The Reader in the Cosmos: Maps and Mnemonics in a Manuscript of Goussoin de Metz’s L’image du monde [BnF.ms.fr.574]

Abstract

In his thirteenth-century astronomical encyclopedia, L’Image du Monde, French cleric Goussoin de Metz attempts to guide his readers to knowledge of God by demonstrating the unity of creation. This sense of the book as a tool to be used by the reader is evident in BnF fr. 574. This manuscript, likely painted in Paris around 1320 for Guillaume Flote (1280–1366), an advisor to Philip the Fair, contains twenty-eight detailed diagrams. Although analyses of such diagrams constitute a large part of the study of medieval memory, the figures of the Image have not been considered within this context. Taking BnF fr. 574 as a case study, I will examine how the Image’s diagrams serve as mnemonic devices—physical, external locations where information from the text can be stored and returned to for later examination. I will argue that these images work to simultaneously construct and reinforce the place of the reader within the broad system of creation. I will then propose three possible ways of reading the text: first in order, then in iteration, and finally in motion. Finally, I will consider evidence of previous owners’ engagement with the manuscript, and how these interactions further incorporated them into Goussoin’s cosmology.