Cosmic Multicultural Bucharest in the Pandemic (25):
With My Friends Plato and Aristotle
By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (astro-photo-poem-essay) and Florin Alexandru Stancu (design)
“Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend,
but my greatest friend is truth.”
-Isaac Newton-
In the past, the Calarasi Way was the beginning of the route used by Romanian postmen to carry letters (on horseback) to the Ottoman Empire.
In the 1750s, on this street, a ruler of Wallachia, Stefan Racovita (a Vlach-Aromanian who came from Phanar - the Greek district in Istanbul), made a special church (dedicated to Saint Stephen), including medallions with prophets painted on its exterior walls.
Two of those considered predecessors of Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity who were painted here, Plato and Aristotle, are known rather as philosophers and astronomers who laid the foundations of occidental thinking in philosophy and science.
They also filled the sky with crystalline spheres in a geocentric model of the Universe, later adopted by Christian churches for many centuries.
To honor the memory of Plato and Aristotle, in November 2020 I tried to add to that church two photos with the brightest celestial medallions: the Sun and the Moon.
Post Scriptum:
Aristotle said:
“Plato is my friend,
but truth is a better friend.”
Copernicus probably said later:
“Plato and Aristotle are my friends,
but the heliocentric model is a better friend.”
In my opinion, what can I say?
Maybe just:
“Plato, Aristotle and Copernicus are my friends,
but astronomers of my time say that the universe has countless centres…
and no one knows which one is the most central!”
#poetry