Philosophia-ladder-of-liberal-arts-leipzig-univ-bibl-lat-1253-f3r-c1230

This illustration is from a manuscript of Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, from around 1230. The incipit can be clearly read: Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi, Flebilis heu maestos cogor inire modos. (I, who once wrote songs with keen delight, am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures.) A personification of Philosophy is shown holding a book. Leading up to the book is a ladder whose steps are the seven Liberal Arts: Grammatica, Dialectica, Rhetorica, Arithmetica, Geometria, Musica, and Astronomia. The original is held by Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig: De consolatione philosophiae, MS 1253, f.3r, c.1230.