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Detail to Almagestum Novum by Giovanni Battista Riccioli

G.B. Riccioli, Almagestum Novum (1651). The image portrays Urania, the muse of astronomy, weighing up the rival systems of Copernicus, in which the earth moves round the sun, and Riccioli himself, in which the earth remains stationary at the center of the universe. The older system of Ptolemy has already been discarded and lies on the ground alongside.

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