Peter Apian, Cosmographia (Antwerp, 1545)
In this introduction to astronomy and geography, the Moon lies embedded within a solid sphere carrying it around the Earth once a month. The solid sphere explains why the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. High overhead the stars appear fixed in the patterns of the constellations, as if they were bright points of light embedded within their own transparent celestial sphere, which rotates around the Earth once each day. Apian’s cosmic section illustrates the traditional Aristotelian understanding of the universe.
Another woodcut illustration in Apian’s textbook shows one of Aristotle’s arguments for the sphericity of the Earth: during a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow on the Moon is always curved. If the Earth were any other shape, some time or other its shadow would be angular. Therefore, neither Aristotle nor his later readers needed to circumnavigate the globe to know that the Earth is round. The mistaken idea that Columbus faced opposition from flat-earthers is a modern myth.
