Some people say that a 17th-century painting in an Italian church depicting the glorification of the Eucharist also includes a very strange object that looks like Sputnik or something out of Star Wars.
Or are our 21st-century brains supplying an explanation based on matching patterns we already know? Are we just imposing ideas upon something even as we lack the context of the artist Salimbeni?
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No, it is just another example of how ignorant modern Americans are. We know nothing of the classical view of the universe—Ptolemy, Aristotle, celestial spheres, and the Prime Mover. Therefore nothing classical can be described, much less understood, without inane references to 20th century technological mundanity.
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/retrograde/aristotle.html
Dear Dom,
Perhaps, because I am a bit tired, I can understand the stupid people who think that the Earth (being created by the Trinity) with the two pencils/styli (?) on it looks like a satellite.
Thanks for the laugh!
Yeah, it looks like the Father and the Son inscribing the world with something. Perhaps symbolically writing (revealing) the Word to the world.
What did art interpreters before Sputnik think it was?
It just looks like the globe/cosmos-sphere. The Father and the Son both hold scepters.
Back when Salimbeni put it up there, people probably complained about how the scepters made the world look like sticks were sticking out of it. There were probably rumors that they represented the Poles, or similar silliness.