De revolutionibus orbium coelestium divided into six "books" (sections or parts), following closely the layout of Ptolemy's "Almagest" which it updated and replaced: Copernicus argued that the universe comprised eight spheres. The outermost consisted of motionless, fixed stars, with the Sun motionless at the center. The known planets revolved about the Sun, each in its own sphere, in the order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The Moon, however, revolved in its sphere around the Earth. What appeared to be the daily revolution of the Sun and fixed stars around the Earth was actually the Earth's daily rotation on its own axis. Copernicus adhered
The Royal Hunt of the Sun Music is a key element to this play, more so than any other by Peter Shaffer. He wanted strange and disturbing sounds produced on primitive instruments such as saws, reed pipes, drums (tablas and bongos) and cymbals to create the aural world of 16th Century Peru. Shaffer was so impressed with Marc Wilkinson's score for "The Royal Hunt Of The Sun", which he has described as "perhaps the best score for a play to be written since Grieg embellished "Peer Gynt"", that he now considers it integral to the play. The staging is relatively simple: an upper and lower part