This week dedicated to #diagrams is now over, but the work continues towards the publication of our results and the next phase in the life of the #EIDA community. Huge thanks to @obs-paris-psl.bsky.social for hosting us and for sharing it's beautiful secrets with us! #msca #histsci
A four-year-long collaboration with EIDA-Editing and analysing hIstorical astronomical Diagrams with Artificial intelligence reaches a crucial milestone in Paris next week: eida.hypotheses.org/a-global-his... 🤩✨ @obs-paris-psl.bsky.social #histsci #diagrams #manuscripts
Thrilled to have COSMOPOET represented as part of the celebrations for 30 years of MSCA at UGent yesterday! 🎉✨
Here’s to many more years of curiosity, collaboration, and discovery! 🚀💫
#MSCA30 #MSCA #ResearchLife #UGent
🎉 Happy 30 Years to #MSCA, a programme that has helped researchers explore new frontiers and build independent careers! COSMOPOET will have a stand at the networking event this afternoon — come meet @dulila.bsky.social and join the celebration! event.ugent.be/registration...
Maybe. I did research the steps for requesting information about the owners from the city cadaster, so I could ask them about the history of the sphere, but I am not sure I get around it on time for the Guided Starry Walk in June... I will post updates here when I have them.
the other building in Ghent with an armillary sphere we have discussed here is also by David François 't Kindt. You might remember it as the very slanted one? bsky.app/profile/duli...
@stephenaj.bsky.social I already received an answer form the heritage website linked below that they cannot tell me anything about the sphere and that I should contact the owners. But I took another path, namely to look into the architect and guess what...
I need to find who to ask about these kinds of things... According to this page (www.flickr.com/photos/erfgo...) the design dates from 1765 and is by the renowned Ghent architect David 't Kindt. I will look further and perhaps post on some online forums and keep you posted.
#starrywalks in #ghent continue with a chance discovery on Korenlei, a corner I have taken multiple times before. I guess today the light was just right for me to notice this beauty 😍 #armillary #sphere
6️⃣Dr Davide Massimo (@davidemax.bsky.social) is FWO postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. One of his main research interests is epigram in its many forms; his current project investigates epigrams transmitted on stone across the Eastern Mediterranean (research.flw.ugent.be/en/davide.ma...).
5️⃣To me, this poem is a reminder of what hidden gems always lie in the fantastic world of epigrams, encompassing literature, history, politics, science, religion... Such short poems often contain complex worlds – just like small spheres try to contain the vastness of the starry sky!⬇️
4️⃣Leonidas’ interest in science and numbers is also deeply embedded in this poem. His epigrams, including this one, are all ‘isopsephic’, meaning that for every line the sum of the numbers represented by Greek letters are equal between the different distichs.⬇️
3️⃣The epigram attests to the astronomical interests of the Neronian court. Nero’s own Domus aurea had a “coenatio rotunda”, a vaulted dinner room the ceiling of which was rotating in imitation of the celestial vault. Sources also say that Poppea was a woman of learning.⬇️
2️⃣This epigram was composed by Leonidas of Alexandria (1st cent. AD) for Poppaea Sabina, wife of the Roman emperor Nero, to accompany a birthday gift. The gift, called οὐράνιον μίμημα (“celestial image”), is probably a sphere reproducing the vault of the sky.⬇️
1️⃣“Poppaea Augusta, consort of Zeus, receive from Leonidas the Egyptian on your birthday this image of the sky: for you enjoy gifts worthy of your bed and your wisdom”. (Leonides of Alexandria, A.P. 9. 355 = 32 FGE).⬇️
A celestial globe; late ninth-century manuscript. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 250, S. 472
🧵🧵Spring brought more daylight and Cosmopoet's second guest author, fellow stargazer 🤩💫and skywalker 🌌👣: Davide Massimo (@davidemax.bsky.social) is this month's Cosmopoet, and he brings us an example of an epigram concerned with the 'image of the sky':
No, no alt text, just impressions. 🕵🏻♀️🕵🏻♀️✨✨
Yes!
Random cosmopoetic things from recent weeks
This Thursday, 12 March 2026, Emmylou Haffner and Nadia Podzemskaia organise a truly cool event, across arts and sciences, on the topic of points and lines. COSMOPOET will be present with achromatic lines and cosmological diagrams. The program is available here: www.item.ens.fr/points-et-li...
This week Cosmopoet is in sunny 🌞 (no joke!) Cambridge and there are clocks all around: some eat time, while others are on a diet ☺️
The Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages OIKOS course was organised by Divna Manolova and Giulia Maria Paoletti, Department of Literary Studies – Greek Section, Ghent University.
💛 A heartfelt thank you to all participants for their thoughtful engagement, insightful questions, and intellectual curiosity across both days. Your active participation made this edition of the course especially rewarding 🌟👏.
We warmly thank HPIMS for their enthusiasm and partnership; this collaboration clearly enriched the course and opened new avenues for future joint initiatives 🚀.
In addition to critically engaging with the ‘Global Turn’, this year’s edition also included a collaboration with the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (HPIMS). The Global Middle Ages Research & Networking Mixer proved an innovative and highly successful format.
The Teaching Team included Arpine Asryan (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts-Matenadaran), Divna Manolova (Ghent University), Giulia Paoletti (Ghent University), Grigory Vorobyev (Ghent University), John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Philip Forness (KU Leuven)
local and imperial cultural traditions evidenced in Armenian architecture and book production 🏛️📖, global perspectives on Byzantine literature 🌏✨, and the diversity of written artefacts and their circulation across premodern Afro-Eurasia.
Through six seminar sessions, participants examined how science shaped diverse worldviews in Byzantium 🔭, the dialogue between Syriac and Byzantine literary cultures ✒️📜, notions of empire against the backdrop of the medieval Caucasus and Black Sea regions 🗺️,
OIKOS Course Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages at UGent 📅 2–3 February 2026📍Ghent University
The biennial OIKOS course on Byzantine Culture brought together ReMA and PhD students from Belgium and the Netherlands for an intensive exploration of the theme of Byzantium in the Global Middle Ages.
Happily listening to Arpine Asryan about the introduction of #sundials to Armenia in the seventh century 🥰☀️🕒