The Rota Ventorum of Froumund of Tegernsee between Education, Tradition and Political-cultural Debate

Abstract

This article analyses the rota ventorum preserved on f. 2r of the manuscript Krakau, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, Lat. Qu. 939, attributed to Froumund of Tegernsee, and shows how the latter transformed the wind diagram from an eminently scientific-didactic tool into a political-cultural manifesto through an ingenious use of trilingualism and bigraphism featuring in his version of the rota. Building on the authority of the Latin and above all Greek tradition, reinforced by the presence at court of the Empress Theophano and by the renewed interest of the Holy Roman Empire in the Byzantine world, Froumund uses colours, space and scripts not only to highlight the connection between classical tradition and German culture, but also to underline the importance and supremacy of German culture and language in the contemporary world, as well as in the divine order of the cosmos.