File:Drawing of a fresco depicting Minerva and the Muse Urania from Pompeii 1870 Barr Plate 131.jpg

English: Drawing of a fresco depicting Minerva and the Muse Urania from Pompeii 1870 Barr Plate 131; Artist of this plate is not identified. Complete translated description of plate 131:

The Muse Urania, dressed in a green tunic, over which is thrown a changing red drapery, seems to indicate, with a wand which she holds in her right hand, the signs of the zodiac engraved on a bluish globe supported by a pink marble pedestal surrounded by shrubs. The six emblems visible on this sphere are in the following order: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. This monument therefore proves invincibly a fact that has been disputed for too long (1), namely, that before Aben Esra, astronomer of the twelfth century, and even before the time of the Antonines, celestial globes were constructed on which the signs of the zodiac were put in their place. This particularity clarifies at the same time a crowd of passages from ancient authors, which, no doubt, we had not studied attentively enough when we began and supported such a discussion (2).

Urania appears to converse with Minerva and talk to her about the science over which both preside to varying degrees (3). Minerva is dressed in purple, with light red drapery over it: the aegis covers her chest; her steel helmet is surmounted by a red mane; she holds a spear in her right hand, and her left rests on a brazen shield; finally, she is seated on a carved seat, and painted in a yellow color.