Earlier Views of Venus

In earlier times, there was considerable speculation concerning the possibility of life on Venus, sometimes with rather elaborate characteristics. In 1686 a French "man of letters", Bernard de Fontenelle, wrote that

I can tell from here . . . what the inhabitants of Venus are like; they resemble the Moors of Granada; a small black people, burned by the sun, full of wit and fire, always in love, writing verse, fond of music, arranging festivals, dances, and tournaments every day. (As Quoted in National Geographic, June, 1975)

Now apart from the fact that this description is rather unremarkable because it sounds like an everyday student life around a great University , it turns out that monsieur de Fontenelle was quite incorrect about Venus and its conjectured inhabitants.