3-057-427 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Zodiac man, at the beginning of the Numerus et Ordo signorum, 15th century. Drawing of a human figure with the 12 signs of the Zodiac, illustrating the different areas of the human body, each governed by a different sign. Here the macrocosm-miscrocosm link between humans and the heavens is demonstrated; the medieval practice of astrological medicine decreed that the dominant influence on the balance of the four humours came from the heavens, and activities such as bleeding must not be undertaken unless the planets were in favourable positions. From Medical miscellany.