A Geocentric Rest Stop: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, Lines 52 - 75

Virgil and Dante the pilgrim have completed their first major, breath-taking climb on Mount Purgatory. They hang out for a bit on a ledge for a little rest. In truth, there's no rest with all these mental gymnastics!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage. Dante notices that the sun is shining on the "wrong" side of him and Virgil explains (or imagines or "rationalizes") the sun's position in the southern hemisphere, based on the intricate workings of a geocentric universe.

Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:50] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 52 - 75. If you'd like to read along, print it off, make notes, or drop a comment to me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:53] How ironic that a passage with so many mental gymnastics is supposed to be restful!

[06:44] In the geocentric universe as Dante understands it, the sun's position is on an ellipse around the globe.

[10:48] Virgil's explanation for the sun's position involves a complicated supposition about the sun's position later in the year, when the sun is in the constellation Gemini.

[13:47] Dante's successful trek across the cosmos is in direct contrast to Phaeton's failed journey across the sky.

[16:47] Let's begin a larger discussion of the Ptolemaic universe--particularly, the beginning of the cracks in that conception in the European late Middle Ages.