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A palace for astronomy in Buenos Aires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2011

Alejandro Gangui
Alejandro Gangui*
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio / CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina email: gangui@df.uba.ar Centro de Formación e Investigación en la Enseñanza de las Ciencias, FCEyN, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Abstract

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In no other epoch of Western history like in the Middle Ages, cosmology was so key an element of culture and, one way or another, the motion of the heavens ended up impregnating the literature of that time. Among the most noteworthy poets we find Dante Alighieri, who became famous for his Commedia, a monumental poem written roughly between 1307 and his death in 1321, and which the critics from 16th century onwards dubbed Divina. In this and other works, Dante pictures the cosmic image for the world, summing up the current trends of Neoplatonic and Islamic traditions. The Barolo Palace in the city of Buenos Aires is a singular combination of both astronomy and the worldview displayed in Dante's poetic masterpiece. Some links of the Palace's main architectural structure with the three realms of the Comedy have been studied in the past. In this note we consider its unique astronomical flavor, an issue which has not been sufficiently emphasized yet.

Keywords

Medieval astronomyDante's cosmologyEclectic architecture
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 5 , Symposium S260: The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture , January 2009 , pp. 346 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

References

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Gangui, Alejandro 2008, Poética Astronómica: El cosmos de Dante Alighieri (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica).Google Scholar
Gangui, Alejandro 2009, “The Barolo palace: Medieval astronomy in the streets of Buenos Aires”, submitted.Google Scholar
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