The Shelves · Mathematics (incl. astronomy)

On the Use and Construction of the Astrolabe

Περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀστρολάβου χρήσεως καὶ κατασκευῆς

Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Mathematics (incl. astronomy)

Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

John Philoponus

c. 490–570 CE. "Lover of work", a pupil of Ammonius who turned Aristotle against himself: he argued that the world had a beginning, that the heavens are not made of a fifth element, and that a thrown body moves by an impressed force. He also wrote the earliest surviving treatise on the astrolabe.

On the Use and Construction of the Astrolabe

Περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀστρολάβου χρήσεως καὶ κατασκευῆς

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives whole

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Attested

Written in Alexandria.

On the table: written in Alexandria; no evidence it was in the Library.

Read it today

An English translation by H. W. Green appears in R. T. Gunther, The Astrolabes of the World (Oxford, 1932).

III · In the show

+ 3 more

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references
  • Philoponus, On the Astrolabe (ed. Hase, 1839)
Modern scholarship (2)
  • R. Sorabji (ed.), Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London: Duckworth, 1987)
  • O. Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, 3 vols (Berlin: Springer, 1975).

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΣΤΡΟΛΑΒΟΥ ΧΡΗΣΕΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΗΣ

Beside it on the table