[I.] It might seem [to be] sufficiently demonstrated, the system of the Egyptians, from what was said in the preceding chapter (num. 4). Yet because its form is much diverse from the Pythagorean and Platonic—since it contains in itself the extremes of each—and because what, in our own age, the Telescope at last revealed, this they [the Egyptians] foresaw by the perspicacity of [their] genius, it is fitting in this place, as [its] proper [place], to discuss it again. They, therefore, when they investigated for what cause Venus and Mercury depart from the Sun not by a whole semicircle—nay, Venus scarcely by a semi-quadrant of a circle, Mercury not even by a twelfth part of the Zodiac circle—and why, around [their] greatest digressions, they appear larger, judged that this happened from an Epicycle described around the Sun, in which they sometimes revolve below, sometimes above the Sun, sometimes at equal intervals with it, and depart from the Sun according to the measure of the Epicycle, and appear larger on account of [their] nearness to the earth, and smaller on account of [their] distance. Wherefore they prepared for us, already then, a most beautiful—and, as to this part, most true—system.

Let Macrobius be heard again, if [it] please (bk. 1 on the Dream of Scipio, ch. 19), narrating thus: “Neither about the order of the three superior [planets], which an immense distance manifestly and clearly distinguishes, nor about the region of the Moon, which has departed far from all [the rest], was there among the ancients any dissent. But the nearness of these three nearest to one another—of Venus, Mercury, and the Sun—has confounded the order; but among others [it is otherwise]: for the cleverness of the Egyptians did not escape the reasoning, which is this: The circle through which the Sun runs is encompassed by the circle of Mercury as [by] a higher one; and that too the higher circle of Venus includes. And so it happens that these two stars, when they run through the higher vertices of their circles, are understood to be placed above the Sun; but when they pass through the lower [part of their] circle, the Sun is reckoned higher than they. To those, therefore, who said their spheres are below the Sun, this seemed [so] from that course of the stars which sometimes (as we said) appears lower—which is also truly more notable, because it then appears more freely; for when they hold the higher [positions], they are more hidden by the [Sun’s] rays; and therefore that persuasion prevailed, and by almost all this order was received into use.”

[Margin: Macrobius’s System.]

Yet a more perspicacious observation detects a better order—truly more perspicacious [the Egyptians’], which forestalled the use of the Belgian spyglass by so many centuries, by sagacity of genius alone. And from these same words it becomes plain that Macrobius brought his vote to this system, especially since in the same chapter he confirms from it that these two Planets [Venus and Mercury] too must be carried above the Sun—because, like the rest, they have their own light (for thus he thought), whereas the Moon is always below the Sun, inasmuch as it shines by another’s light, and only from the Sun.

[Margin: Vitruvius’s [System].]

[II.] Nor is there any doubt to me that Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (bk. 9 On Architecture, ch. 4) acknowledged the same order: for although he enumerates the Planets thus—“the Moon, the star of Mercury, of Venus, the Sun itself, and likewise of Mars, and of Jupiter, and of Saturn”—following the vulgar opinion, yet a little after he says: “But the star of Mercury and of Venus, crowning the Sun itself as a center with their journeys around the Sun’s rays, make retrogressions backward, and retardations. Also, by [their] stations, on account of that circuit, they tarry in the spaces of the Signs.” In which sense Scheiner too interpreted him (in the Mathematical Disquisitions, num. 22, toward the end).

[Margin: Martianus Capella’s System.]

[III.] Nor less manifestly Martianus Mineus Felix, surnamed Capella (bk. 8 On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, in the chapter whose title is “On the Orbs of the Planets”), says: “But Venus and Mercury do not go around the earth.” And in the following chapter, when he had asserted Eccentrics by saying: “Generally it must be known that, for all the orbs of the Planets, the earth is the Eccentron [off-center point]—that is, [the earth] does not hold the middle of the circles, [a middle] which there is no doubt is the center of the world,” a little after he expounds what is the center of the circles of Mercury and Venus, in these words: “For although Venus and Mercury display daily risings and settings, yet their circles do not go around the earth at all, but circle around the Sun in a wider compass. Indeed, they place the center of their circles in the Sun: so that they are carried sometimes above it, but for the most part below, nearer to the lands. From which [Sun] indeed Venus is separated by one sign and a half [part]. But when they are above the Sun, Mercury is nearer to the lands; when below the Sun, Venus, inasmuch as it is curved in a chaster [narrower] and more diffuse orb.” This African writer could not have depicted the Egyptian system in clearer words. But also, below, in a chapter peculiar to Mercury, he says: “Thus far concerning the Sun. Now it is fitting to behold the courses of the Planets, and especially of those which revolve around the Sun. For Stilbon [Mercury], leading [completing] almost the circle of a year, runs through eight parts of latitude, driven by an alternating diversity. That the circles of this [Mercury] and of Venus are Epicycles I noted above—that is, [circles] not within—

[…continues on p. 283 (PDF 318): ”…[not] going around [the earth, but around the Sun]…” — Capella’s exposition of the Mercury/Venus epicycles around the Sun continued, then the remaining witnesses to the Egyptian system (Bede, Argoli) and its diagram.]

(printed p. 283 — Chapter IV concludes with Capella, Bede, and Argoli, and the System III (Egyptian) diagram closes the chapter. Chapter V then opens, on the homocentric system of Eudoxus, Calippus, and Aristotle. A large engraved diagram of the Egyptian system fills the right column.)

…[that is, circles not] enclosing the roundness of the earth within their own compass.

[Margin: Bede’s System.]

[IV.] But we must sail from Africa to England, and the opinion of that most learned and venerable presbyter, namely Bede, must be sought out. He, therefore (in the book On the Nature of Things, ch. 13), speaks thus: “The highest is the star of Saturn, by nature gelid, traversing the Zodiac in thirty years. Then [that] of Jupiter, temperate, in twelve years. The third, of Mars, fervid, in two years. In the middle the Sun, in 365 days and a quarter. Below the Sun, Venus—which is also Lucifer and Vesper—in 368 days, never standing off from the Sun farther than 46 parts [degrees]. Nearest to it, the star of Mercury, in a swifter circuit by nine days, shining now before the rising of the Sun, now after [its] setting, never more remote from it than 22 parts. Last, the Moon, completing the Zodiac in 27 days and a third part of a day.” But these things Bede may have said either when he was younger, or indulging the vulgar opinion for a while. Otherwise, in the book On the constitution of the celestial and terrestrial World (which is had in the first volume of his works), in the chapter on Epicycles and intersections (p. 383 in my [copy]), he speaks thus of Mercury and Venus: “But that [Venus and Mercury] are carried above and below the Sun is shown in three ways by conjectures: either by the intersection of the circles; or because they are Epicycles—that is, supercircular [circles] which, not having the earth [as] center, make the Sun, as it were, the center of their course; or [because] they measure out the altitude of the Sun by obtuse circles, or by acute windings.” This is—as I at least interpret [it]—by Ellipses described around the Sun rather than by circles. But also, in the book On the Elements of Philosophy, thinking the Platonic and Egyptian system to be the same, and busying himself to reconcile it with the Chaldean, he says: “Then it must be said why the Chaldeans say the Sun [is] fourth, but the Egyptians and Plato [say] sixth. It is true that the Sun is below Venus and Mercury, next to the Moon”; and he gives the cause—namely, that the cold and humidity of the Moon may be tempered by the hot and dry Sun, and that it [the Moon] may receive light nearer from the Sun. Soon he subjoins: “Yet to the Chaldeans it seemed otherwise: [Bede] refers the cause to the intersection of nearly equal circles, and says: They intersect one another thus, that the circle of Venus, in its lower part, intersects the upper parts of the circles of Mercury and the Sun, comprehending more of the Mercurial [circle] than of the Solar. But the circle of Mercury, in its upper part, intersects the Venereal [circle], in [its] lower [part] the Solar. And the circle of the Sun, in its upper part, intersects the Mercurial and the Venereal—more the Mercurial, less the Venereal.” Then, after a few [words], he concludes: “Since, therefore, the circle of the Sun is encompassed in the upper parts of those circles, it is justly said to be lower than they; but because it happens sometimes that the Sun runs through the upper parts of its circle, but those stars [run] through the lower [parts] of theirs, then they appear more freely; for the Sun does not obscure the [things] placed below [it] as much as [those] placed above; [therefore] it is reckoned higher than they.” But this hypothesis is very involved; and far neater and readier is that which he had indicated in the former place, through epicycles described around the Sun.

[Margin: Argoli’s System.]

[V.] Lastly, Andrea Argoli (in his Pandosion Sphæricum, ch. 3) chose this very system, ordering Mercury around the Sun, and Venus around Mercury, in Epicycles, but the orbs of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn around the Earth. And he adds that what was left unpolished and bare by Vitruvius and Capella, this was fortified by him with Geometrical demonstrations—the quantity of the Eccentricities and Epicycles being added, and, according to these measures, tables of the secondary mobiles published by him, which he affirms to agree to a nail’s breadth [exactly] with the Tychonic [tables], except the Moon. And those measures he indicates in the same Pandosion, from ch. 50 to 59.

[Margin: Argoli’s boldness against Tycho.]

But in that he asserts (ch. 3) that Tycho rests on a most feeble foundation when he makes Mars, at opposition [acronychal], nearer to the lands than the Sun—namely by a greater parallax than the Sun’s—and [that] this observation is almost impossible: he speaks too boldly, as will be clear to [one] considering the Tychonic and Keplerian foundations in this matter (about which we [treated] already in bk. 7, sect. 2, ch. 3, scholium 4, and sect. 6, ch. 4, schol. 3 & 4, and ch. 10, scholium 1). But behold the diagram of this Egyptian, Vitruvian, Capellan, Macrobian, etc. system—which, although some of the more recent [writers] ascribe [it] to Martianus Capella, is nevertheless far more ancient; and from its first origin I judge it should rather be called Egyptian.

System III — The Egyptian System

[Translator’s note — engraved diagram: A geo-heliocentric world-system. At the center, the Earth, with the ☽ Moon circling it. Beyond the Moon, a large circle on which the ☉ Sun rides; carried around the Sun itself on a small loop (epicycle) are ☿ Mercury and ♀ Venus. Outside the Sun’s circle, going outward, are ♂ Mars, ♃ Jupiter, ♄ Saturn (each circling the Earth), and the outermost starry firmament studded with stars. Thus Venus and Mercury are heliocentric, while the Moon, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are geocentric—the “Egyptian” (Capellan) arrangement.]