Objective: telescope 600 years and enter imaginatively into a past age, experience what it felt like to believe in a Ptolemaic (Earth-centered) universe.
Hierarchical (ladder-like) cosmos: God at the top, man at the bottom, the planets and fixed stars in between. This conception of a linear, hierarchical universe, is mirrored in architecture, literature, and social organization.
Artist's vision of the universe:
Last Judgment
Compare this to our twentieth century solar system and universe.
For medieval man, God was a great deal closer to man, and in the Ptolemaic system man was at the center of God's creation. This conception of the universe made medieval man feel close to God and supremely important to God.
In the twentieth century view of the universe, we are infinitely far away from God, and, as a speck in the gigantic scheme of things, we seem completely unimportant. This has caused a great deal of religious doubt, doubts that medieval man did not have.
See Hubble Space Telescope's home page for images of the universe.
The Psalter Map , Thirteenth Century
Ptolemy's Map, Second Century
Galileo challenged the validity of the Ptolomeic universe but was silenced by the Inquisition.
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