# De Sphaera [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PREDIS, Cristoforo de]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Manuscript \(Ms. lat. 209\), 245 x 164 mm ## Commentary De Sphaera 1450s Manuscript \(Ms. lat. 209\), 245 x 164 mm Biblioteca Estense, Modena The De Sphaera is unanimously regarded as the most beautiful astrological book of the Italian Renaissance. It was illuminated by a refined artist of the Lombard school \(thought to be Cristoforo de Predis\) for the Milan court and reached the Estense in Ferrara via the frequent artistic and cultural exchanges between them and the Sforza. The codex was commissioned by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan \(reigned 1450-1466\), and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti. The manuscript contains 16 folios decorated with 15 full-page miniatures and 9 astronomical drawings. It sums up, with an unparalleled elegance, the astrological knowledge of its time and testifies the renewed authority, the reputation enjoyed by faith in the stars – a fashion and a culture at the same time – in the most powerful and refined courts. The De Sphaera adds its personal, superlative touch – with the splendour of its illuminated pages and the rhyming verses of its horoscopes – to a field, that of planet and zodiac iconography, which was already successful. The double-page \(folios 9v and 10r\) shows the planet Venus with "her children," in other words the people born under the influence of the planet Venus, whose fate and character would, according to ancient belief, be determined by the planet. Beneath the naked figure of the goddess, in a meadow landscape, Venus's children pursue music, amorous conversation and coquetry. On the right page, the "Children of Venus" frolic naked in a Fountain of Youth, which is shaped like a monumental goblet, with an ornamental centrepiece of erotic figures rising out of it. Although the Church strongly condemned astrological speculation, books such as this were extremely popular in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. ## Related artworks - [De Sphaera]() - [De Sphaera]() - [De Sphaera]() - [De Sphaera]() - [De Sphaera]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()