought to mark the boundary between Asia and Europe, and the Arctic and North temperate zones -- represented as seven abstract, colored silhouettes resembling triangular game-pieces. The diagram in the bottom half of the page charts the course of the Moon through the zodiac, correlating the lunar or synodic months and the zodiacal signs. According to the De natura rerum (On the nature of things) of the English scholar, Bede (d. 735 CE), the Moon journeys through the zodiac thirteen times in twelve lunar months; thus, it runs through each zodiacal sign in a little over two days and six hours."

Featured on PDR in the collection Cosmography Manuscript (12th Century)

This wonderful series of medieval cosmographic diagrams and schemas are sourced from a late 12th-century manuscript created in England. Coming to only nine folios, the manuscript is essentially a scientific textbook for monks, bringing together cosmographical knowledge from a range of early Christian writers such as Bede and Isodere, who themselves based their ideas on such classical sources as Pliny the Elder, though adapting them for their new Christian context. As for the intriguing diagrams themselves, The Walters Art Museum, which holds the manuscript and offers up excellent commentary on its contents, provides the following description: