Related papers: A palace for astronomy in Buenos Aires
Cultural heritage relating to the sky in the form of sundials, old observatories and the like, are commonly found in many cities in the Old World, but rarely in the New. This paper examines astronomical heritage embodied in the Barolo…
Since the time of ancient civilizations, cosmology had a privileged place within the various artistic and literary manifestations. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, one of the masterpieces in literature and thought of the Western World,…
Some verses of Dante Alighieri suggest his astrological sign and his probable date of birth. This leads us to reflect on the different methods, increasingly divergent, with which sciences as opposed to beliefs approach reality.
In Dantean cosmography the Universe is described as a series of concentric spheres with all the known planets embedded in their rotation motion, the Earth located at the centre and Lucifer at the centre of the Earth. Beyond these "celestial…
After presenting the main characteristics of the Sky of Salamanca, we analyse whether what is represented in it is motivated by astrological or astronomical considerations. We will see that the astrological explanation based on the system…
In Northern Italy, between 1796 and 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte formed a Republic, and then a Kingdom, controlled by France. Milan was the capital of the State, and the Brera Palace was the main cultural centre, as regards both the arts and…
This essay demonstrates the key role of Astronomy in Botticelli's "Venus and Mars-NG915" painting, to date only very partially understood. Worthwhile coincidences among the principles of the Ficinian philosophy, the historical characters…
"El Cielo de Salamanca" ("The Sky of Salamanca") is a quarter-sphere-shaped vault 8.70 metres in diameter. It was painted sometime between 1480 and 1493 and shows five zodiacal constellations, three boreal and six austral. The Sun and…
The scientific revolution in the first half of the seventeenth century, pioneered by figures such as Harvey, Galileo, Gassendi, Kepler and Descartes, was disseminated to the northernmost countries in Europe with considerable delay. In this…
When visiting the Museum of Modern Art's special exhibit ''van Gogh and the Colors of the Night (New York, USA, 2008)'' I was impressed by the artist's effort to paint and write about landscapes and life scenes at night. At the same time a…
Donati's comet was one of the most impressive astronomical events of the nineteenth century. Its extended sword-like tail was a spectacular sight that inspired several literary and artistic representations. Traces of Donati's comet are…
In this work, an attempt is presented to understand the contribution of Galileo Galilei in the field of the History of Ideas, from the moment he points a spyglass to the sky. For that, it was previously necessary that Giotto painting the…
Astronomical and cosmological knowledge up to the dawn of modern science was profoundly embedded in myth, religion and superstition. Many of these inventions of the human mind remain today stored in different supports: medieval engravings,…
From al-Sufi's tenth-century observation of the Andromeda Galaxy as a "little cloud" to contemporary space missions, Islamic astronomy represents a millennium-spanning tradition of innovation and knowledge. This study traces its trajectory…
In his treatise on light, written in about 1225, Robert Grosseteste describes a cosmological model in which the Universe is created in a big-bang like explosion and subsequent condensation. He postulates that the fundamental coupling of…
During the first few centuries CE, the centre of the known world gradually shifted from Alexandria to Constantinople. Combined with a societal shift from pagan beliefs to Christian doctrines, Antiquity gave way to the Byzantine era. While…
The Domus Aurea, Nero's last "palace" constructed in the very heart of ancient Rome, is a true masterpiece of Roman architecture. We explore here symbolic aspects of the emperor's project, analysing the archaeoastronomy of the best…
It is widely believed that the advance of science in the Islamic world after the mid-fifteenth century A.D. suffered a decline. For the purpose of examining this belief, a manuscript by Qasim ali al-Qayini (ca. A.D.1685) was chosen based on…
Our paper offers an analysis of how Dante describes the tre giri ("three rings") of the Holy Trinity in Paradiso 33 of the Divine Comedy. We point to the myriad possibilities Dante may have been envisioning when he describes his vision of…
Cosmology, as a science, started at the beginning of the last century with the advent of the Einstein cosmological equations. Based on these equations, the present main stream cosmological model is the well known big-bang, this name…