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Stars in Their Eyes: Art and Medieval Astronomy (blogs.bl.uk)
24 points by prismatic on Jan 25, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


I find this stuff fascinating. I also learned something too.

If you look closely at Isidore of Seville’s De Natura Rerum image there is (disturbingly) a planet called Lucifer. Being now terrified, I immediately google around to figure out what is going on in this diagram.

If you notice there are are actual 3 planets that seem odd here: Lucifer, Vesper and Phaeton (Fofton).

Phaeton is the mythical planet between Mars and Jupiter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeton_(hypothetical_planet) Interestingly it was called out in a 10th century manuscript. Likely a visible comet that was thought to be a planet.

Lucifer and Vesper were both Venus. However, in the 10th century people didn't know they were the same planet (possibly). In the later manuscripts you clearly see "Venus". By the 14th century a more scientific approach was in order apparently.

But in the old manuscripts you have the planets "Lucifer" and "Vesper". This idea came from the fact that you can see Venus before the sun rises in the morning and later on after the sun sets in the evening. These were believed (by some i guess) to be different planets, "The morning star" and "The evening star" - Lucifer and Vesper.

Apparently the greeks knew that the two stars were the same planet but called them "Phosphorus" and "Hesperus" (BTW this gives rise to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frege's_Puzzle which is interesting in itself)

Even earlier than that the Cannanites called them "Shachar" and "Shalim". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Canaanite_religion

The cannanite story behind these is a tale of a god rising to the heights of the sun (by day) but falling to the earth by night. It's believed that the text in Isaiah 14 which calls out the name Lucifer is comparing the Babylonian ruler to the myth of the morning star and the hubris that it entails.


But they were correct that the comet was a planet. It wasnt a star, not fixed to the celestial sphere with the other stars. So it was a wanderer and therefor a "planet". By thier definitions they were correct.

The fact that some later upstart scientists looking for a headline decided to change the planet definition doesnt mean that previous scientists had made mistakes.




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