Abstract
Two cosmological models predominated in early European astronomy: the geocentric model, which placed the Earth in the center of the universe, and the heliocentric model, which placed the Sun in the center. Along the way there have been hybrids, but in all cases either our planet or our Sun has been in the center (or close to the center) of everything. This “everything” was skewed toward our solar system, in that the orbits of the Sun, Moon, and known planets were featured in individual concentric spheres, with all the stars lumped together in the next sphere, followed by a few additional spheres representing heaven. We now know that our Sun and its planets are located near the edge of a galaxy of millions of stars, and that our galaxy itself is just one of a plethora of other galaxies expanding from each other, with no clear center. But this understanding was not developed until the last century, so it is not relevant for most of the star maps we will be discussing in this book.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Bini, D. (ed.) (1977) Astrologia: Art and Culture in the Renaissance. Modena, Italy: Biblioteca Estense Universitaria di Modena.
Brown, B. (1932) Astronomical Atlases, Maps and Charts. London: Search Publishing.
Campion, N. (2000) Babylonian astrology: Its origin and legacy in Europe. In: H. Selin (ed.), Astronomy across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Cornish, A. (1993) Dante’s moral cosmology. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Crowe, M.J. (2001) The Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution, 2nd revised edn. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Donahue, W.H. (1993) Kepler. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Drake, Stillman (1993) Galileo. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Dreyer, J.L.E. (1953) A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, 2nd edn. New York: Dover Publications.
Edison, E. and Savage-Smith, E. (2004) Medieval Views of the Cosmos. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J. (1993) Ptolemy. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Evans, J. (1998) The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Ferguson, K. (2002) Tycho and Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens. New York: Walker & Co.
Flammarion, C. (1894) Popular Astronomy (1st American edition, translated by J.E. Gore). New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Gingerich, O. (1992) The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History. Cambridge, MA: Sky Publishing.
Gingerich, O. (1993) The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: American Institute of Physics.
Gingerich, O. (2004) The Book Nobody Read. New York: Walker & Co.
Goddu, A. (2006) Reflections on the origin of Copernicus’s cosmology. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 37, 37–53.
Grant, Edward. (1993) Medieval cosmology. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Grendler, P.F. (1984) Aldus Manutius: Humanist, Teacher, and Printer. Providence, RI: The John Carter Brown Library.
Heath, T.L. (1991) Greek Astronomy. New York: Dover Publications.
Heninger, S.K. Jr. (2004) The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press.
Hetherington, N.S. (1993) The presocratics. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Hetherington, N.S. (1993) Plato’s cosmology. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Hetherington, N.S. (1993) Aristotle’s cosmology. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Hoskin, M. (1997) Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Hoskin, M. (2003) The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jardine, L. (1998) Wordly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Jones, A. (1996) Later Greek and Byzantine astronomy. In: C. Walker (ed.), Astronomy before the Telescope. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Kanas, N. (2002) Mapping the solar system: Depictions from antiquarian star atlases. Mercator’s World, 7, 40–46.
Kanas, N. (2003) From Ptolemy to the Renaissance: How classical astronomy survived the Dark Ages. Sky and Telescope, January, 50–58.
Kanas, N. (2005) Are celestial maps really maps? Journal of the International Map Collectors’ Society, 101, 19–29.
Kanas, N. (2007) Sacrobosco’s De Sphaera: Required reading for astronomy in early European universities. Griffith Observer, 71(3), 2–14.
King, D.A. (1996) Islamic astronomy. In: C. Walker (ed.), Astronomy before the Telescope. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
King, D.A. (2000) Mathematical astronomy in Islamic civilization. In: H. Selin (ed.), Astronomy across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Lee, D. (transl. and ed.) (1977) Plato: Timaeus and Critias. London: Penguin Classics.
Lerner, M-P. and Verdet, J-P. (1993) Copernicus. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Mair, A.W. and Mair, G.R. (transl.) (1989, [1955]) Callimachus (Hymns and Epigrams), Lycophron, Aratus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library].
McCluskey, S.C. (1998) Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Neugebauer, O. (1969) The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edn. New York: Dover Publications.
North, J. (1995) The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Page, S. (2002) Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Pannekoek, A. (1989) A History of Astronomy. New York: Dover Publications.
Paschos, E.A and Sotiroudis, P. (1998) The Schemata of the Stars: Byzantine Astronomy from A.D. 1300. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
Robbins, F.E. (transl. and ed.) (1994 [1940]) Ptolemy: Tetrabiblos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library].
Saliba, G. (1994) A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories during the Golden Age of Islam. New York: New York University Press.
Stolzenberg, D. (2001) The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries.
Swerdlow, N.M. (1996) Astronomy in the Renaissance. In: C. Walker (ed.), Astronomy before the Telescope. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Swerdlow, N.M. (2004) Galileo’s horoscopes. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 35, 135–141.
Swerdlow, N.M. (2004) The empirical foundations of Ptolemy’s planetary theory. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 35, 249–271.
Thorndike, L. (1949) The “Sphere” of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Thurston, H. (1996) Early Astronomy. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Toomer, G.J. (1996) Ptolemy and his Greek predecessors. In: C. Walker (ed.), Astronomy before the Telescope. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Toomer, G.J. (transl. and ed.) (1998) Ptolemy’s Almagest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Van Helden, A. (transl.) (1989) Sidereus Nuncius or the Sidereal Messenger: Galileo Galilei. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Warner, Deborah J. (1979) The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography 1500–1800. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
Westfall, R.S. (1993) Newtonian cosmology. In: N.S. Hetherington (ed.), Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives. New York: Garland Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Praxis Publishing Ltd, Chichester, UK
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kanas, N. (2007). European cosmology. In: Star Maps. Springer Praxis Books. Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71669-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71669-5_3
Publisher Name: Praxis
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-71668-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-71669-5
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)