Spherical Earth or
Earth's curvature refers to the approximation of
figure of the Earth as a
sphere. The earliest documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it appears in the writings of
Greek philosophers.
[1][2] In the 3rd century BC,
Hellenistic astronomy established the
roughly spherical shape of the Earth as a physical fact and calculated the
Earth's circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the
Old World during
Late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages.
[3][4][5][6]
[...]
Middle Ages
In medieval Europe, knowledge of the sphericity of the Earth survived into the medieval corpus of knowledge by direct transmission of the texts of Greek antiquity (
Aristotle), and via authors such as
Isidore of Seville and
Beda Venerabilis. It became increasingly traceable with the rise of
scholasticism and
medieval learning.
[57]
Spread of this knowledge beyond the immediate sphere of Greco-Roman scholarship was necessarily gradual, associated with the pace of
Christianisation of Europe. For example, the first evidence of knowledge of the spherical shape of the Earth in
Scandinavia is a 12th-century
Old Icelandic translation of
Elucidarius.
[73] A list of more than a hundred
Latin and vernacular writers from
Late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages who were aware that the earth was spherical has been compiled by Reinhard Krüger, professor for Romance literature at the
University of Stuttgart.
[57]