The planet Jupiter as a scholar, from a Persian cosmology treatise

Murshid al-Katib al-Shirazi

The planet Jupiter as a scholar, from a Persian cosmology treatise. This folio is from a wide-ranging book on cosmology, outlining recorded knowledge of the skies and the earth, and describing natural wonders. Discussed here are the planet Jupiter’s earthly (or "natural") influences, affecting world regions, human behaviours, and the wider natural and mineral worlds. In Middle Eastern scientific imagery, Jupiter is depicted as a senior scholar. Here he sits cross-legged, holding up a pen. Books are stacked on a folding book-stand beside him, with an hour-glass in between. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Persian text in nasta`liq script, heading (Jupiter, or Mushtari) in blue, with painting (on verso), from cosmology treatise composed in fifteenth-century Shiraz, adapted and expanded from Zakariya al-Qazvini's Wonders of Creation in Persian translation, text copied by Murshid al-Katib al-Shirazi known as `Attar, Shiraz, Iran, dated 25 Jumada I 952H, 4 August 1545. The codex (Per 212) and a further 64 detached folios are also in the Chester Beatty collection.