Dicuil

Life
fl.850; Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, purporting to be based on survey carried out by Theodosius and including reports of recent travellers; whole Works ed. by C. A. Walckenaer (Paris, 1807), and later by Letronne, with copious prolegomena (Paris 1814); finally ed. Gust. Parthey (Berlin 1870); MS in Dresden (Regius D 182), and Paris (Bibl Nat. 4806). ODNB DIW OCIL

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References
Dictionary of National Biography, that he was Irish known by phrases ‘hermitae ex nostra Scottia nostram insulam Hiberniam (p.44) nd circum nostram insulam Hiberniam (p.41); bibl., Prefaces to Parthey’s and Walckenair’s, ed.; Hardy’s Biog. Lit., i.

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984), Dicuil, author of On the Dimensions of the Earth (De Mensura Orbis Terra), written in 825; a survey of Europe, Asia, and Africa, still in terms of the Roman empire, it mainly compiles classical and post-classical authors such as the elder Pliny, Solinus, Isidore of Seville, Aethicus Ister, and a work commissioned by Theodosius II in 435 incorporating earlier material. Dicuil’s use of Pliny’s figures for latitude and longitude shows a deficiency in Irish education at the period. Also produced a treatise on astronom, with grammatical and metrical digressions, in 816; spoke of ‘the rule of the Greeks and Latins which my people in Ireland always observe’ in connection with the dating of Easter in the Celtic church [184]; also includes speculation on topics such as the distance between the planets and the possibility of a southern polar star. [185]

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