Planetary system BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but received no support from most other ancient astronomers. "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" by Nicolaus Copernicus, published in 1543, was the first mathematically predictive heliocentric model of a planetary system. 17th-century successors Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton developed an understanding of physics which led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that the Earth moves round the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that governed the Earth. In the 16th century the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that the Earth and
Allegory of the Planets and Continents orbiting the Sun. The cornice of the painting symbolize the continents Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. Allegory of the Planets and Continents Allegory of the Planets and Continents is an 18th-century painting by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Done in oil on canvas, the allegorical work uses human figures to represent members of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the planets, and four continents. The painting is an elaborate oil sketch made by Tiepolo in preparation for rendering a similar, larger version of his scene. Tiepolo's work was painted to be hung above a staircase of the Wurzburg Residence in Wurzburg, Germany. The