Weitzel Hans
Fachbereich Material- und Geowissenschaften, Fachgebiet Strukturforschung, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Petersenstr. 23, 64287 Darmstadt.
Sudhoffs Arch. 2009;93(2):127-70.
The celestial body of Dürer's engraving Melencolia I is connected with his painting of a meteor, the Raveningham-painting; it is shown that the origin of this painting owns to the impact of the meteor of Ensisheim in 1492. Until now the celestial body, the balance, and the magic square are nearly consistently interpreted as the planet Saturn, the zodiac sign Libra, and the planet Jupiter, and the melancholy woman is subject to these heavenly bodies. Consequently, neoplatonic astrology has been the main focus of the engraving; including the rainbow, the engraving has also been interpreted biblically. The present paper, however, places emphasis on problems of the geometry as the reason of melancholy. Any astronomical meaning of the configuration of the numbers of the magic square is discarded.
