Astronomy at the University of Salamanca at the end of the 15th century. What "El Cielo de Salamanca" tells us

TL;DR

The paper explores the historical and scientific significance of the 15th-century astronomical vault 'El Cielo de Salamanca', highlighting its role as an early planetarium and analyzing its dating within a narrow time frame.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the artwork's historical context, scientific content, and attempts to date it precisely using astronomical data, revealing its unique place in history.

Findings

The vault depicts a rare astronomical configuration from August 1475.

Only 23 years in 1100 years have similar sky configurations.

The configuration will be observable again in August 2022 and 2060.

Abstract

"El Cielo de Salamanca" ("The Sky of Salamanca") is a quarter-sphere-shaped vault 8.70 metres in diameter. It was painted sometime between 1480 and 1493 and shows five zodiacal constellations, three boreal and six austral. The Sun and Mercury are also represented. It formed part of a three times larger vault depicting the 48 Ptolemaic constellations and the rest of the planets known at the time. This was a splendid work of art that covered the ceiling of the first library of the University of Salamanca, one of the oldest in Europe having obtained its royal charter in 1218. But it was also a pioneering scientific work: a planetarium used to teach astronomy, the first of its kind in the history of Astronomy that has come down to us in the preserved part that we now call "The Sky of Salamanca". We describe the scientific context surrounding the chair of Astrology founded around 1460 at the University of Salamanca, which led to the production of this unique scientific work of art and to the flourishing of Astronomy in Salamanca. We analyse the possible dates compatible with it, showing that they are extremely infrequent. In the period of 1100 years from 1200 to 2300 that we studied there are only 23 years that have feasible days. We conclude that the information contained in "El Cielo de Salamanca" is not sufficient to assign it to a specific date but rather to an interval of several days that circumstantial evidence seems to place in August 1475. The same configuration of the sky will be observable, for the first time in 141 years, from the 22nd to the 25th of August 2022. The next occasion to observe it live will be in 2060.