al_o dv kie_en maht an dirre figuren: Formen und Funktionen astronomischer Diagramme in der sogenannten ‚Mainauer Naturlehre‘
AbstractThe present study adverts to a newly found manuscript and reclassifies the diagrams of the ‘Mainauer Naturlehre’ in the context of the Latin tradition. Thus, a deficit of research concerning the astronomic technical literature in Middle High German can be closed. The Basle vernacular manuscript that is discussed here shows a very strong relationship between the text and its diagrams, which is examined as a special kind of diagrammatical act, whose intratextual function lies primarily in the realm of historical semantics: the diagram generates a notion of scientific specialization in vernacular. In contrast to this, the York manuscript confronts text and diagram in a contrapunctual way and supplements the vernacular text with an appendix of Latin diagrams. This relation between German prose and Latin diagrammatic tradition might well be a reflection of a pragmatic background.