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The Virgin and the Telescope: The Moons of Cigoli and Galileo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Sara Elizabeth Booth  and
Albert van Helden
Sara Elizabeth Booth
Affiliation:
University of Houston and Rice University
Albert van Helden
Affiliation:
University of Houston and Rice University
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Abstract

In 1612, Lodovico Cigoli completed a fresco in the Pauline chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome depicting Apocalypse 12: “A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.” He showed the crescent Moon with spots, as his friend Galileo had observed with the newly invented telescope. Considerations of the orthodox view of the perfect Moon as held by philosophers have led historians to ask why this clearly imperfect Moon in a religious painting raised no eyebrows. We argue that when considered in the context of biblical interpretation and the rhetoric of the Counter-Reformation, the imperfect Moon under the woman's feet was entirely consistent with traditional interpretations of Apocalypse 12.

Type
2. The Context of the Artists: Astronomy and its New Representations
Information
Science in Context , Volume 13 , Issue 3-4 , Autumn-Winter 2000 , pp. 463 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2000

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