For more strictly geographical, rather than “cosmogonic” or cosmological material, we must turn to the encyclopedias rather than to the thoughtful and speculative theological books of such men as Augustine. Like the mighty volumes of Aristotle or the _Natural History_ of Pliny these encyclopedias were attempts to encompass and to put in convenient form the entire range of human knowledge. The most significant was the _Etymologiae sive originum libri XX_ of Isidore of Seville (died 636 A. D.). This large compilation of miscellaneous information served as a model of style and composition as well as a mine out of which later writers dug their “facts.” For the geographical portions of the _Etymologiae_, Isidore used the Bible and classical authorities alike; he derived much from Orosius and Solinus; and, though it is doubtful whether he was acquainted with Pliny at first hand,[196] he incorporated in his book not a little Plinian material taken from Solinus. Isidore’s method was followed, and much of his work copied, by the Irish and English monastic encyclopedists of the eighth and ninth centuries. We find a great deal from Isidore in the Venerable Bede’s (died 735 A. D.) _De natura rerum_, in Raban Maur’s (776–856 A. D.) _De universo_, in Dicuil’s _De mensura orbis terrae_ (825 A. D.),as well as in the _De imagine mundi_ of our period. John Scot Erigena, the great Platonist of the eighth century, stands out among his contemporaries as one of the most original and critical scholars of the Middle Ages. The range of his interests was very broad, and it seems probable that he understood Greek. In his _De divisione naturae_, beside the Latin sources which Isidore, Bede, and other encyclopedists had copied, he made use of the _De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_ of Martianus Capella and also of various Greek works, including the _Geography_ of Ptolemy.[197] Martianus Capella was held in high favor during this epoch, and his works were commented upon by such men as Remy (Remigius) of Auxerre, the master of Gerbert, and by Adam of Bremen.[198] MISCELLANEOUS GEOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS