Astronomers on the ceiling
Find all the celebrated astronomers depicted on the Painted Hall ceiling and discover more about the history of Heliocentrism.

NICOLAS COPERNICUS (1473–1543)
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its centre. He is depicted at the Eastern end of the ceiling, holding up a model of a golden ‘SYSTEM’, as Thornhill called it.
Copernicus had been developing the idea of the Earth orbiting around the Sun as early as 1514 and wrote De revolutionibus orbium coelestium during the 1530s. In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter, secretary to Pope Clement VII, explained Copernicus’s heliocentric system to the Pope and two cardinals. Pope Clement VII was sympathetic to the ideas of Renaissance humanism and did not raise objections to heliocentrism. It wasn’t until 1616 that De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) drawn up by the Roman Catholic Church.

Copernicus' SYSTEM
Copernicus’ ‘SYSTEM’ shows a human-faced sun at the centre, with the planet Earth in orbit and the small circle around the Earth representing the orbit of the Moon. This model represents Copernicus’ version of a heliocentric Solar System.

TYCHO BRAHE (1546–1601)
The last of the naked-eye astronomers, Tycho Brahe, can be spotted on the far left of Nicolas Copernicus, wearing a red robe.

GALILEO GALILEI (1564–1642)
The opposition of the Catholic Church to the Copernican heliocentric theory had serious consequences for another astronomer, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who in 1633 was tried before an inquisition in Rome, facing a charge of heresy for advocating the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. He was found ‘vehemently suspect of heresy’ and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo was the first astronomer to use a telescope for observing the heavens and is possibly the person represented at the west end of the Lower Hall ceiling, peering through a telescope.