If it were true, Bruno said, that instead of greedy dreams of conquest, H. sapiens had been drawing star constellations on the walls and ceilings of caves, surfaces whose curved lineaments became a model of the heavens, this could recast Bruno’s views on early man, or rather late man, Homo tardissimus. Sailor-priests-in-training had plied the heavens on the fabric of their tent ceilings. And perhaps Tardie had been engaged in a similar study, but more abstract and less schematic: Tardie had coded the stars as earthly creatures, had projected into the heavens a wild menagerie of beasts. His
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