Lynda Harris

Independent Scholar

Abstract

Changing Images of the Milky Way during the Greco-Roman and Medieval Periods

Before the new Greek cosmological system was developed, many ancient cultures had pictured the Milky Way as a vertical axis or tree, which was seen as a route leading into the heavens of a layered universe. This model began to change from about the sixth century BC, when the image of a spherical earth and geocentric universe became increasingly widespread among the educated people of Greece. The new model, standardised by Ptolemy during the second century AD, visualised a universe comprised of eight concentric crystalline spheres surrounding a fixed earth. By the Middle Ages, the Ptolemaic system had become the established picture of the cosmos in Europe and the Islamic world.

Losing its old vertical image, the Milky Way was now pictured as a circular band surrounding the spherical earth. Now known as the Milky Circle, it kept something of its earlier religious significance in the pagan world. In Rome it was visualised as a post-mortem place of purification, located below the sphere of the moon. With the establishment of traditional Christianity, the Milky Way’s position became unclear. It had always been a scientific puzzle to thinkers trying to analyse its substance and define its place in the Ptolemaic universe, and its true nature remained unresolved. In one of its most intriguing identities, originated by the thirteenth century astrologer Michael Scot, it migrated to the sphere of the fixed stars where it became a mysterious, living constellation, known as the Daemon Meridianus.

Biographical Details

Lynda Harris has degrees in history and the history of art from Bryn Mawr College and Boston University; also the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (M.Phil.) From 1976-92 she taught extra-mural classes in Renaissance art (diploma level) and mythology and art for the University of London. From 1993 she has been engaged mainly in writing and research, with occasional lectures at various venues. Her publications include The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch’, (Floris Books, Edinburgh 1995,  second edition April 2002.)