sigs. a8r-b1v Concerning the zodiacal circle. {Zodiacal circle.} There is another circle in the sphere, which intersects the equinoctial and is intersected by it into two equal parts. One half of it declines toward the north, the other toward the south. That circle is called 'zodiac' from zoe, meaning 'life', because all life in inferior things depends on the motion of the planets beneath it. /Zodiac/ Or it is derived from zodion, which means 'animal', because, since it is divided into twelve equal parts: each part is called a Sign and has its particular name from the name of some animal, because of some property characteristic of it and of the animal, or because of the arrangement of the fixed stars there in the outline of that kind of animal. That circle in Latin is called signifer, /Signifer./ because it bears the 'Signs' or because it is divided into them. {Aristotle.} By Aristotle in On Generation and Corruption it is called the 'oblique circle', /Oblique circle./ where he says that according to the approach and retreat of the Sun in the oblique circle there are produced generations and corruptions in things below. {Names, order and number of the Signs.} The names, order, and number of the Signs are set forth in these lines: There are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo. Libra and Scorpio, Architenens, Caper, Amphora, Pisces. {Division of the Signs into degrees and of degrees into minutes.} Moreover, each Sign is divided into 30 degrees, whence it is clear that in the entire zodiac there are 360 degrees. Also, according to astronomers, each degree is divided into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds, and in the third place, each second into 60 [parts], and so on up to ten [times]. And as the zodiac is divided by astronomers, so each circle in the sphere, whether great or small, is divided into similar parts. /Marks of the Signs: Aries; Taurus; Gemini; Cancer; Leo; Virgo; Libra; Scorpio; Sagittarius; Capricorn; Aquarius; Pisces/ While every circle in the sphere except the zodiac may be understood to be a line or circumference, the zodiac alone is understood to be a surface, having a latitude of twelve of the kind of degrees of which we have just made mention. Whence it is clear that certain persons in astrology lie who say that the Signs are squares, unless they misuse this term and consider square and quadrangle the same. {Longitude and latitude of the Signs.} For each Sign is 30 degrees in longitude, 12 in latitude. The line dividing the zodiac in its circuit, so that on one side it leaves 6 degrees; {Ecliptic line.} and on the other side another 6, is called the 'ecliptic', since when the Sun and the Moon are on that line there occurs an eclipse of the Sun or the Moon. {Eclipse of the Sun.} Of the Sun, if a Full Moon occurs, and the Moon is interposed directly between our view point and the body of the Sun. {Eclipse of the Moon.} Of the Moon, when the Sun is diametrically opposed to the Moon. Whence an eclipse of the Moon is nothing other than the interposition of the Earth between the body of the Sun and that of the Moon. The Sun always moves beneath the ecliptic, but all the other planets decline toward north or south; sometimes, however, they are beneath the ecliptic. {Which are called northern Signs.} The part of the zodiac which slants away from the equinoctial to the north is called 'northern' or 'boreal' or 'Arctic', and those six Signs which extend from the beginning of Aries to the end of Virgo are called 'northern Signs'. /Diagram captions: Pole; northern [zones]; zodiac; southern zones; pole/