![]() The idea of man as microcosm was popular long after the Middle Ages and was often used as a poetical conceit (e.g. There were several subsequent variations and expansions, of course. The first modern use of the terms macrocosmos and microcosmos, shortened to macrocosm/microcosm, was by Pico della Mirandola in his Heptaplus in 1490. 3 Numerous writers, including Firmicus (4th-c.) and Macrobius (5th-c.), to name a few, followed along the same lines. the Roman writer Manilius stated in his Astronomicon that man contained a world in himself, being created in the image of God. BCE), but the first use of the term "microcosmos" in Western philosophy appears later, briefly, in Aristotle's Physics. Microcosmic ideas are fleshed out in the works of Plato (4th-c. The Egyptians and the Mayans had analogues, and ancient Mithraic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Vedic traditions also contain similar concepts. The concept of man as microcosm is thought to originate with the ancient Babylonians. King consulting both astrologer and doctor, c1327. 1 The position of the moon could be determined with a volvelle - a rotating calendar. These diagrams instructed doctors and barber-surgeons whether it was safe to bleed a patient or to perform surgery if the moon was in the sign of the bodypart in question, it was not recommended. Astrological signs were thought to influence the body and its health, and sketches of the "Zodiac Man" are common in medical treatises of the Middle Ages. As the Earth was divided into regions influenced by the planets, similarly the body of man was divided into "regions" governed by signs of the Zodiac. ![]() Part of the Medieval worldview was the idea that man was a microcosm ("a little world") which reflected the macrocosm of the Ptolemaic universe. Zodiac Man: Man as Microcosm in the Medieval Worldview
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