The Earth is Flat. Genealogy of a False Idea

There is a widespread belief that the currently popular conspiracy theory about a flat Earth originates from the unenlightened religious Middle Ages. One would have to wait for navigators like Columbus and Magellan, or astronomers like Copernicus and Galileo, for the darkness of delusion to dissipate and for the Earth to be shown as round. However, from antiquity until the European Renaissance, the idea that the Earth is flat was hardly prevalent in the West. Violen Giacomotto-Sharrah and Sylvie Nonny set out to trace the history of the 'flat Earth' delusion and understand how it originated. In the first part of the book, the authors suggest turning to ancient sources, the Church Fathers, and, above all, the textbooks and encyclopedias written and used for teaching in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The second part of the research is dedicated to studying the myth itself and its genealogy in order to shed light on the reasons for the persistence of this delusion despite all evidence. Violen Giacomotto-Sharrah is a professor of the history of science and literature during the Renaissance at the University of Bordeaux-Montesquieu. Sylvie Nonny is a specialist in medieval Arab physics and a research fellow at the University of Paris Cite.