Mapping the stars on the revolving sphere and reckoning time: star catalogues, astronomical popularization, and practical functions

Abstract

Abstract Among the astronomical texts devoted (in various ways) to the description/explanation of the stars and their phenomena, the sources allow us to identify a somehow ‘specific textual current’ that consists in those texts which were variously used or conceived as tools to convey knowledge of the ‘star map’ to a non-specialist public, even if they are different from each other in terms of structure and ‘technical-scientific’ level (especially in relation to the presence or not of the specific coordinates of the stars). The success of these texts over the course of the tradition is one of the main signs that suggest the diffusion of this subject matter in non-specialist contexts. According to the sources, the practical-applied benefit of such knowledge, above all in terms of ‘time reckoning’, seems to be at least one of the – certainly multiple and varied – reasons for this diffusion, and perhaps not the least significant one.