An Angel's View of Heaven: The Mystical Heliocentricity of Medieval Geocentric Cosmology

The English word ‘heaven’, and its cognates in several languages, are inconveniently ambiguous, and can refer to any of: The sky in a very material sense; some spiritual region inhabited by divinity; or to some very abstract — Non-spatial — Version of the latter. In this essay, I shall (generally) avoid using it in the first sense, and capitalize it when referring to the specifically Christian Heaven that is the focus of my discussion. Following many precedents in the literature (both primary and secondary) I shall often contrast such heavens with the everyday world by calling them ‘immaterial’. Though I note below (ref. 34) that Heaven itself was sometimes thought of as material, it should always be clear from the context what is meant. Unfortunately, no single choice of language seems able to suit all circumstances. Worse, there is much sloppiness in the literature here — Secondary as well as primary — Where remarkably little care is taken to distinguish between the different types of heaven.

Also spelt ‘Pinturicchio’. Born Bernadino di Betto (di Biagio) in Perugia, 1454; died Siena, 1513.

Giovanni Battista Caporali, also called ‘Bista’; ‘Bitte’. ‘Bitti’. Born Perugia c. 1476; d. 1560. For a brief biography and further literature, see Kasten Eberhard (eds), Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, 2nd edn (Munich, 2005–), xvi, 257–8.

The coronation was a medieval addition to the late patristic/early medieval notion of the bodily assumption of Mary, and took place in Heaven. I know of no satisfying summary of the tradition, but see: New Catholic encyclopedia (New York, 1967), ix, 280–1; Cross F. (eds)., The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church (London, 1974), 117; Bäumer Remigiu (eds)., Marienlexikon (St Ottilien, 1988–94), iii, 680–1.

Images (usually coloured) of the bulk of the pictorial material cited in this essay are on the web at: http://www.fickr.com/photos/angelsview/.

Further examples of the reversed curvature are provided all through this essay. Blurred examples of the heliocentricity are very common, for God is often depicted as Sun-like inside the ranks of angels — But without the analysis presented in the body of this essay, such examples seem purely symbolic. Interestingly, clear examples of the heliocentricity at issue here do tend to come from within Copernicus's lifetime. See: Botticelli's and di Paolo's depictions of Paradiso 28 (Figure 5 and ref. 85); arch for entry of Phillip (of Spain) into Antwerp, 1549, depicted Strong Roy , Splendour at Court: Renaissance spectacle and illusion (London, 1973), 105 (from pp. Niii–Niiii of Cornille Scribonius (= Greffier), Le triumphe d'Anvers, faict en la susception du Prince Philips, Prince d'Espaigñ (Antwerp, 1550); alternative title: La tresadmirable, tresmagnificque, & triumphante entree, du treshault & trespuissant Prince Philipes … Anno 1549; although relatively late, it is clear from the design that the heliocentricity here is modelled on coronations of the Virgin, not Copernicus). See also the heliocentric clocks (of 1519, 1451, and late fifteenth century respectively): On Chartres Cathedral; in the main square in Bologna; and on the rear heliocentric dial (with two Suns) of the astronomical clock on Piazza San Marco, Venice (the front dial of which is geocentric). The Bologna clock has been much discussed in the literature, because it was there when Copernicus was a student: See esp. Simoni A. , “L'orologio pubblico di Bologna del 1451 e la sua sfera”, Culta Bononia: Rivista di studi Bolognesi, v (1973), 1973–19. (With no significant evidence, Simoni explains the heliocentricity away, by identifying the ‘Sun’ as Earth — Surrounded by elemental fire.).

For two further clear examples, see: da Fabriano Gentile , Valle Romita polyptych, fifteenth century, in the Brera Pinacoteca, Milan (reprod. Gentile da Fabriano: Il polittico di Valle Romita (ed. by Ceriana Matteo , Milan, 1993), passim., esp. Fig. 1); Monaco Lorenzo , Coronation of the Virgin, fifteenth century, Uffzi Gallery, Florence inv. 1890: N. 885 (reprod. as Fig. 54 on p. 55 of Gregori Mina , Uffizi e Pitti: I dipinti delle gallerie Fiorentine (Udine, 1994)).

Certainly, a number of historians of art (with no special interest in cosmological questions) have casually identified the image at the centre of similar figures as a Sun; and even, in passing, described their arrangement as heliocentric. See, e.g.: p. 44 of Hans Leisegang, ” The mystery of the serpent”, on pp. 3–69 of Campbell Joseph (ed.), Pagan and Christian mysteries: Papers from the Eranos yearbooks, transl. by Manheim R. Hull R. (New York, 1964; 1st publ. 1939–44, 1955) (on the similarities between the light-centred cosmology of Dante's Paradiso and an ancient heliocentric bowl); Pückler-Limpurg on Schaffner's Tischplatte, below, ref. 64; literature on the Bologna clock (ref. 6).

I do not document this fact here, as the whole essay functions to perform the analogous task for the arcs concave towards Heaven.

This fact matters for the argument below, so I document it a little tediously. Stars are routinely added to depictions of gowns, and to what might be called ‘cosmic backdrops’ — Things like ceilings, niches, halos. Examples are ubiquitous, but for some clear specimens beyond those in other references (esp. ref. 15), see the gowns in: da Fabriano Gentile , Madonna and child, fifteenth century, John Johnson Collection, Philadelphia (reprod. Zampetti Pietro Donnini Giampiero , Gentile e il pittori di Fabriano (Florence, 1992), 245); da Gubbio Mello , Madonna and child, fourteenth century, in the Museo Civico, Gubbio (reprod. Todini Filipo , La pittura umbra: Dal ducento al primo cinquecento (Milan, 1989), ii, 169, Fig. 353); Master of the Leningrad Triptych (?), Madonna and Child, fourteenth century, Spalato Archaeological Museum (reprod. d'Arcais Francesca . (eds), Il trecento adriatico: Paolo Veneziano e la pittura tra oriete e occidente (Milan, 2002), 126–7). For a selection of different types of backdrop, see: Lorenzo Veneziano, fourteenth century, Nativity, National Museum Belgrade (reprod. Mauro Lucco (ed.), La pittura nel Veneto: Il trecento (Milan, 1992), i, 63, Fig. 55); Avanzo di Sammo, Liberation fresco, fourteenth century, San Giacomo Chapel, Basilica del Santo, Padua (reprod. Lucco (ed.), La pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), i, 157, Fig. 181); di Montemartello Maestro , Archangel Michael and John the Baptist, fourteenth century, Santa Maria della Stella, Montemartello (Cagli) (reprod. Todini , Pittura umbra (ref. 10), ii, 172, Figs 360–1); Duccio (workshop), Enthroned Madonna, fifteenth century, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia, La Spezia (reprod. Zeri Federico de Marchi Andrea , La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia: Dipinti, ed. by Ratti Marzia (Milan, 1997), 117, Fig. 45); Ghissi, two madonnas, fourteenth century, from the Pinaceta Civica in Fermo and Santa Andrea, Montegiorgio (reprod. Zampetti Donnini , Gentile (ref. 10), 66–7, Figs 50–1); Master of the Forzatè Chapel, judgement fresco in Santa Lucia, Treviso, fourteenth century (reprod. Lucco (ed.), La pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), i, 237, Fig. 293); Turone di Maxio (fourteenth century), Virgin and child, Santa Maria della Scala, Verona (reprod. Lucco (ed.), La pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), ii, 366, Fig. 469). The stars are not restricted to depictions either. Many cathedral ceilings were (and still are) decorated with stars, and the same applies to a number of secular buildings — Such as the fifteenth-century Rathaus in former Imperial capital Goslar (Lower Saxony). The nearby Brusttuch Haus (built in the 1520s) also has planetary decorations, and such decorations are reasonably common — See Behrendsen O. , Darstellungen von Planetengottheiten an und in deutschen Bauten (Strassburg, 1926), passim, but esp. pp. 8, 26–30, which traces the motive back to fourteenth-century Italy (e.g. Giotto's Campanile in Florence, c. 1300, as pictured Trachtenberg Marvin , The campanile of Florence cathedral: “Giotto's tower” (New York, 1971), Plate 1, where the seven planets are on the upper level). For some further illustrations of ceiling stars, see: Anon., Interior of Binche Palace, 1549, (from Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, as reprod. Dirk De Vos, Rogier van der Weyden (Antwerp, 1999), 11 = Fig. 3); Tognatti , Reconstruction of early Sistine Chapel, 1901 (as reprod. Pietro Perugino (Vannucci), Perugino: Il divin pittore, ed. by Garibaldi Vittoria (Milan, 2004), 214); Giotto , ceiling of Scrovegni chapel, c. 1300, as pictured Giotto: La cappella degli Scrovegni, ed. by Basile G. (Milan, 1992), 26–9. For actual gowns I can cite only one European example: The eleventh-century stellar mantel of Heinrich II (but cf. Hilliard's miniature portrait of George Clifford, c. 1590 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), reprod. as Plate 8 on p. 47 of Murdoch John (eds), The English miniature (London, 1981)). Heinrich's gown (on display at the Cathedral in Bamberg) is pictured (and discussed) in Lasko Peter , Ars sacra 800–1200 (Harmondsworth, 1972), 131 and Fig. 133. This gown is also discussed by Schramm Percy , Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik (Stuttgart, 1954), ii, 578–9, and Elizabeth O'Connor, ” The star mantle of Henry II”, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1980 (of which I have only seen the abstract), passim. These commentators present the gown as a rare exception, yet none mentions the ubiquity of representations of stellar gowns in paintings, while neither Lasko nor Schramm seems aware of the distinction between a constellation and a zodiacal constellation. The gown certainly contains non-zodiacal constellations — E.g. Herakles. I conclude this is an unexplored field!

For a few clear examples, see: “Greek” Master, Christ in mandorla, thirteenth century, Belgrade National Museum inv. 692 (reprod. d'Arcais . (eds), Il trecento adriatico (ref. 10), 112–13); Master Sienese , Redeemer, thirteenth century, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (reprod. Torriti Piero , La pinacoteca nazionale di Siena: I dipinti dal XII al XV secolo (Genoa, 1977), 20–1); Veneziano Paolo , Madonna and child, fourteenth century, Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia (reprod. Lucco (ed.), Pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), i, 33, Fig. 20); Maestro of the Ranghiasci Polyptych, Madonna orante, fifteenth century, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia, La Spezia (reprod. Zeri De Marchi , La Spezia (ref. 10), 215, Fig. 91).

See: Bober Harry , “The zodiacal miniatures of the Trés Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry. Its sources and meaning”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xi (1948), 1–34, Fig. 1; Hyginus , Fabularum liber (Basel, 1535; facs. reprint New York, 1976), 87. The characteristic iconography of the Hyginus figure is discussed on pp. 147–50 of Thiele Georg , Antike Himmelsbilder: Mit Forschungen zu Hipparchos, Aratos und seinen Fortsetzern und Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte des Sternhimmels (Berlin, 1898), whose Fig. 65 (p. 149, from Codex. Vind. 2352, in the Viennese Court Library when Thiele wrote, late 19th c.) is an unequivocal stellar mandorla. The Hyginus ellipse could result from perspectival distortion of the circle, but Thiele's figure definitely does not.

Pintoricchio [and Caporali], Coronation of the Virgin, 1508, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome (reprod. Scarpellini Pietro & Silvestrelli Maria , Pintoricchio (Milan, 2004), 276). For the context, see ibid., 242. For similar parallelings of mandorla and stellar circle: In the legend of Aracoeli, see Meiss Millard , French painting in the time of Jean de Berry: The late fourteenth century and the patronage of the Duke (London, 1967), i, 233–5, ii, Figs 814–20; and in some MS representations of the Milky Way, see Thiele , Antike Himmelsbilder (ref. 12), 148–9. For other circular examples of the coronation with clear stars, see, e.g.: Paolo Veneziano (fourteenth century), Santa Chiara Polyptych, Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia, and Marco Veneziano (fourteenth century), Coronation of the Virgin, Washington, National Gallery; Catarino, and Catarino and Donato (fourteenth century), two (similar) coronations of the Virgin, Venice, Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia and Gallerie dell'Accademia (all reprod. Lucco (ed.), Pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), i, Figs 7, 30–1, 71–2 on pp. 22, 41–2, 76).

Aretino Spinello (c. 1400), Coronation of the Virgin from Monteoliveto Maggiore polyptych, in Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (reprod. Torrito Piero , La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena (Genoa, 1977–78), 232–3, Fig. 274); Pintoricchio , Madonna in glory, Pinacoteca Civica, San Gimignano (as reprod. Nucciarelli Franco , Studi sul Pinturicchio delle prime prove alla Capella Sistina (Ellera Umbra, 1998), 192, Fig. 69).

Examples are very easy to find, but I give a few clear examples. For gowns, see: Salimbeni Lorenzo , Madonna and child (c. 1400), Oratorio di San Giovanni (reprod. Rossi Albert , I Salimbeni (Milan, 1976), Fig. 135) — Where the blue gown is covered with a mixture of pointed stars, feurs-de-lys, and light yellow dots; da Fabriano Gentile , Madonna and child, c. 1400, Berlin-Dahlem Gemäldegallerie (reprod. Zampetti Pietro , Paintings from the Marches: Gentile to Raphael, transl. by Carpanini R. (London, 1971), 45, Plate 4), where there are only dots. For clear ceiling examples, see: Avanzo di Sammo, Liberation fresco, fourteenth century, San Giacomo Chapel, Basilica del Santo, Padua (reprod. Lucco (ed.), Pittura nel Veneto (ref. 10), i, 157, Fig. 181), where dots are mixed with pointed stars; Fra Angelico (fifteenth century), Annunciation, Prado, Madrid (reprod. Kanter Laurence ., Painting and illustration in early Renaissance Florence 1300–1450 (New York, 1994), 32) where there are only dots.

See, e.g.: God the Father at the top of Gentile's Valle Romita polyptych (ref. 7); Strozzi , Coronation of the Virgin, fifteenth century, from a privately owned book of hours (as reprod. Kanter , Painting and illumination (ref. 15), 356–7); Salimbeni Lorenzo , Blessing Christ, c. 1400 (fresco from San Severino Marche, church of Mary of Mercy, as reprod. on p. 107 of Sgarbi Vittorio (ed.), Lorenzo e Jacopo Salimbeni di Sanseverino e la civiltà tardogotica (Milan, 1999)).

E.g.: Pintoricchio , Madonna in glory (ref. 14); Perugino , Baptism of Christ, 1481, Sistine Chapel, Vatican (detail as reprod. Perugino (ref. 10), 111); Perugino , two Ascensions of Christ, 1496, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons, and 1510, Cathedral in Sansepolcro (reprod. Perugino (ref. 10), 144–5); Pastura = Antonio da Viterbo, Madonna and child, c. 1500, Museo Borgogna, Vercelli (as reprod. Todini , La pittura umbra (ref. 10), ii, 537, Fig. 1243); Maestro della Capella Basso della Rovere, Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1500, Basso della Rovere Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome (as reprod. Todini , La pittura umbra (ref. 10), i, 111, ii, 544, Fig. 1262).

For representations where the cosmos is clearly bounded by a circle of angels just outside a circle of stars, see: Woodcut from Ludolphus, Tboek vanden leuen ons heeren ihesu christi, 1487 (as reprod. Bosch Hieronymus Marijnissen Roger H. , Hieronymus Bosch: The complete works (Antwerp, 1987), 86); Gentile , Valle Romita polyptych (ref. 7).

For some good (and well-known) examples of such diagrams, see: Reisch Gregorius , Margarita philosophica nova (Salzburg, 2002; 1st pub. 1508), ii, 331; Schedel Hartman (untitled German translation of Liber chronicarum, commonly known as Nuremberg chronicle), transl. by Alt Georg (Nuremberg, 1493), fol. 5v; Von Megenburg Konrad , Das Buch der Natur (Augsburg, 1499), unpaginated; Apian Peter , Cosmographicus liber (Antwerp, 1524), fol. 6. The last three of these diagrams are reprod. on pp. 20, 33, 38 of Heninger S. K. , The cosmographical glass (San Marino, CA, 1977) — Whose Apian diagram comes from fol. 4 of the 1533 printing; and whose Megenberg diagram comes from fol. c5v of the 1499 printing). Heninger (passim.) provides several other examples.

See fols 4v, 16, 43 of Digges Thomas , A perfit description [heliocentric] of the caelestiall orbes (1576), in Leonhard and Thomas Digges, A prognostication everlasting [geocentric] corrected and augmented [heliocentrically] by Thomas Digges (London, 1576).

For some minor exceptions, see: Koyré Alexandre , From the closed world to the infinite universe (Baltimore, 1968), 24–7; Smyth Marina , Understanding the universe in seventh century Ireland (Woodbridge, Surrey, 1990), 88–93, plus the erratic, yet extended, discussions in Grant Edward , Planets, stars and orbs (Cambridge, 1994), esp. pp. 371–89, and Much ado about nothing: Theories of space and vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1981), e.g. pp. 103–44. Grant (e.g. Much ado, 144–7) demonstrates at length that belief in hypercosmic locality was highly controversial, and such dissent is vital to the argument below. Unfortunately though, Grant gives little attention to the localization of spiritual beings, or to the persistence of the Platonic interpretation that we are soon to meet. (Pictorial evidence, and the important Phaedrus discussion are totally ignored; Philo barely rates a mention; only one discussion of angels is recorded in the index; and Dante does not manage even this much attention.).

For examples (from a variety of contexts) of this endorsement (implicit and explicit) of the external, convex location of Heaven see: Langford Jerome , Galileo, science and the Church (Ann Arbor, 1971), 25; Tillyard Eustace , The Elizabethan world picture (London, 1943), 38ff; Charles Singleton, Commentary to: Alighieri Dante , The divine comedy, transl. with commentary by Singleton C. (6 vols in 3 parts, Princeton, 1970–75), vi, 7–8, 452, 492–3; Koyré , Closed world (ref. 21), Fig. 1, p. 7; Lattis James , Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christopher Clavius and the collapse of Ptolemaic cosmology (Chicago, 1994), 72, 82; Kuhn Thomas , The Copernican revolution: Planetary astronomy in the development of Western thought (Cambridge, MA, 1957), 112–13.

Wright J. E. , The early history of heaven (New York, 2000), 32–7 (esp. Fig. 2.4), 56–8, 88–97 (esp. Fig. 3.25); Russell Jeffrey , Lucifer: The devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1984), 218; pp. 70, 73 of Jacobs L. , “Jewish cosmology”, pp. 66–86 of Blacker Carmen Loewe Michael (eds), Ancient cosmologies (London, 1975); Isaiah 14:13 and 66:1; Psalm 8:2. See also sources cited in ref. 24 below.

Mircea Eliade, however, suggests that such identification of a realm of archetypes, with a divine region (in the sky, and perhaps beyond), has many precedents in what he calls ” The archaic ontology” of “primitive” thought. See his: The myth of the eternal return (transl. by Trask W. ; some printings entitled Cosmos and history; Princeton, 1954), chap. 1 (“Archetypes and repetition”), esp. pp. 5–6; Shamanism, transl. by Trask W. (Princeton, 1972), 284.

Boyancé Pierre , Études sur le songe de Scipion: Essais d'histoire et de psychologie religieuses (Paris, 1936), 73 (my transl.).

For the Neoplatonic version, see: Armstrong Arthur , Introduction to ancient philosophy (London, 1957), 187–8; Dillon John , “Pleroma and noetic cosmos: A comparative study”, pp. 99–110 of Wallis Richard (eds), Neoplatonism and gnosticism (papers from a 1984 conference; Albany, NY, 1992), p. 101; Copleston Frederick , A history of philosophy, i/2 (London, 1946), 219, 223. For the medieval, see: Aquinas Thomas , Summa theologica (= Summa theologiae, Dominican edn, London, 1963–80), 1a.50.1–3, 75.5, 76.4 (= ix, 4–17, xi, 20–7, 64–71); Dante , Convivio, 2.4 (= The banquet, transl. by Ryan Christopher (Saratoga, CA, 1989), 49–51); Steneck Nicholas , Science and creation in the Middle Ages: Henry of Langenstein (d. 1397) on Genesis (Notre Dame, IN, 1976), 38; Hutchison Keith , “The natural, the supernatural and the occult in the scholastic universe”, pp. 333–55 of Freeland Guy . (eds), 1543 and all that (Dordrecht, 2000), 342. See also: Ref. 34 below.

Timaeus 52B, as discussed Solmsen Friedrich , “‘Beyond the heavens’”, Museum helveticum, xxxiii (1976), 24–32, passim, esp. pp. 25–6. The famous analogy between the Sun and the form of the good in the Republic (508c = Loeb, ii, 102–3) does however use spatial language, and calls the world of forms the “intelligible place (voητòς τóπoς)”. But Reginald Hackforth suggests the locational metaphor is very subdued here: See his annotations to Plato , Plato's Phaedrus, transl. by Hackforth R. (Cambridge, 1952), 80–1.

For Xenocrates, see Empiricus Sextus , Against the logicians, I.147 (= Loeb, ii, 80–3). For Plotinus, see Arthur Armstrong, n. 1 to p. 88 of vol. iv of Plotinus , Enneads, transl. by Armstrong A. (London, 1966–88). For the hermetic endorsement, see Poimandres, §26 and Asclepius, §§32–4 (on pp. 6, 87–8 of Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction, transl. by Copenhaver B. (Cambridge, 1992)). For the ‘Chaldaean’ version, see Lewy Hans , Chaldæan oracles and theurgy: Mysticism magic and Platonism in the later Roman Empire, transl. by Pines S. (Cairo, 1956), 77–8, 298–301, and compare the hypercosmic solar world of light in The Chaldean oracles: Text, translation and commentary, transl. by Majercik R. (Leiden, 1989), fr. 59 = pp. 72–3. For Martianus Capella, see his The marriage of Philology and Mercury (= De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii) = vol. ii of Martianus Capella and the seven liberal arts, transl. by Stahl W. (New York, 1977), 202 = pp. 60–1. For Spenser, see his “Heavenly beautie”, esp. lines 82–83. For Digby (father of the gunpowder-plot Everard, and grandfather of Kenelm), see Digby Everard (c. 1551–1605), Theoria analytica, viam ad monarchiam scientiarum demonstrans … (London, 1579), 88 (reprod. by Lerner Michel-Pierre , Le monde des sphères (Paris, 1996–97), i, Plate 9). For yet another endorsement of the Platonic vision, see Apuleius , Apologia 64. de Lubac Henri , Surnaturel: Études historiques (Paris, 1946), 329–54, gives many examples of early Christian writers applying the hypercosmic terminology to the spiritual realm.

Quoting from Philo, Creation, 12.70–1 (= Philo of Alexandria, On the creation of the cosmos according to Moses, transl. by Runia David (Leiden, 2001), 64 = Loeb, i, 54–7). For similar spatial metaphors, see: Philo , Giants 61 and Questions on Exodus 2.37 (= Loeb, ii, 474–5, suppl. 2, 78–80); and compare: Méasson Anit , Du char ailé de Zeus à l'arche d'alliance: Images et mythes platoniciens chez Philon d'Alexandre (Paris, 1986), 208ff.; Wolfson Harry , Philo: Foundations of religious philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, MA, 1947), i, 369; Runia , annotations to Philo, Creation (transl., ref. 29), 230–1; Scott Alan , Origen and the life of the stars: A history of an idea (Oxford, 1991), 69, 162–4; Randles W. G. L. , The unmaking of the medieval Christian cosmos, 1500–1760 (Aldershot, 1999), 7–8. For Philo's denial that forms occupy space, see his Creation, 4.17 (transl., ref. 29, 50 = Loeb, i, 14–15), as discussed by Wolfson , Philo (ref. 29), i, 240–2, and by Runia, annotations to Philo , Creation (transl., ref. 29), 140. For Plotinus, see Enneads 4:3.17. transl. by MacKenna S. (London, 1969), 274, as discussed Armstrong , loc. cit., ref. 28.

For God as space, see Philo , De somniis, I.63–4 (= Loeb, v, 328–9), discussed Grant , Much ado (ref. 21), 112–15. For God as star, see Philo , Creation, 6.29–31 (= Runia transl. ref. 29, p. 53 = Loeb, i, 22–5), discussed by Runia, annotations to Philo , Creation (transl. ref. 29), 169, and Méasson , Char ailé (ref. 29), 198, n.194.

Philo , Moses 2.16 and Questions on Exodus 2.91–6 (= Loeb, vi, 488–9 and suppl. 2, 140–5). Cf. Patai Raphael , Man and temple in ancient Jewish myth and ritual (London, 1947), 105–13.

For the hypercosmic heaven, see: Origen , Contra Celsum, transl. by Chadwick H. (Cambridge, 1965), 6.18–21 = pp. 330–4, esp. p. 332. Whether Origen identified this region with forms is unclear to me. Edwards Mark , Origen against Plato (Aldershot, 2002), 64, cites the difficult passage De principiis 2.3.6 (= pp. 273–4 of the F. Crombie transl. on pp. 239–384 of vol. iv of The ante-Nicene fathers (Edinburgh, 1989)) as evidence that he rejects the existence of forms in toto, but I read it (hesitatingly) as saying their existence is not purely mental. In any case, the passage makes it clear that the idea of giving them a hypercosmic location was familiar. For Origen's radical materialism, see: Edwards , Origen against Plato (ref. 32), 160; and Scott , Origen and stars (ref. 29), 150–67.

See: Aristotle, Physics, 4.4–5, quoting from 212a30–212b15 and Motion of animals, 3–4 (= 699a10–700a100). On pp. 138–9, 292 of her annotations to Aristotle, Aristotle's De motu animalium: Text with translation, commentary and interpretative essays, ed. by Nussbaum Martha (Princeton, 1978), Nussbaum interprets what I call the ‘container’ here as the immaterial unmoved mover, but notes that Aristotle does not demonstrate immateriality. For the introduction of the empyrean, see: Proclus and Simplicius, on pp. 64–9 of Sambursky Shmuel , The concept of place in late Neoplatonism (Jerusalem, 1982); Siorvanes Lucas , Proclus: Neo-platonic philosophy and science (Edinburgh, 1996), 251; and n. 32 on p. 35 of Simplicius , Corollaries on place and time, transl. by Urmson J. (London, 1992); 167–82, esp. p. 178, of Bruno Nardi, “La dottrina dell'Empireo nella sua genesi storica e nel pensiero dantesco”, on pp. 167–214 of Saggi di filosofia dantesca (Florence, 1967), who suggests unconvincingly (p. 177) that the first use of the name occurs in the Chaldæan oracles (loc. cit., ref. 28). Augustine , City of God 10.9, finds it in Porphyry, while Randles , Unmaking (ref. 29), 7, finds it in Martianus Capella (loc. cit., ref. 28), though he locates the first identification of the empyrean as an angelic habitation, in the Glossa (at cols 68–69 of Migne Jacques-Paul (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus … latina … (Paris, 1879), cxiii—cxiv), where the text is (incorrectly) attributed to Strabo. Today it is associated with Anselm of Laon, but has many other contributors. We must recall (from §§4) however that Plato himself had placed the gods and souls in that same location, but without calling it empyrean.

Convivio, 2.3.8–12 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 47–8): The Vulgate Psalm 8:2 (cited by Dante here) speaks of the glory of god super caelos. For further examples and discussion of the notion that Heaven was material in Western Europe, see: Aslachus Conrad , The description of heaven (transl. (from 1597 Latin) by Jennings Raph ; London, 1623), 30–6; Boyde Patrick , Dante philomythes and philosopher: Man in the cosmos (Cambridge, 1981), 135; McDannell Colleen Lang Bernhard , Heaven: A history (New Haven, 1988), chap. 3 = pp. 47–68 (esp. p. 67); Wippel John , “Essence and existence”, on pp. 385–410 of Kretzmann Norman (ed.), The Cambridge history of later medieval philosophy (Cambridge, 1982), 408–10 (on ‘spiritual matter’); Randles Unmaking (ref. 29), passim, e.g. pp. 9, 10–12, 14–15, 26–31 — Who notes a very telling ongoing debate about the operation of the bodily senses in Heaven.

Contra Celsum (ref. 32), 6.17 (= p. 330), citing Psalm 17:2.

d'Ailly Pierr , Imago mundi, Latin with French transl. by Buron Edmond (Paris, 1930), 164–5; English transl. adapted from Grant Edward (ed.), A source book in medieval science (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 630–1. For similar remarks, see: Pliny , Natural history, 2.1; Isidore, as reported by Smyth , Understanding the universe (ref. 21), 92; Aslachus , Description of Heaven (ref. 34), 7–9, 43; Lerner , Monde des sphères (ref. 28), i, 210–12.

Campanus of Novara, Theorica planetarum, published as: Campanus of Novara and medieval planetary theory, ed. by Benjamin F. Toomer G. (Madison, WI, 1971), 182–3.

Aristotle, On the heavens, I.9, as discussed Solmsen , “Beyond the heavens” (ref. 27), 29–32.

Cf. Convivio 3.12.6 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 109); Aquinas , Summa theologica (ref. 26), 1a.1.9, 1a.3.1 (= i, 33–5, ii, 23).

Aquinas , Summa theologica (ref. 26), 1a.61.4, 1a.66.3, 1a.68.1 (= ix, 212–13, x, 40–3, 74–7); Philo , Creation, 4.16–7.37 (= transl. (ref. 29), 50–5, with Runia's annotations on pp. 132–78); Anselm , Glossa, loc. cit. (ref. 33); Randles , Unmaking (ref. 29), 2ff.

Grosseteste Robert , On the six days of creation: A translation of the Hexaëmeron (Oxford, 1996), 3.16.2 (= p. 118). For the identification of this heaven as ‘empyrean’, see 1.16.1 (= p. 71). Grosseteste's editor identifies the John Damascene quotation as from De fide orthodoxa 13.2. For similar interpretations of the empyrean, see: Bartholomew of England, as discussed by Lynn Thorndike , A history of magic and experimental science (New York, 1923–58), ii, 414–15; Aslachus , Description of Heaven (ref. 34), 14–15. Note that Grosseteste (loc. cit.) does allow that spirits reside in the empyrean.

Basil (of Caesarea, fourth century), Exegetic homilies, transl. by Way Agnes (Washington, DC, 1963), 1.5 = pp. 8–9, discussed by Randles , Unmaking (ref. 29), 3–4.

Thomas Aquinas: Summa contra gentiles, transl. by Pegis A. (Notre Dame, IN, 1975), 3.68 (= Bk 3, pt 1, p. 225); Summa theologica (ref. 26), 1a.3.1, 1a.8.1–3, 1a.52.1 (= ii, 20–3, 110–21 (quoting from pp. 23, 115); ix, 44–5).

Aquinas , Summa theologica (ref. 26), 1a.52.1–2, 1a.61.4 (= ix, 44–9, 212–15). Cf. Randles , Unmaking (ref. 29), 38, 51 (discussing: Ps-Bede, De mundi celestis terrestrisque constitutione: A treatise on the universe and the soul, ed. by Burnett Charles (London, 1985), 304–5 = pp. 44–5; Biel's illocabiles souls of 1574; and Zanchi's “non-physical locality [loco non physico]” of 1591); Steneck , Science and creation (ref. 26), 39–40, for Henry of Langestein's localizing of angels. 45. Aquinas , Summa theologica (ref. 26), 1a.61.4 (= ix, 214–15). Aquinas attributes Anselm's Glossa to Strabo, like the Patrologia latina (ref. 33), where the two Heavens are at v, 113, cols 68–9. For Albert, see Randles Unmaking (ref. 29), 14–15. McDannell Lang , Heaven (ref. 34), 82. For further references to the Heaven of the Trinity, see: St John Seymour, ” The seven heavens in Irish literature”, Zeitschrift für Keltische Philologie, xiv (1923), 1923–30, pp. 20–21; Trinity-depiction in Baltrusaitis Jurgis , “Cercles astrologiques et cosmographiques à la fin du Moyen Age”, Gazette des beaux arts, xxi (1939), 1939–84, Fig. 14 (p. 76), as discussed p. 74. For a further clear example of the heaven of the angels being distinguished from God's special Heaven, see John Colet (d. 1519), Letters to Radulphus on the Mosaic account of creation … (London, 1876), 10. For a clear example of the Heaven inhabited by God being distinguished from the (material) empyrean, see Clavius , Sphaera (1611), 47 as transl. on p. 85 of Lattis , Between Copernicus and Galileo (ref. 22). For a slightly blurred example, see the ineffable section of Digby's cosmic diagram, as cited ref. 28.

Grosseteste , Hexaëmeron (ref. 41), 3.6.1–3.9.1 (= 106–8). A minor exception to this generalization is provided (much later) by Robert Fludd, for one of his many idiosyncratic diagrams divides the empyrean into three sections (yet clearly locates the divine Trinity elsewhere): See Heninger S. K. , Touches of sweet harmony: Pythagorean cosmology and Renaissance poetics (San Marino, CA, 1974), 186. On the other hand, Smyth (Understanding the universe (ref. 21), 8–93) observes that early Irish sources located angels “in a rather physical way” in multiple layers outside the astral heavens, but did not (she adds, p. 92) refer to such dwelling places as “empyrean”.

This broad claim might seem to be refuted by the multiple layers attributed to Heaven in Paradiso, via the orbits of canto 28 (as soon to be discussed, and illustrated in my Figure 5), or via the tiers of the rose of canto 30. But pace opinions emanating from much secondary literature (e.g. McDannell Lang , Heaven (ref. 34), 84, 86; Nardi , “Dottrina dell'empireo” (ref. 33), 204, 206–9; 669–70 of Attilio Mellone, ”Empireo”, on pp. 668–71 of vol. ii of Bosco U. (ed.), Enciclopedia Dantesco (Rome, 1970–79); Singleton , Commentary (ref. 22), vi, passim, esp. pp. 439–40, 447, 450, 492), Dante never uses the word “empyrean” (etc.) in the Paradiso. (See Wilkins Ernest ., A concordance to the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (Cambridge, MA, 1965), 189.) Furthermore, the entity identified by Nardi (loc. cit.) as the empyrean, is not a structured heaven, but a single sphere, “supreme”, “ultimate”, “uniform” and “immobile”. In the letter (of contested authenticity) dedicating the Paradiso to Can Grande (Epistolae: The letters of Dante, transl. by Toynbee Paget (Oxford, 1920), 186/206 = 10.24), Dante does mention the empyrean explicitly, identifying it as the heaven (of canto 1.4) that receives most of God's light, and as the destination of his mystic journey. Yet (pace Boyde , Dante philomythes (ref. 34), 135, who restricts this opinion to the younger Dante) this same letter also characterizes this heaven as material, despite the clear indication at line 39 of canto 30 that Dante leaves the corporeal world behind. So it is difficult to see the immaterial, non-uniform and patently kinetic layers of cantos 28 and 30 as correctly identified in the letter. They are clearly a vision of a spiritual Heaven, but that Heaven seems to replace (rather than instantiate) the empyrean in the poem. If however the letter really is genuine, Dante seems guilty of some strange inconsistency here, so again cannot be used as clear evidence for a structured empyrean. (It should probably be added that I cannot see how Nardi justifies his characterization, p. 205, of the empyrean as “assolutamente uniforme”, but if he is wrong here my point is only slightly weakened.).

For the correlation of my Figures 3 and 4, see Baltrusaitis , “Cercles astrologiques” (ref. 45), 72–3. For Dante's correlation, see: Dante , Convivio, 2.5.12–13, 3.7.6 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 53, 94–5); Paradiso, 28:34, 55–6, 70–8, as discussed Singleton, Commentary (ref. 22), vi, 450–4; McDannell Lang , Heaven (ref. 34), on p. 86 (Fig. 5). Dante's nine Paradiso spheres are the seven planetary ones, plus a stellar sphere and an outer crystalline sphere. For another explicit detailing of the correlation, see John Colet (d. 1519), John Colet's commentary on First Corinthians, transl. by O'Kelly Bernar (Binghampton, NY, 1985), 242–51.

He later adds (e.g. p. 79) a fourth world, ‘man’, but that addition seems to have no impact on our analysis here. My discussion of Mirandola here is based on the first few pages of the second proem of the 1489 Heptaplus (pp. 75–9 of the D. Carmichael transl. on pp. 63–174 of On the dignity of man; On being and the One; Heptaplus (Indianapolis, 1998)).

The same message is very explicit with: Tolhopf as discussed Thorndike Lynn , Science and thought in the fifteeenth century (New York, 1929), 298–301; Bartholomew of England, as discussed Thorndike , History of magic (ref. 41), ii, 414–15.

Colet too adopts the same schema very explicitly: See Miles Leland , John Colet and the Platonic tradition (London, 1962), 55–7.

Needham Joseph , Science and civilisation in China, iii (Cambridge, 1959), 229–31, 240–1, 259–61; Langdon Stephen , Semitic [mythology] (vol. v in series The mythology of all races; Boston, 1931)), 94, 395. Cf. The legend of Etana: A new edition, ed. and transl. by Wilson J. (Warminster, 1985), 9, 65, 76 for a slightly different Mesopotamian divinization of the pole. For more general discussions of the divinity of the cosmic axis in non-classical cosmologies, see, e.g.: Mircea Eliade, “Centre du monde, temple, maison”, on pp. 57–82 of Le symbolism cosmique des monuments religieux (Rome, 1957); idem, Myth (ref. 24), 12–18; idem, Shamanism (ref. 24), 259–87; idem, Images and symbols: Studies in religious symbolism, transl. by Mairet P. (Princeton, 1991), 39–56; idem, Patterns in comparative religion, transl. by Sheed R. (New York, 1958), 99–108, 367–87; Wensinck Arent , The ideas of the western Semites concerning the navel of the Earth (Amsterdam, 1916) = Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam Afdeeling Letterkunde, n.s., xvii/1 (1917), passim; Roscher Wilhelm , Omphalos (Hildesheim, 1974), passim.

This apparent suppression of centrality lies at the heart of the story I tell here, and I am extremely grateful to a colleague for pointing it out: Marinus van der Sluijs, who is currently preparing a comparative and historical study of the mythology of the divine cosmic axis, a study foreshadowed in his “The world axis as an atmospheric phenomenon”, Cosmos, xxi (2005), 3–52.

Genesis 4:9–11; Anon., Carmen Genesis (a Latin poem, from late Antiquity, of unknown authorship, paraphrasing the Bible), in Patrologia latina (ref. 33), ii, cols 1097–102, and transl. by Thelwall S. , on pp. 132–5 of vol. iv of The ante-Nicene fathers (Edinburgh, 1989), line 160, and compare lines 5 (cardo), 8, 80 (transl. by Thelwall as lines 200, 6, 10, 100); Anon., Hisperica famina: The A-text. A new critical edition with English translation and philological commentary, ed. by Herren M. (Toronto, 1974), lines 51, 222, 290, 374–6, 494, 561 = pp. 68, 80, 86, 92, 102, 108. Cf. Origen , Contra Celsum (ref. 32), 331 (= 6:18 and translator's n. 3). See also the iconographical evidence discussed below, §9.

Cumont Franz , “‘YΨιστς” (= Hypsistos = ‘highest’), on cols 444–50 of vol. ix of Wissowa G. (eds), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie des Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1916), esp. col. 446; idem, After life in Roman paganism (New York, 1959; 1st publ. 1922), 98, 103–5 (citing: Julian , Caesar 307c (= Loeb, ii, 346–7); Lucan , Pharsalia 1.45 (= Loeb, 6–7); Statius , Thebaid, 1.30 (= 1928 Loeb, Mozley transl., 342–3); Laertius Diogenes , Lives, 8.31 (= Loeb, ii, 346–7)). Cumont suggests that the epithet placed Zeus in the outermost region of the cosmos, or even beyond the cosmos. See his: “‘YΨιστς”, col. 449; After life, 108; “Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus”, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, ix (1906), 1906–36, pp. 329–34. For a much later Christian example of the same terminology, see Spenser , “Heavenly beautie”, lines 100–1.

Hippolytus , Refutation of all heresies (= Philosophumena), 4.47.1–2 (= pp. 131–2 of Greek text ed. by Marcovich M. , published as Refutatio omnium haeresium (Berlin, 1986) = p. 42 of J. Macmahon transl., on pp. 1–162 of vol. v of The ante-Nicene fathers (Edinburgh, 1986)); Lewis Charlton Short Charles , A Latin dictionary (Oxford, 1969), s.v. vertex, meaning III.B.2. For further examples, see: Cicero , De natura deorum, 2.41.105 (= Loeb, 222–3); Anon., Hisperica famina (ref. 54), lines 103, 290, 374–6 (= pp. 70, 86, 92); Virgil , Georgics 1.242 (= Loeb, 114–15); Vitruvius , On architecture, 9.1, 9.4 (= Loeb, ii, 212–13, 238–9).

Philo , Questions on Exodus (24.10–11), 2.37 (= Loeb, Supplement 2, 79); Cumont , After life (ref. 55), 195 (citing: Homer , Odyssey, 6.41–7 (= Loeb, i, 208–9); Lucretius , Nature of things, 3.18ff. (= Loeb, 190–1); Zeno, fragment 147 (= Von Arnim H. (ed.), Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1903–24), i, 40 = Lactantius , Divine institutes, 7.7)). For some later examples, see: Dante , Convivio, 2.3.10 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 47); Miles , Colet (ref. 51), 52; Colet , Letters to Radulphus (ref. 45), 10.

Aratus , Phaenomena, lines 20–25 (= Loeb Callimachus, Lycophron and Aratus, 382–3); Hippolytus , Refutation, 4.47.1, 4.49.2–3, 5.8.34–35, 5.15.3–4 (= ref. 56, Greek pp. 131–2, 136, 161–2, 181; transl. pp. 44, 55, 62); Hermetica (ref. 28), 5.4 (= p. 19); The Greek magical papyri in translation, transl. by Betz Hans (Chicago, 1986), 4.675–685, 7.686–90 (= pp. 51, 137); Milton , Arcades, line 66; Murdoch John , Album of science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York, 1984), 335–7, 384 (Fig. 276.3 (from a fourteenth-century MS) for the cranks). Cf: Isidore of Seville , De natura rerum, 12.6 (= pp. 222–3), citing Lucan , Civil war 10.199–200 (= Loeb, 604–5); Lewy , Chaldæan oracles (ref. 28), 99 (on Aion); Capella Martianus , Marriage (ref. 28), 60; Seneca , Hippolytus/Phaedra, 960–4 (= Loeb , Tragedies, i, 396–7).

Ulansey David , The origins of the Mithraic mysteries: Cosmology and salvation in the ancient world (New York, 1989).

See: Wildiers N. M. , The theologian and his universe: Theology and cosmology from the Middle Ages to the present (New York, 1982), 86–7; Russell , Lucifer (ref. 23), 218, 222; Freccero John , “Satan's fall and the Quaestio de acqua et terra”, Italica, xxxviii (1961), 1961–115, pp. 112–13; Shrimplin Valerie , Sun symbolism and cosmology in Michelangelo's Last judgment (Kirksville, MO, 2000), 72.

Lewis C. S. , The discarded image (Cambridge, 1964), 58, 87, 116; Alan of Lille (Alanus ab Insulis), Opera omnia, ed. by Migne J.-P. (Paris, 1855), i, col. 444 (= prose 3), transl. adapted from J. Sheridan's (= The plaint of nature (Toronto, 1980), 120), with my “middle reaches” replacing the translator's “centre”, to avoid overstating the case. Unfortunately Lewis reports details very inaccurately, and overstates the case far more than Sheridan. For other examples of secondary literature noting the inversion, see: Russell Jeffrey , A history of heaven (Princeton, 1996), 180; Singleton, Commentary (ref. 22), 450; Cary Phillip , Augustine's invention of the inner self: The legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford, 2000), 103.

Boethius's translator interprets (in his note on p. 87 of Anicius Boethius, The consolation of philosophy, transl. by Watts V. (Harmondsworth, 1969)) the cosmos of Consolation, IV poem 1 = pp. 86–7 as one of the inversions identified by Lewis, but I cannot read the text that way. When discussing Raphael's depiction of the inversion (see below, ref. 64), Lewis (Discarded image (ref. 61), 87) cites a far more satisfactory precedent, IV prose 6 (= 105), where Boethius characterizes God as a cosmic centre.

Cf. Convivio 2.5.8 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 52); Colet , Commentary (ref. 48), 246–7. The fact that Dante feigns puzzlement counts (somewhat) against my ongoing claim that this inverted geometry was familiar to pre-Copernican audiences, but the fact remains that Dante does solve his own riddle.

For a depiction of the dome (which dates from 1512–13), see: Raphael De Vecchi Pierluigi , Raphaël (Paris, 2002), Fig. 265 (p. 277). For the identification of Raphael's lower, outer zones as terrestrial, elemental, and seasonal, see pp. 127, 139, 157 of Brandt Kathleen , “Cosmological patterns in Raphael's Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo”, on pp. 127–58 (and plates 43–54) of Frommel Christoph . (eds), Raffaello a Roma: Il convegno del 1983 (Rome, 1986). For the Tischplatte, see Whitfield Peter , The mapping of the heavens (London, 1995), 57. For analysis, see Pückler-Limpurg Siegfried (Graf) , Martin Schaffner (Strassburg, 1899), 72, and Lustenberger Suzanne , Martin Schaffner: Maler zu Ulm (Ulm, 1959), 208. Lustenberger correctly interprets Schaffner's central figure as empyrean, while Pückler-Limpurg simply treats it as the Sun. For another, later example (Veronese, Villa Barbaro, Maser, late 1550s), see: Veronese Paolo Pignatti Terisio , La villa di Maser (Milan, 1968), passim (for good illustrations); Cocke Richard , “Veronese and Daniele Barbaro: The decoration of the Villa Maser”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxv (1972), 1972–46 (for analysis). Cocke identifies: The outer corners as elements (on p. 229); the system as Ptolemaic (p. 231); and the whole schema as “one of the supreme decorative achievements of the Italian Renaissance” (p. 226). Pignatti (pp. 14, 23) notes that the seasons here are in lunettes separate from (but next to) the elemental corners.

Aristotle: On the heavens, II.13 (esp. 293a15–293b20 = Loeb, 216–19); Siorvanes , Proclus (ref. 33), 304–11 (for Theon and Proclus). In the Vulgate Revelation 4:6, the four beasts of the Apocalypse are “in medio et in circuitus sedis Dei” which seems to place the throne of God all about the beasts and in the centre of them. This is certainly how the twelfth-century mystic Gilbert of Hoyland interpreted the passage: See McGinn Bernard , The growth of mysticism (London, 1995), 300.

My Figure 7 should be compared with another miniature from the same MS, that reprod. as Fig. 11 on p. 38 of Winkler Friedrich , Die flämmische Buchmalerei des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1925). In this second diagram, the zodiac is not surrounded by the planets (as a full-blooded inversion requires), but surrounds them, and this may be why Russell , Lucifer (ref. 23), 223 cites Marmion (in this exact context, but without giving a source) as proposing an odd schema in which the Moon is the planet closest to God. That interpretation is definitely not true of the geometry of either of these two figures, and my Figure 7 certainly has the stars inside the planets. For further examples of the inversion, see: Image on fol. 69 of Nicole Oresme, Le livre du ciel et du monde, 1377 = Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Fr.565, at: http://classes.bnf.fr/ebstorf/grand/60.htm); emblem of a candle from Farlie , Lychnocausia (1638), as reprod. Diehl Huston , An index of icons in English emblem books (Norman, OK, 1986), 236.

For some sustained (though generally unsatisfying) attempts to demonstrate that domes and the like were symbols of the heavens (in both senses of the word), see: Lehmann Karl , “The dome of Heaven”, Art bulletin, xxvii (1945), 1–27; Snodgrass Adrian , Architecture, time and eternity: Studies in the stellar and temporal symbolism of traditional buildings (New Delhi, 1990), i, 261–7; Hautecoeur Louis , Mystique et architecture: Symbolisme du cercle et de la coupole (Paris, 1954); Smith Earl , The dome (Princeton, 1950), passim (e.g. pp. 8, 74–94).

Feibleman James , Religious Platonism: The influence of religion on Plato and the influence of Plato on religion (London, 1959), 106–8.

Singleton , Commentary (ref. 22), 450–2; Boyde , Dante philomythes (ref. 34), 200–1. Cf. Russell , History of heaven (ref. 61), 179. Similarly, on p. 181 of his Commentary, Singleton treats the heavenly Sun (of Paradiso 10.53) as just a symbol. This dismissal of Platonic realism is surely an anachronistic reading, adapted to a far more modern metaphysics. Boyde, by contrast, notes several affirmations of the idea that “God is Light literally and not figuratively”: See pp. 208–10.

See, e.g., Wensinck , “Ideas” (ref. 70), passim; Burrows Eric , “Some cosmological patterns in Babylonian religion”, on pp. 43–70 of Hooke S. H. (ed.), The labyrinth (London, 1935), 66; Eliade , Images (ref. 52), 39–46.

For the symbolic interpretation, see: Kline Naomi , Maps of medieval thought: The Hereford paradigm (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001), 208–15; Woodward David , “Reality, symbolism, time, and space in medieval world maps”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, lxxv (1985), 510–21, esp. pp. 514–17; Harley J. B. Woodward David (eds)., The history of cartography, i (Chicago, 1987), 340–2; Randles W. G. L. , De la terre plate au globe terrestre (Paris, 1980), 19–20 (quoting from a 1485 edition of the travels of Mandeville). A good example of the astronomical claim can be found in (another edition of) the very same text: See Ps-Mandeville , The travels of Sir John Mandeville, transl. by Moseley C. (Harmondsworth, 1983), 129, which claims that Jerusalem is beneath an equinox. Some versions of Mandeville's argument say Jerusalem is beneath the Sun at the summer solstice: See, e.g. Wheatley Paul , The pivot of the four quarters: A preliminary enquiry into the origins and character of the ancient Chinese city (Edinburgh, 1971), 428–9. For the gravitational claim, see Ps-Mandeville , Travels, 129 and Martin Luther on Genesis 1.9 on p. 35 of the G. Schick transl. in Luther's works, i, ed. by Pelikan J. (St Louis, 1958). see also Van Duzer Chet , “The mythic geography of the northern polar regions: Inventio fortunata and Buddhist cosmology”, Culturas populares: Revista electrónica, ii (May—Aug. 2006), passim.

Dante Convivio, 2.5.12–13, 3.7.6 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 53, 94–95), Paradiso, 28: 55–56. see also: Spenser , “Heavenly beautie”, lines 64–77; Sacrobosco , The Sphere of Sacrobosco and its commentators, ed. by Thorndike Lynn (Chicago, 1949), 76/118 plus references to archetype (in the divine mind) on 80/120, 153/208, 248, 253, 286, 364–5; Boyde , Dante philomythes (ref. 34), 130–1; Gardner Edmund , Dante's ten heavens: A study of the Paradiso (Westminster, 1898), 201. For an extended discussion of Dante's comparison, see Cornish Alison , Reading Dante's stars (New Haven, 2000), chaps. 7–8. For Calcidius's remark, see Calcidius Plato ), Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. by Waszink J. Jensen P. (London, 1962), 154. For Mirandola's, see Heptaplus (ref. 49), 77.

I have no convincing data on this topic, but note the following fragments: (a) In ancient Chinese mythology, a discrepancy between the current and primeval universe was recognized, and an explanation was to hand, for a primeval battle between Kung Kung and Chuan Hsü had broken the cosmic axis, and tilted the sky: See Needham , Science and civilisation, iii (ref. 52), 211–15, 286, 291 n.b, 297; Granet Marcel , La pensée chinoise (Paris, 1934), 344. (b) In the West, both Christian and pagan traditions accepted that the Sun had been shifted by the Fall: See, e.g. Ovid , Metamorphoses, 1.89–124 (= Loeb, i, 8–11, for the disruption of the perpetual spring of the Golden Age); Ibid., 2.171–8 (= Loeb, i, 72–73, for Phaeton's taking the Sun near the Pole); Milton , Paradise lost, 10.651–6 (for the creation of the seasons as a punishment). (c) Robert Fludd (Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia, Part 1 (Oppenheim, 1617), i, 43, 134–42) suggests that the Sun was created centrally, but later vacated that position; while the frontispiece (facing p. 1) and p. 3 of de Marolles Michel , Tableaux du temple des Muses (Paris, 1655; facs. reprint, New York, 1976) places a polar constellation near the Sun in his primeval chaos, and says there was no sunlight then.

For the form of the Earth, see: Philo , Creation, 6.29 (= transl. ref. 29, p. 53 = Loeb Works, i, 22–23, discussed by Runia, annotations to transl. (ref. 29), 164–5); Origen , De principiis, 2.3.6 (= transl. (ref. 32), 273–4 and cf. Scott , Origen and stars (ref. 29), 162–4); Plotinus , Enneads, 6:7.11–12 (= transl. (ref. 29), 569–70) and cf. Dillon, “Pleroma” (ref. 26), 104–5). See also Revelation 21:1, for a Biblical reference to a second Earth. For references to the forms of (several) heavenly bodies, see: Gruppe Otto , Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1906), 1467; Philo , loc. cit.; Origen , loc. cit.; Plotinus , loc. cit.; Julian , Against the Galileans, 65B—C (= Loeb Works, iii, 336–7).

Quoting Enneads, 1:1.7 (= transl. (ref. 29), 65). See also 5:1.11, 6:5.5, 6:8.18, 6:9.8 (= 379, 535, 610–11, 621–2). Cf. Cary , Inner self (ref. 61), 5, 26; Meijer P. A. , Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9): An analytic commentary (Amsterdam, 1992), 242–5. My understanding of Plotinus is very defective, and accordingly, my discussion here avoids disentangling the details of Plotinus's superior worlds. This simplification is a distortion, but does no real damage in the present essay, where such detail is not required. For though the mystical visions of late Antiquity tended towards a multiplication of superior worlds, medieval Christian theology was, on the whole, far more spartan.

Cary , Inner self (ref. 61), 103. Cf. p. 121. Cf. also the somewhat similar internal/external contrast in Philo , loc. cit. (ref. 31).

This term derives from p. 38 of Cook Walter , “The oldest painted panels of Catalonia II”, Art bulletin, vi (1924), 31–60, whose extremely useful discussion of figures like my 8 and 9 traces (38, 47–50) the motif back to ninth-century France, without finding any special cosmological commitment in the intersecting circles. My expanded interpretation is argued by Tadeusz Dobrzeniecki (see part 3 of his “Maiestas domini w zabytkach polskich i obcych z Polska zwiazanych (parts 1–3)”, Rocznik Museum Narodowego w Warszawie, xvii (1973), 1973–86, xviii (1974), 1974–308, xix (1975), 1975–263, e.g. French summary, p. 261) and made absolutely clear by: The text attached to the Botticelli variant (my Figure 5); plus the internal circles in both the Memling Heaven (my Figure 8), and some of the other globe-mandorlas reprod. in Harbison Craig , The last judgment in sixteenth-century northern Europe (New York, 1976). My three figures also serve to reject an interpretation hesitatingly proposed as an alternative to Cook's in the Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstegeschichte (vol. v, col. 1071, s.v. ‘Erde’) to the effect that the bottom circle represents the Earth, for Dante's text makes it clear that the bottom circle in Figure 5 is not the Earth, while Figures 8 and 9 include a separate Earth. The suggestion is also incompatible with those globe-mandorlas (cited in ref. 78) placing stars on the bottom circle, viz. the Vatican Last Judgment and the Siena Redeemer.

For further helpful examples of these coalescences, see: Several of the other illustrations (beyond my Figure 9) in Harbison , Last judgment (ref. 77); Nicolò (Nicolaus) and Giovanni (Johannes), twelfth-century Roman School, Last Judgment, Vatican Pinacoteca Inv. 40526; Beato Angelico (Guido di Petro, fifteenth century), Stories of St Nicholas, Vatican Pinacoteca Inv. 40252 (both reprod. on pp. 109, 191 of Baldini Umberto , Pinacoteca vaticana: Nella pittura l'espressione del messaggio divino nella luce la radice della creazione pittorica (Milan, 1992)); tympanum over the entrance to the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy (Savoie), c. 1200 (depictions readily found on web); Giotto , Last Judgment, c. 1300, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (depicted Cappella (ref. 10), 277, 284); Master Sienese , Redeemer, thirteenth century, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (reprod. Torriti , Pinacoteca (ref. 11), 20–21). Cook, “Oldest panels” (ref. 77), 38–60, provides many more examples, many reproduced.

Enneads, 1:7.1, 2:3.9, 4:3.11, 5:1.6–7, 5:3.12, 5:5.6–8 (= pp. 65, 98, 270, 374–5, 394–5, 408–9 of MacKenna transl. (ref. 29); or vol. i, 270–1, ii, 76–77, iv, 70–73, v, 30–33, 114–17, 174–9 of Armstrong's Loeb transl.). I cite two different translations because both are quoted, but also because of Plotinus's obscurity — On which, see also my warning in ref. 75 above. When Plotinus wrote, Apollo had become a sun-god, but this was not true in the time of the Pythagorean brotherhood. Plotinus's association of The One with the Platonic form of the Sun is universally accepted in the secondary literature. Cf. Rist John , Plotinus: The road to reality (Cambridge, 1967), 68–72; Armstrong Arthur , The architecture of the intelligible world in the philosophy of Plotinus (Cambridge, 1940), 55–56; p. 297 of Lloyd A. C. , “The later Neoplatonists”, on pp. 272–325 of Armstrong A. H. (ed.), The Cambridge history of later Greek and early medieval philosophy (Cambridge, 1967); Cary , Inner self (ref. 61), 5, 74.

Plutarch , Isis and Osiris, 354e—f, 381f, E at Delphi, 393b–394a, and Oracle at Delphi, 400d, Obsolescence, 433d–3 (= Loeb Moralia, v, 26–27, 176–7, 246–51, 292–3, 474–5); Philo , Special laws, 1.279, On the virtues, 164, Rewards and punishments, 36–40 (= Loeb, vii, 262–3, viii, 264–5, 332–5). Cf. Dillon John , The middle Platonists (London, 1977), 191, 200–1.

Silvestris Bernardus , The cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris, transl. by Wetherbee W. (New York, 1973), 99 (and editor's n. 19, p. 158); Dante , Convivio, 3.12.6–7 (= Banquet (ref. 26), 109); Paradiso 10.53–4; Tasso , De l'imprese, in Tasso Torquato , Dialoghi, ed. by Baffetti G. (Milan, 1998), ii, 1114. For Bérulle, see Ramnoux Clémence , “Héliocentrisme et Christocentrisme (sur un texte du Cardinal de Bérulle)”, on pp. 337–461 of Le soleil à la Renaissance: Sciences et mythes (Brussels, 1965), esp. pp. 449–50 (my translation).

E.g. Pliny , Natural history, 2.31 (= Loeb, i, 242–3). Cf. Dante , Purgatorio, 16.107.

E.g.: Aëtius, 2.20.13 = DK A56, discussed Guthrie W. K. C. , A history of Greek philosophy (Cambridge, 1962–90), i, 286, ii, 192–5; Virgil , Aeneid, 6.641 (= Loeb, i, 550–1); Ulansey David , “Mithras and the hypercosmic Sun”, on pp. 257–64 of Hinnells John (ed.), Studies in Mithraism (Rome, 1994); Lewy , Chaldean oracles (ref. 28), 151–3; Gruppe , Griechische mythologie (ref. 74), 1467.

The story of the polar Sun is very large, uncertain, and poorly developed in the literature, so only to be hinted at here. But cf. Ulansey , “Mithras and the hypercosmic Sun” (ref. 83, expanding upon Ulansey , Origins (ref. 59)); Butterworth E. A. S. , The tree at the navel of the Earth (Berlin, 1970), 5, 67, 124–5127; Menzel Wolfgang , Die vorchristliche Unsterblichkeitslehre (Leipzig, 1870), 36–73; Snodgrass , Architecture (ref. 68), 93–101, 118, 240, 284; Eliade , Images (ref. 52), 46.

For another example of Dante's point-of-light being replaced by a Sun, see Giovanni di Paolo's depiction of the Paradiso 28 episode (reprod. Di Paolo Giovanni Pope-Hennessy Joh , Paradiso: The illuminations to Dante's Divine Comedy by Giovanni di Paolo (London, 1993), 165).

Wallraff Martin , Christus verus sol: Sonnenverehrung and Christentum in der Spätantike (Münster, 2001), 53, 82, 116, 118, 124, 185–6; Shrimplin , Sun symbolism (ref. 60), 129–34.

Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, cat. 003832373.