1-158-402 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Geocentric or Earth-centred system of the universe, 1528. At the centre is the world showing Aristotle's (384-323 BC) four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, surrounded by the spheres of the Sun, Moon, planets, and the sphere of the fixed stars. This model, proposed by Aristotle and Ptolemy, continued to be generally accepted as representing the nature of the Universe until the heliocentric (sun-centred) model of the solar system put forward by Copernicus and supported by Galileo and Kepler, began to gain acceptance in the 17th century. From La Theorique des Ciels by Oronto Finaeus. (Paris, 1528).