Somnium Scipionis
E276843
Somnium Scipionis is a philosophical dream-vision from Cicero’s De re publica that explores the soul’s immortality, cosmic order, and the rewards of virtuous public service.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Somnium Scipionis canonical | 4 |
| Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2552083 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Somnium Scipionis Context triple: [Parliament of Fowls, inspiredBy, Somnium Scipionis]
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A.
Mundus Novus
Mundus Novus is the Latin term famously used in early 16th-century writings, particularly those attributed to Amerigo Vespucci, to describe the newly discovered continents of the Western Hemisphere.
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B.
Sidereus Nuncius
Sidereus Nuncius is Galileo Galilei’s groundbreaking 1610 treatise that first reported telescopic observations of the Moon, stars, and Jupiter’s moons, revolutionizing astronomy and supporting the Copernican system.
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C.
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is Galileo Galilei’s influential 1632 work that presents and defends the Copernican heliocentric model through a comparative dialogue of astronomical theories.
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D.
The Astronomer
"The Astronomer" is a 17th-century painting by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer depicting a scholar studying the heavens in a meticulously rendered interior scene.
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E.
Harmonices Mundi
Harmonices Mundi is Johannes Kepler’s 1619 treatise in which he explores the mathematical harmony of the cosmos and formulates his third law of planetary motion.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Somnium Scipionis Target entity description: Somnium Scipionis is a philosophical dream-vision from Cicero’s De re publica that explores the soul’s immortality, cosmic order, and the rewards of virtuous public service.
-
A.
Mundus Novus
Mundus Novus is the Latin term famously used in early 16th-century writings, particularly those attributed to Amerigo Vespucci, to describe the newly discovered continents of the Western Hemisphere.
-
B.
Sidereus Nuncius
Sidereus Nuncius is Galileo Galilei’s groundbreaking 1610 treatise that first reported telescopic observations of the Moon, stars, and Jupiter’s moons, revolutionizing astronomy and supporting the Copernican system.
-
C.
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is Galileo Galilei’s influential 1632 work that presents and defends the Copernican heliocentric model through a comparative dialogue of astronomical theories.
-
D.
The Astronomer
"The Astronomer" is a 17th-century painting by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer depicting a scholar studying the heavens in a meticulously rendered interior scene.
-
E.
Harmonices Mundi
Harmonices Mundi is Johannes Kepler’s 1619 treatise in which he explores the mathematical harmony of the cosmos and formulates his third law of planetary motion.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Latin prose text
ⓘ
dream vision ⓘ philosophical work ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Roman political thought
ⓘ
Roman religious ideas about the soul ⓘ |
| author |
Cicero
ⓘ
surface form:
Marcus Tullius Cicero
|
| centralTheme |
contrast between earthly and celestial concerns
ⓘ
moral value of just political life ⓘ |
| culturalContext | late Roman Republic ⓘ |
| dateWritten | 1st century BCE ⓘ |
| describes |
the harmony of the spheres
ⓘ
the structure of the universe ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter | Scipio Africanus ⓘ |
| genre |
didactic literature
ⓘ
philosophical literature ⓘ political philosophy ⓘ |
| hasEnglishTitle |
Cicero’s Dream of Scipio
ⓘ
surface form:
The Dream of Scipio
|
| hasLatinTitle | Somnium Scipionis self-link ⓘ |
| influenced |
Renaissance humanism
ⓘ
late antique philosophy ⓘ medieval cosmology ⓘ |
| language | Latin ⓘ |
| literaryForm | first-person narrative ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Scipio Aemilianus ⓘ |
| narrativeDevice | prophetic dream ⓘ |
| narrativeForm | dream vision ⓘ |
| originalWorkTitle | De re publica ⓘ |
| partOf | De re publica ⓘ |
| philosophicalInfluence |
Plato
ⓘ
Stoicism ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | Middle Platonism ⓘ |
| setting |
celestial spheres
ⓘ
cosmos ⓘ |
| survivesThrough | manuscript tradition of Macrobius’s commentary ⓘ |
| teaches |
that the soul is immortal
ⓘ
that true glory is found in service to the commonwealth ⓘ that virtuous statesmen receive rewards after death ⓘ |
| topic |
afterlife
ⓘ
astronomy ⓘ cosmic order ⓘ immortality of the soul ⓘ music of the spheres ⓘ rewards of public service ⓘ virtue ⓘ |
| wasCommentedOnBy | Macrobius ⓘ |
| workContainedIn | sixth book of De re publica ⓘ |
| workNumberInDeRePublica | Book VI conclusion ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Somnium Scipionis Description of subject: Somnium Scipionis is a philosophical dream-vision from Cicero’s De re publica that explores the soul’s immortality, cosmic order, and the rewards of virtuous public service.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis