The discovery of Jupiter’s four largest satellites 105 years before Galileo Galilei

Abstract

In his painting "The Three Philosophers", Giorgio da Castelfranco (aka Giorgione, 1478 - 1510) portrayed Aristarchus of Samos, a great mathematician and astronomer of his time, the astronomer and geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria, and Pythagoras of Samos, antiquity’s most renowned mathematician. Almost as an aside, Giorgione’s painting captured a revolutionary discovery, which is shown on the document that Aristarchus holds in front of his chest: the observation of Jupiter’s four largest satellites, 105 years before Galileo Galilei’s discovery.