Dante in space

Jamie McKendrick claims (LRB 26 Mar 09) that the view of Earth from space -- iconic of serene transcendence -- originates in Dante's Paradiso. Canto 22 finds Dante and Beatrice on Saturn, looking at Earth small in the distance: "L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci" "That little threshing floor that makes men fierce" (as in the new translation by Robin Kirkpatrick, which apparently echoes the Bible). Chaucer echoed the image (making Troilus look down from "the eighth sphere . . . [at] this little spot of earth that with the sea / Embraced is") as have writers, cinematographers, and astronauts since.