When Frederick III is commanded by the pope to attack Constantinople, Frederick consults the stars and finds that fate is not in his favor. His court astrologer, Regiomontanus, proposes a solution: Why not voyage into space and move the stars themselves?
Adam Duncan directed The Adjustable Cosmos, based on the short story “Space Operetta” by Australian speculative fiction writer Adam Browne. The short takes the convention of the old “voyage to space” stories, but turns it deliberately unscientific, sending its trio of real 15th-century figures—Frederick III, Regiomontanus, and Cardinal Bessarian—on a trek through the medieval concept of the cosmos. It turns the tale into a whimsical fantasy, albeit one with a less than happy ending for Ottoman Empire Constantinople, which falls to the Ottoman Empire shortly afterward.
[via Kuriositas]
