Diagram of the Nine Planets

Earth, Water
[Center]
Air of the cold regions
[inside oval ring]
Air of the warm regions
[outside oval ring]
Fire
[flaming circular ring]
1st heaven,
that of the Moon, completes its revolution in 21 days and 31 half hours, turning from west to east.
2nd heaven,
that of Mercury, completes its revolution in 365 days and 23 half hours, turning from west to east.
3rd heaven,
that of Venus, completes its revolution in 365 days and 23 half hours, turning from west to east.
4th heaven,
that of the Sun, completes its revolution in 365 days and 23 half hours, turning from west to east.
5th heaven,
that of Mars, completes its revolution in one year, 321 days and 93 half hours, turning from west to east.
6th heaven,
that of Jupiter, completes its revolution in 11 years, 313 days and 70 half hours, turning from west to east.
7th heaven,
that of Saturn, completes its revolution in 29 years, 155 days and 25 half hours, turning from west to east.
8th heaven,
that of the 28 Constellations, completes its revolution in 49,000 years, turning from west to east.
9th heaven,
that without stars, that puts in motion the other eight heavens, completing its revolution in one day, turning from east to west.

Curator's note:
It was a Catholic cleric, a Pole named Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), who first published the revolutionary idea of a solar system, proposing in 1543 that the Earth and other planets orbited the Sun. Though commonplace today, Copernicus's theory would not find wide acceptance until the close of the 17th century. Ricci's map still shows the Earth at the center of the cosmos (see also his chart in the upper left margin illustrating the eclipses of the Moon and the Sun). First formulated in ancient Greece and described by Aristotle and Ptolemy, the geocentric (or Ptolemaic) model regarded the Earth as an unmoving, perfect sphere at the center of the universe. The Church embraced the Earth-centered model, zealously opposing the idea of a Sun-centered universe throughout the 17th century (and officially into the 19th century). Indeed, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in Rome for, among other heresies, his advocacy of the heliocentric model. In 1633, the Inquisition placed Galileo (1564-1642) under house arrest for the same reason