Renaissance Magic and Science

Picatrix is the name used today, for a 400-page book of magic and astrology originally written in Arabic under the title غاية الحكيم Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, The Aim of the Sage or The Goal of The Wise; a "handbook of talismanic magic".  It has significantly influenced West European esotericism from Marsilio Ficino in the 15th century, to Thomas Campanella in the 17th century.

Picatrix Venus Talisman

The work's point of departure is the unity of reality divided into symmetrical and corresponding degrees, planes or worlds: a reality stretched between two poles: the original One, God the source of all existence, and man, the microcosm, who, with his science (scientia) brings the dispersion back to its origin, identifying and using their correspondences.

Anticipation of experimental method

 Adocentyn

Adocentyn is the name of the mythopoetic Egyptian city constructed by Hermes Trismegistus as recorded in the infamous grimoire, Ġāyat al-Ḥakīm (“Aim of the Sage”) better known as Picatrix.  

Thrice-Great Hermes constructed the city of Adocentyn as a Temple of the Sun so that he could “know the volume of the Nile,” and that it was built opposite of the Mountain of the Moon. As a Temple of the Sun, Adocentyn represents the Ruach-consciousness of man – constructed by his particular genius and yet inspired by the Divine. This man-made edifice thus symbolically towers across from and yet mirrors the Mountains of the Moon, which represent the vast forces of Nature – specifically the emotional-instinctual nature of Man: the Nephesh. The Nile was truly a source of Life and thus became equated with the highest divine principles; to fully measure its volume therefore means nothing less than the conscious apprehension of the Divine Mind, the attainment of Gnosis.

Adocentyn was “a House of Talismans.” We are told that the four walls of the city of Adocentyn bore great statues of the four kerubic creatures of the zodiac which were ensouled with spirits, and these talismanic statues served as the guardians of the gates of the city. At the center of Adocentyn was constructed a great tower from which shone a different colored light each day of the week.

Ghayat al-hakim (Picatrix)

Tommaso Campanella

 (5 September 1568 – 21 May 1639) Campanella was a Dominican friar, Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.

 His most famous work, The City of the Sun.

Metaphysica, 1638

John Dee

John Dee's Heptarchic Lamen in Enochian (left) and English (right)

Thaumaturgy is the capability of a magician or a saint to work magic or miracles, "the use of magic for non-religious purposes; the art and science of 'wonder-working;' using magic to actually change things in the physical world" It is sometimes translated into English as wonderworking. A practitioner of thaumaturgy is a "thaumaturgus", "thaumaturge", "thaumaturgist" or "miracle worker".

John Dee and Edward Kelley

John Dee and Edward Kelley

Some early examples of "real, artificial magic."

From 1543, John Dee and his flying wooden beetle

Archytas of Tarentum, the father of Robotics
He was a scientist of the Pythagorean school and famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics, as well as a good friend of Plato.

The steam-powered pigeon of Archytas

Archytas engaged in advanced mathematics as part of his devotion to Pythagoras' teachings. The practitioners of mathēmatikoi acknowledged the religious underpinning of Pythagoreanism and engaged in mathēma (translated as "learning" or "studying") as part of their practice.
The practitioners of akousmatikoi believed that humans had to act in appropriate ways. Akousmata (translated as "oral saying") preserved all sayings of Pythagoras as divine dogma...resisted any reinterpretation or philosophic evolution of Pythagoras' teachings. The akousmatikoi philosophers refused to recognize that the continuous development of mathematical and scientific research conducted by the mathēmatikoi practitioners was in line with Pythagoras's intention. Until the demise of Pythagoreanism in the 4th century BC, the akousmatikoi continued to engage in a pious life by practicing silence, dressing simply and avoiding meat, for the purpose of attaining a privileged afterlife. The akousmatikoi engaged deeply in questions of Pythagoras' moral teachings, concerning matters such as harmony, justice, ritual purity and moral behavior. The word acousmatic, from the French acousmatique, is derived from the Greek word akousmatikoi (ἀκουσματικοί), which referred to probationary pupils of the philosopher Pythagoras who were required to sit in absolute silence while they listened to him deliver his lecture from behind a veil or screen to make them better concentrate on his teachings.
A sectarianism developed between the dogmatic akousmatikoi and the progressive mathēmatikoi.
This tension persisted until the 4th century BC, when the philosopher Archytas engaged in advanced mathematics as part of his devotion to Pythagoras' teachings.
The mathēmatikoi philosophers claimed that numbers were at the heart of everything and constructed a new view of the cosmos. In the mathēmatikoi tradition of Pythagoreanism the Earth was removed from the center of the universe. The mathēmatikoi believed that the Earth, along with other celestial bodies, orbited around a central fire. This, they believed, resembled a celestial harmony.

The Archytas curve

The Archytas curve is created by placing a semicircle (with a diameter of d) on the diameter of one of the two circles of a cylinder (which also has a diameter of d) such that the plane of the semicircle is at right angles to the plane of the circle and then rotating the semicircle about one of its ends in the plane of the cylinder's diameter. This rotation will cut out a portion of the cylinder forming the Archytas curve.
 ...basically the result of cutting out a torus formed by rotating a hemisphere of diameter d out of a cylinder also of diameter d. A cone can go through the same procedures also producing the Archytas curve.

Ctesibius Of Alexandria
 Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps, "father of pneumatics."

Ctesibius' organon hydraulis
Ctesibius' most commonly known invention today is a pipe organ (hydraulis), on which the invention of the piano was later based.

water clock or clepsydra ("water thief"). For more than 1,800 years the clepsydra was the most accurate clock ever constructed, until the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens' invention of the pendulum clock in 1656.

An aeolipile (or aeolipyle, or eolipile), also known as a Hero's engine, is a simple bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, much like a tip jet or rocket engine. In the 1st century AD, Hero of Alexandria described the device in Roman Egypt, and many sources give him the credit for its invention.


A brazen head, brass, or bronze head was a legendary automaton in the early modern period whose ownership was ascribed to late medieval scholars such as Roger Bacon who had developed a reputation as wizards. Made of brass or bronze, the male head was variously mecha
nical or magical; it was reputed to be able to correctly answer any question put to it, although it was sometimes restricted to "yes" or "no" answers.

Roger Bacon's assistant Miles is confronted by the Brazen Head in a 1905 retelling of the story.

Elizabethan woodcut of Miles playing his tambour while Friars Bacon and Bungay sleep and their Brazen Head speaks
"Time is. Time was. Time is past."

Title page of Sir Henry Billingsley's first English version of Euclid's Elements

One of the important early products of the English School was the first English translation of the Elements of Euclid. This translation was carried out by The Lord Mayor of London Sir Henry Billingsley and not from a Latin translation but direct from the Greek. Published in 1570 this mathematical milestone contained a preface as well as copious notes and supplementary material from John Dee and this preface is considered to be one of Dee’s most important mathematical works.

 John Dee, Monas hieroglyphica, 1564, title-page

Paracelsus and the new alchemy
He was a Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer of the German Renaissance, a pioneer in several aspects of the "medical revolution" of the Renaissance, emphasizing the value of observation in combination with received wisdom. He is credited as the "father of toxicology"

Theophrastus Phillipus Auroleus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541)

Paracelsus was one of the first medical professors to recognize that physicians required a solid academic knowledge in the natural sciences, especially chemistry. Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. From his study of the elements, Paracelsus adopted the idea of tripartite alternatives to explain the nature of medicine, taking the place of a combustible element (sulphur), a fluid and changeable element (mercury), and a solid, permanent element (salt). The first mention of the mercury-sulphur-salt model was in the Opus paramirum dating to about 1530. Paracelsus believed that the principles sulphur, mercury, and salt contained the poisons contributing to all diseases. He saw each disease as having three separate cures depending on how it was afflicted, either being caused by the poisoning of sulphur, mercury, or salt. Paracelsus drew the importance of sulphur, salt, and mercury from medieval alchemy, where they all occupied a prominent place. He demonstrated his theory by burning a piece of wood. The fire was the work of sulphur, the smoke was mercury, and the residual ash was salt. Paracelsus also believed that mercury, sulphur, and salt provided a good explanation for the nature of medicine because each of these properties existed in many physical forms. The tria prima also defined the human identity. Salt represented the body; mercury represented the spirit (imagination, moral judgment, and the higher mental faculties); sulphur represented the soul (the emotions and desires). By understanding the chemical nature of the tria prima, a physician could discover the means of curing disease. With every disease, the symptoms depended on which of the three principals caused the ailment. Paracelsus theorized that materials which are poisonous in large doses may be curative in small doses..what is now considered toxicology. He clearly expounded the concept of dose response in his Third Defense, where he stated that "Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison." (Sola dosis facit venenum "Only the dose makes the poison")

His hermetical beliefs were that sickness and health in the body relied upon the harmony of humans (microcosm) and nature (macrocosm). He took a different approach from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. As a result of this hermetical idea of harmony, the universe's macrocosm was represented in every person as a microcosm. An example of this correspondence is the doctrine of signatures used to identify curative powers of plants. If a plant looked like a part of the body, then this signified its ability to cure this given anatomy. Therefore, the root of the orchid looks like a testicle and can therefore heal any testicle-associated illness. Paracelsus mobilized the microcosm-macrocosm theory to demonstrate the analogy between the aspirations to salvation and health. As humans must ward off the influence of evil spirits with morality, they must also ward off diseases with good health.

Paracelsus believed that true anatomy could only be understood once the nourishment for each part of the body was discovered. He believed that one must therefore know the influence of the stars on these particular body parts. Diseases were caused by poisons brought from the stars. However, 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, but also because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not. Paracelsus claimed the complete opposite of Galen, in that like cures like. If a star or poison caused a disease, then it must be countered by another star or poison. Because everything in the universe was interrelated, beneficial medical substances could be found in herbs, minerals, and various chemical combinations thereof. Paracelsus viewed the universe as one coherent organism that is pervaded by a uniting lifegiving spirit, and this in its entirety, humans included, was 'God'. His beliefs put him at odds with the Catholic Church, for which there necessarily had to be a difference between the creator and the created.

Hippocrates put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These ideas were further developed by Galen into an extremely influential and highly persistent set of medical beliefs that were to last until the mid-1850s. Contrarily, Paracelsus believed in three humors: salt (representing stability), sulphur (representing combustibility), and mercury (representing liquidity); he defined disease as a separation of one humor from the other two. He believed that body organs functioned alchemically, that is, they separated pure from impure. The dominant medical treatments in Paracelsus's time were specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" combined with purging and bloodletting to restore the balance of the four humors. Paracelsus supplemented and challenged this view with his beliefs that illness was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents. He objected to excessive bloodletting, saying that the process disturbed the harmony of the system, and that blood could not be purified by lessening its quantity.

Paracelsus also described four elemental beings, each corresponding to one of the four elements: Salamanders, which correspond to fire; Gnomes, corresponding to earth; Undines, corresponding to water; and Sylphs, corresponding to air.

Magus as Doctor

"Azoth" on the pommel of his "sword."

Believed to be the Universal Solvent, Universal Cure, and Elixir of Life (elixir vitae), the Azoth is said to embody all medicines, as well as the first principles of all other substances. In late-16th-century Paracelsianism,  Paracelsus (d. 1541) was said to have achieved the Azoth, and in the "Rosicrucian" portrait of 1567 the pommel of his sword bears the inscription Azoth.

The Azoth is believed to be the mysterious evolutionary force responsible for the drive towards physical and spiritual perfection. Thus, the concept of the Azoth is analogous to the light of nature or mind of God.

Because the Azoth is believed to contain the complete information of the whole universe, it is also used as another word for the Philosopher's Stone. One of the hints for the theoretical preparation of the Stone is Ignis et Azoth tibi sufficiunt ("Fire and Azoth are sufficient"). There are scores of esoteric drawings depicting the Azoth and how it is used in the Great Work of alchemy. Examples include the Azoth of the Philosophers by Basil Valentine and the Hieroglyphic Monad of Dr. John Dee.

The term was considered by occultist Aleister Crowley to represent a unity of beginning and ending by tying together the first and last letters of the alphabets of antiquity; A/𐤀 (Aleph, the first character in the Phoenician alphabet), Z (Zeta, the final character in Latin), O/Ω (Omega, the final character in Greek) and Th/ת (Tav (pronounced "Tau") the final character in Hebrew). In this way permeation and totality of beginning and end symbolised the supreme wholeness and the universal synthesis of opposites as a 'cancellation' (i.e. solvent) or cohesion (i.e. medicine), and in such a way is similar to the philosophical "absolute" of Hegel's dialectic. Crowley further made reference in his works referring to Azoth as "the fluid" calling it the universal solvent or universal medicine of the medieval alchemical philosophers, as a unifier or unification of a certain extreme instance beholden to a contradict, unreconcilable nature if otherwise sought apart of the philosophical ideal of Azoth.

Francesco Giorgi

Francesco Giorgi Veneto (1466–1540) was an Italian Franciscan friar, and author of the work De harmonia mundi totius from 1525. He fully developed the theme of universal harmony, of the harmonious relationships between man, the microcosm, and the macrocosm. He was greatly influenced by Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum.

Francesco Giorgi, De harmonia mundi, Venice, 1525. Title-page, with note by the censor that the work abounds in arguments of Platonists and Cabalists and is therefore to be read with caution

"That Giorgi was a Christian Cabalist is a statement that means, not merely that he was influenced vaguely by the Cabalist literature, but that he believed that Cabala could prove, or already had proved, the truth of Christianity."--Yates

Numerological relationships between the Three Worlds. Diagram illustrating discourse by Nicolas Le Fèvre de la Boderie in Francesco Giorgi L'Harmonie du monde (French translation by Guy Le Fèvre de la Boderie of De harmonia mundi), Paris, 1578

Heliocentricity

Philolaus  (c. 470 – c. 385 BC) was a Greek Pythagorean and pre-Socratic philosopher. He argued that at the foundation of everything is the part played by the limiting and limitless, which combine together in a harmony. He is also credited with originating the theory that the Earth was not the center of the Universe.  Philolaus was the successor of Pythagoras.

An astronomical system positing that the Earth, Moon, Sun and planets revolve around an unseen "Central Fire" was developed in the 5th century BC and has been attributed to the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus

The system has been called "the first coherent system in which celestial bodies move in circles", anticipating Copernicus in moving "the earth from the center of the cosmos [and] making it a planet".

Philolaus believed there was a "Counter-Earth" (Antichthon) orbiting the "Central Fire" and that neither were visible from Earth. The upper illustration depicts Earth at night while the lower one depicts Earth in the day.

The Central Fire (Dios phylakê) was also called "Watch-tower of Zeus" or "Hearth-altar of the universe". Rather than there being two separate fiery heavenly bodies in this system, Philolaus may have believed that the Sun was a mirror, reflecting the heat and light of the Central Fire. The 16th–17th century European thinker Johannes Kepler believed that Philolaus's Central Fire was the sun, but that the Pythagoreans felt the need to hide that teaching from non-believers.

Athanasius Kircher Système cosmique de Ptolémée à Copernic

The Egyptian order puts the sun just above the moon, below the other five planets, not in the middle of the seven, as in the Chaldean-Ptolemaic system.

Macrobius

Dream of Scipio
The Somnium Scipionis is a portion of the sixth and final book from Cicero's De re publica, but because large parts of Cicero's whole work are missing, Somnium Scipionis represents nearly all that remains of the sixth book. The main reason that the Somnium Scipionis survived was because in the fifth-century, the Latin writer Macrobius wrote a Neoplatonic commentary on the work, in which he excerpted large portions from Cicero. 

The five zones of the earth, according to Macrobius

Macrobius T and O Medieval World Map

from a 12th-century manuscript of Macrobius's Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis. The Universe, the Earth in the centre, surrounded by the five planets, the sun and the moon, within the zodiacal signs.

Upon his arrival in Africa, a guest at the court of Massinissa, Scipio Aemilianus is visited by his dead grandfather-by-adoption, Scipio Africanus, hero of the Second Punic War. He finds himself looking down upon Carthage "from a high place full of stars, shining and splendid". His future is foretold by his grandfather, and great stress is placed upon the loyal duty of the Roman soldier, who will as a reward after death "inhabit... that circle that shines forth among the stars which you have learned from the Greeks to call the Milky Way". Nevertheless, Scipio Aemilianus sees that Rome is an insignificant part of the earth, which is itself dwarfed by the stars.

Then, Scipio Aemilianus sees that the universe is made up of nine celestial spheres. The earth is the inner most, whereas the highest is heaven, which "contains all the rest, and is itself the supreme God" (unus est caelestis [...] qui reliquos omnes complectitur, summus ipse deus). In between these two extremes lie the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (which proceed from lowest to highest). As he stares in wonder at the universe, Scipio Aemilianus begins to hear a "loud and agreeable" (tantus et tam dulcis) sound, which Scipio Africanus identifies as the musica universalis: the "music of the spheres". He explains to his grandson that because the planets are set apart at fixed intervals, a sound is produced as they move. The moon, being the lowest sphere and the one closest to Earth, emits the lowest sound of all, whereas the heaven emits the highest. The Earth, on the other hand, does not move, remaining motionless at the center of the universe.

The tale is modelled on "The Myth of Er" in Plato's Republic. Although the story of Er records a near-death experience, while the journey of Scipio's "disembodied soul" takes place in a dream, both give examples of belief in astral projection.

Macrobius pointed out that Plato accepted the Egyptian order with the sun nearer to the earth.

The Vision of a Knight, also called The Dream of Scipio or Allegory, is a small egg tempera painting on poplar by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, finished in 1504–1505.

 The sleeping knight represents the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus (185–129 BC) who dreamed that he had to choose between Virtue (behind whom is a steep and rocky path) and Pleasure (in looser robes). 

Claudius Ptolemy  Koinē Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaúdios Ptolemaîos  Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; (c. AD 100 – c.  170) was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, under the rule of the Roman Empire

Ptolemy I Soter 

"Ptolemy the Savior"; (c. 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a companion and historian of Alexander the Great of the Kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece who became ruler of Egypt, part of Alexander's former empire. Ptolemy was pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 305/304 BC to his death. He was the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty which ruled Egypt until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, turning the country into a Hellenistic kingdom and Alexandria into a center of Greek culture. Ptolemy, one of the seven somatophylakes (bodyguards) who served as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself Ptolemy I, later known as Sōter "Saviour". All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy. Ptolemaic queens regnant, some of whom were married to their brothers, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.

Serapis

The cult of Serapis was introduced during the third century BC on the orders of Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter of the Ptolemaic Kingdom as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm.  The Greeks melded Osiris with their underworldly Hades to produce the essentially Alexandrian syncretism known as Serapis.

Ptolemaic bronze Harpocrates

Harpocrates was the god of silence, secrets and confidentiality in the Hellenistic religion developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus, who represented the newborn sun, rising each day at dawn. Harpocrates's name was a Hellenization of the Egyptian Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered, meaning "Horus the Child"...with his mother Isis and his father Serapis.

Isis, Serapis and their child Harpocrates (Louvre)

Aphrodite gave a rose to her son Eros, the god of love; he, in turn, gave it to Harpocrates to ensure that his mother's indiscretions (or those of the gods in general, in other accounts) were kept under wraps. This gave roses the connotation of secrecy (a rose suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber pledged all present – sub rosa "under the rose"), which continued through the Middle Ages and through the modern era... a syncresis that had already resulted in the figure of Harpocratic Cupid. The phrase has also been understood to refer to the mysterious virginal conception of Christ.

 Horus the Child became the special protector of children and their mothers. As he was healed of a poisonous snake bite by Ra he became a symbol of hope in the gods looking after suffering humanity. "Harpocrates is the Babe in the Egg of Blue that sits upon the lotus flower in the Nile".

Harpo Marx

 The association of Harpocrates with silence and secrecy originates from a misunderstanding of Egyptian depictions of the god. Heru-pa-khered was represented as a naked youth with a finger-to-mouth gesture—in Egyptian artwork this gesture imitates the hieroglyph for child and is used to represent youth, but was misunderstood by Greeks and Romans as a gesture for silence.

Engraving of a crowned Ptolemy being guided by the muse of Astronomy, Urania

Ptolemy with an armillary sphere model, by Joos van Ghent and Pedro Berruguete, 1476

Armillary sphere diagram

The Greek astronomer Hipparchus or credited Eratosthenes as the inventor of the armillary sphere. The name of this device comes ultimately from the Latin armilla (circle, bracelet), since it has a skeleton made of graduated metal circles linking the poles and representing the equator, the ecliptic, meridians and parallels. Usually a ball representing the Earth or, later, the Sun is placed in its center. It is used to demonstrate the motion of the stars around the Earth. Before the advent of the European telescope in the 17th century, the armillary sphere was the prime instrument of all astronomers in determining celestial positions. With the Earth as center, an armillary sphere is known as Ptolemaic. With the Sun as center, it is known as Copernican.

Figure of the heavenly bodies — An illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho, 1568

  Ptolemy's geocentric model, developed in the 2nd century CE, served as the basis for preparing astrological and astronomical charts for over 1500 years.

 Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 2nd century AD finally standardised geocentrism. His main astronomical work, the Almagest, was the culmination of centuries of work by Hellenic, Hellenistic and Babylonian astronomers.

An edition in Latin of the Almagestum in 1515The work was originally titled "Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις" (Mathēmatikē Syntaxis) in Ancient Greek, and also called Syntaxis Mathematica or Almagestum in Latin.

16th-century representation of Ptolemy's geocentric model in Peter Apian's Cosmographia, 1524

• The celestial realm is spherical, and moves as a sphere.
• The Earth is a sphere.
• The Earth is at the center of the cosmos.
• The Earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point.^[5]
• The Earth does not move.
• Ptolemy assigned the following order to the planetary spheres, beginning with the innermost:
• 1. Moon
  2. Mercury
  3. Venus
  4. Sun
  5. Mars
  6. Jupiter
  7. Saturn
  8. Sphere of fixed stars
  9. Primum Mobile ("First Moved")

The geocentric Ptolemaic system of the universe depicted by Andreas Cellarius, 1660–1661

Claudius Ptolemy (Ptolomeus in Latin) observing a huge armillary .

Pages from 1550 Annotazione on Sacrobosco's Tractatus de Sphaera, showing the Ptolemaic system.

In the Ptolemaic system, each planet is moved by a system of two spheres: one called its deferent; the other, its epicycle. The deferent is a circle whose center point, called the eccentric and marked in the diagram with an X, is removed from the Earth. The original purpose of the eccentric was to account for the difference in length of the seasons (northern autumn was about five days shorter than spring during this time period) by placing the Earth away from the center of rotation of the rest of the universe.

Divinity of the Sun, the 2nd God, the visible God

Lux Dei of Pseudo Dionysus

Hermes to Asclepius, "The sun illuminates the other stars not so much by the power of its light, as by its divinity and holiness, and you should hold him, O Asclepius, to be the second god, governing all things and spreading his light on all the living beings of the world, both those which have a soul and those which have not."

Plato's sun as the intelligible splendour...

• noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
• dianoia (discursive thought)
• pistis (belief or confidence)
• eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)
• The line image lets Plato point out instructive ratios concerning truth quality amongst the states. Specifically:
  
  1. As Being is to becoming, so Knowledge is to Opinion.
  2. As Knowledge is to Opinion, so noesis is to pistis,
  3. And dianoia is to eikasia,
  4. And (though Plato does not say this explicitly, but rather lets us see it ourselves) noesis is to dianoia.
  5. 

The archaeological site of Plato's academy. (looks legit)

Nicolaus Copernicus, 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe

Aristarchus of Samos
 Nicolaus Copernicus attributed the heliocentric theory to Aristarchus (310 – c. 230 BC)

The Commentariolus is Nicolaus Copernicus's brief outline of an early version of his revolutionary heliocentric theory of the universe

The seven postulates[edit]

1. Celestial bodies do not all revolve around a single point.
2. The centre of the Earth is the centre of the lunar sphere—the orbit of the Moon around the Earth.
3. All the spheres rotate around the Sun, which is near the centre of the Universe.
4. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is an insignificant fraction of the distance from the Earth and the Sun to the stars, so parallax is not observed in the stars.
5. The stars are immovable; their apparent daily motion is caused by the daily rotation of the Earth.
6. The Earth is moved in a sphere around the Sun, causing the apparent annual migration of the Sun; the Earth has more than one motion.
7. The Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun causes the seeming reverse in direction of the motions of the planets.

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book, first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire, offered an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system, which had been widely accepted since ancient times. "...a great achievement in pure mathematical calculation."--Yates

Johannes Petreius, printed the original edition of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium in 1543, after an initiative of Georg Joachim Rheticus and Tiedemann Giese.

Tiedemann Giese, mentor to Copernicus

Georg Joachim Rheticus,  Nicolaus Copernicus's sole pupil.

The Copernican Revolution was the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Beginning with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, contributions to the “revolution” continued until finally ending with Isaac Newton’s work over a century later.

The importance for Copernicus of the the sun in a religious and mystical sense, speaks of the influence of the Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean renaissance on him, regarding Hermes Trismegistus, Ficino and Philolaus. (cf. Aquinas). Giordano Bruno would later champion the Copernican sun, in close relationship to Ficino's sun magic, as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries, not a purely mathematical hypothesis. (Yates)

Wright's Celestial Map of the Universe, 1742. A synopsis of the universe, or, the visible world epitomiz'd / by Thomas Wright of Durham.