Urania

Urania (/jʊˈreɪniə/; Ancient Greek: Οὐρανία; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and a daughter of Zeus by Mnemosyne and also a great granddaughter of Uranus. Some accounts list her as the mother of the musician Linus by Apollo, and Hymenaeus also is said to have been a son of Urania. She is often associated with Universal Love and the Holy Spirit. Eldest of the divine sisters, Urania inherited Zeus' majesty and power and the beauty and grace of her mother Mnemosyne.

Urania as Muse

Those who are most concerned with philosophy and the heavens are dearest to her. Those who have been instructed by her she raises aloft to heaven, for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men's souls to heavenly heights.

During the Renaissance, Urania began to be considered the Muse for Christian poets. In the invocation to Book 7 of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the poet invokes Urania to aid his narration of the creation of the cosmos, though he cautions that it is "[t]he meaning, not the name I call" (7.5)

Urania (magazine)

Urania is an Italian science fiction magazine published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore since 10 October 1952. The current editor is Giuseppe Lippi.

History

The first issue featured the novel The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (as Le sabbie di Marte). The original name of the series was I Romanzi di Urania ("Urania's novels"), to differentiate it from another magazine with the same name (but popularly known as Urania Rivista, "Urania Magazine"), which featured only short stories. The latter, however, lasted only 14 issues, and Romanzi di Urania soon took the simpler name, which still holds today. Short story collections were thenceforth published in the main series, which at its height had a weekly periodicity with a circulation of 160,000 copies a month. Since the very beginning Urania has been indeed the best selling SF magazine of Italy, also introducing to Italian readers some famed authors like Isaac Asimov, Alfred Elton van Vogt, Robert A. Heinlein, J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick and many others. The first editor was Giorgio Monicelli (brother of movie director Mario Monicelli): Monicelli is credited with the invention of the word fantascienza, meaning science-fiction in Italian. From 1964 to 1985 novels and short stories were selected by the renowned Italian writers and intellectuals Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, who also appeared in the magazine with a few short stories written under pseudonyms. Their successor was Gianni Montanari, who worked for the magazine until 1990.

Urania (disambiguation)

Urania or Ourania may refer to:

People

Mythology

Science

Places

Literature

Other uses