THE BEGINNINGS OF MEDIEVAL INFORMATION VISUALIZATION - Information Visualisation: Techniques, Usability and Evaluation - page 7

he employs a Socratic dialogue to communicate a cosmic vision
experienced by Scipio Aemilianus, Roman military tribune and future
consul, to elucidate Rome's relation to the cosmos. In effect, Scipio's
dream is a cosmological treatise transformed by Macrobius's Commentary
into an early medieval astronomical primer.
Macrobius relied substantially on visualization to convey Cicero's
ideas. He believed the visual channel was a far faster means of
communicating concepts than speech or text [15]. Five diagrams are
integrated into his Commentary , with instructions for drawing four of them
offered as part of its narrative stream [15]. Fig. 1.1 depicts a map of the
Earth divided into frigid, temperate, and torrid zones taken from a
manuscript created around the year 820 in northern France, based on
Macrobius's c. 430 text (MS Lat. 6370, fol. 81r, Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale de France) [16]. The letters along the circle's periphery refer to
their respective narrative texts in Commentary and are intended to enhance
the reader's understanding of Macrobius' explanation of zonal theory.
Fig. 1.1 Zonal map of the Earth from Macrobius's Commentary on the Dream of
Scipio (MS Lat. 6370, fol. 81r, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
Macrobius's zonal map organized the spherical world into five climate
zones: the northern and southern frigid zones, northern and southern
temperate zones, and an equatorial tropical zone. Only two of these zones