Information Technology Reference
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C
HAPTER
O
NE
T
HE
B
EGINNINGS OF
M
EDIEVAL
I
NFORMATION
V
ISUALIZATION
F
RANCIS
T.
M
ARCHESE
Abstract
This chapter considers the origins of the earliest designs for medieval
information visualizations documented in manuscripts from the
Carolingian Renaissance (c. 780-c. 900). Works by Macrobius, Boëthius,
and Isidore of Seville are examined. These works are placed within the
timeline of information visualization, and suggestions are made as to their
antecedents.
Introduction
The Middle Ages (c. 450-1450) was a time of transition and upheaval.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, monastic communities
arose as preservers and disseminators of ancient knowledge, and sources
of proto-scientific research. Early scholars grappled with sacred and
profane information and invented charts and diagrams to confer visual
form to abstract concepts from classical, religious, and secular texts.
Begun as a few incidental charts created to help communicate concepts
within their manuscripts, these graphical representations would evolve by
the twelfth century into routine formats for rendering scientific,
philosophical, and theological truths.
Some of the earliest examples of medieval information visualization
are preserved and replicated in manuscripts from the Carolingian
Renaissance (c. 780-c. 900) onward [1][2]. These manuscripts disseminated
visualizations that were devised to either clarify texts of early authors, or
were created by early authors as parallel depictions of information
contained within their texts. Imagery is reviewed that has been addressed
in the histories of art, religion, and science, reconsidering it from the
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