Dante and the early astronomers

Dante Alighieri · en
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    [4] Fractions omitted.
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        PRECESSION OF EQUINOXES: 50·25 seconds of arc
            in one year; that is, 360 degrees (a revolution
            among the stars of the zodiac) in 25,800 years
            nearly.




_II. THE BEGINNINGS OF ASTRONOMY._


                             Note.

    As these pages are passing through the press,
    a letter from Mr. Maunder appears in _The
    Observatory_ for August 1913 on “The Origin of
    the Constellations,” and this should be consulted
    by anyone interested in the subject. Mr. Maunder
    points out that Ptolemy gives us much more precise
    information than Aratus regarding the southern
    limits of the ancient constellations, and that the
    changes which he says he ventured to make in their
    traditional forms are extremely insignificant.

    Mr. Maunder further observes that the celestial
    equator of Aratus cannot give any clue to the
    origin of the constellations (as R. Brown
    suggested), but only to the date of the work from
    which Aratus copied, when some astronomer had drawn
    the equator through the constellations. A slight
    alteration of the text, Mr. Maunder says, would
    give a correct equator for the date B.C.
    1000.

    See also Mr. and Mrs. Maunder’s article in _Monthly
    Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society_ for
    March 1904.

    Proctor’s “Origin of the Constellation Figures” is
    in his book _Myths and Marvels of Astronomy_.




II. THE BEGINNINGS OF ASTRONOMY.


The sky appears to us like an arch, embracing all our lives, Dante
says.[5] From the dawn of intelligence man must have recognized his
dependence upon the all-embracing heavens, especially the sun, without
which life would be impossible. The consciousness expressed itself in
many ways: in adoration of the sky, the sun, moon, and hosts of heaven;
in superstitious fear which regarded events on earth as directly
controlled by the heavenly bodies; in careful watching and recording of
their movements for useful purposes. Thus, long before astronomy became
an exact science, and was studied simply for its own sake, patient
observers had laid the foundations, and were familiar with many of the
movements we have been describing.

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[5] Conv. IV., xxiii. 56, 57.
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