THE BEGINNINGS OF MEDIEVAL INFORMATION VISUALIZATION - Information Visualisation: Techniques, Usability and Evaluation - page 6

diagrams in an original manuscript (e.g. Calcidius) did not survive
uncorrupted into the ninth century, necessitating either their reconstitution
or invention anew. Finally, there were manuscripts in which the original
author (e.g. Macrobius) explicitly stated how these diagrams were to be
constructed. But even precisely defined procedures were misinterpreted.
As Eastwood has observed, Carolingian students and teachers alike were
challenged by the process of transforming text into visualizations. Thus,
given their insufficient knowledge of geometry, and their difficulty in
assessing a diagram's correctness, the design, construction, validation,
standardization, and integration of these diagrams into pedagogical
practice would need to evolve over time.
Most examples of information visualization are found in Carolingian
manuscripts associated with the quadrivium, the segment of Carolingian
education focused on arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, with the
great preponderance of charts and diagrams being astronomical or
cosmological in nature (c.f. Eastwood [10] for a complete discussion).
Works by three seminal authors will be considered herein: Macrobius's
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio ( Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis ),
Boëthius's De institutione arithmetica and De institutione musica , and
Isidore of Seville's (c. 560-636) Etymologiae ( Etymologies ) and De
natura rerum . These three scholars created manuscripts that were a
significant influence on medieval thought and produced writings
containing diagrams that delineated the origins of medieval information
visualization.
Macrobius
Little is known precisely about Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius [11]. He
was a Roman who prospered during the early fifth century, perhaps born in
North Africa. He mastered Greek, but with less facility than his native
Latin. He is chiefly known for a few major writings: Saturnalia [12], a
compendium of ancient Roman religious and antiquarian lore; the
Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis ( Commentary on the Dream of Scipio ),
which was an important source of Platonism in the Latin West during the
Middle Ages; and De differentiis et societatibus graecilatini queverbi ( On
the differences and similarities of the Greek and Latin verb ), which is now
lost.
Macrobius's Commentary on the Dream of Scipio [13] is an
explanation and amplification of text from the final section of Cicero's De
re publica , a treatise on the state of the Roman republic. The Dream of
Scipio appears in the sixth and last topic of Cicero's work [14], in which