"The chariot, towering, threads the fiery sphere, And rises thence into the lunar reign. This, in its larger part they find as clear, As polished steel, when undefiled by stain; And such it seems, or little less, when near, As what the limits of our earth contain: Such as our earth, the last of globes below, Including seas, which round about it flow -" taken from the poem, Orlando Furioso, by the Italian poet and diplomat, Ludovico Ariosto in the early 1500's.