Elements of the SEINSGESCHICHTE: 28 OCTOBER 312 - the MILVIAN BRIDGE BATTLE

Raffaello, La battaglia di Ponte Milvio (Stanze di Raffaello, dipinte 1508-24,
su commissione di papa Giulio II della Rovere (1503-13); Musei Vaticani)

Planetary situation during the A.D. 312 and particularly
during the months October, November and December 312

As I wrote in chapter XIII of my book "Congiunzioni Giove-Saturno e storia giudaico-cristiana" [i.e. "Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions and judaic-christian history", ISBN 88-900663-0-X] the whole Constantine's descent from Treviri (Trier, Germany) to Rome to face up to Maxentius happened literally at the light of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of the year A.D. 312, culminating on December 14th of that year in the Capricorn constellation (see graphics above).

As can be seen by everyone  in the graphics of the J-S conjunction, in those autumn months also the planet Mars (the roman war god) was on the scene. Indeed on 29 September the quicker Mars (brown line in the graphics) was in conjunction with Jupiter, on 10 October with Saturn and on the date of the battle - 28 October 312 - it had surpassed both the nearly aligned Jupiter and Saturn and was about 12° left of Saturn in the evening sky, direction south-west.

Well, this is exactly the situation represented by Raffaello with the three angels depicted over the battle scene, in the great painting of the Vatican Museums: they represent exactly the positions and distances of and between the three planets visible in those days after the sunset, i.e. Mars on the left, 12 degrees links of Saturn, Saturn in the middle, and Jupiter approaching Saturn, 5° right of it.  
This means that in Vatican there has been a continuity of astronomical knowledge from the first centuries of christianism till to the times of pope Giulio della Rovere (1503-13) and longer, in my opinion till to our times.