The Book Nobody Read

by Owen Gingerich

  Somehow, somewhere, Copernicus stumbled onto the way to generate Ptolemy's equant motion by using either a concentric circle with two small epicyclets, or an eccentric circle with a single epicyclet. To introduce it this way is to conceal the iceberg below its tip. In the mid-1950s the historian of Islamic science, Edward S. Kennedy, and his students at the American University of Beirut (where I was also then teaching) showed that a series of thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Muslim astronomers in Persia and in Damascus had come up with exactly the same arrangement of epicyclets that Copernicus used, although they did not proceed to a heliocentric cosmos. In fact the two aesthetic ideas are not coupled except in some inscrutable way in the mind of Copernicus. Ever since Kennedy's work a big question has been: Did Copernicus invent the epicyclet arrangement independently, and if not, how in the world did he find out about it? (There was no available printed source, and apparently no manuscript source in Latin.) One interesting guess is that Copernicus found out through the work of a sometime ephemeris maker named Johannes Engel, who quite likely used the device, and that Copernicus himself was probably unaware of its Islamic antecedents.

  The double epicyclet with the concentric circle was Copernicus' system of choice when he wrote his Commentariolus and it is the "second method" of De revolutionibus, whereas the single epicyclet was the "third method" of De revolutionibus and was the one actually employed there. It really doesn't matter, Copernicus implied, because both as well as the first arrangement gave the same result, and therefore one of them had to be real—a consummate demonstration of faulty logic! In any event, to use the twentieth-century proverb "A picture is worth a thousand words," here is a diagram to show the equivalence of Copernicus' single epicyclet and Ptolemy's equant. Note that the motion in the epicyclet is reckoned with respect to the moving line from the center of the circle, and the angle at the center matches the angle in the epicyclet. Because the radius of the epicyclet is one-third of the distance from the Sun to the center, a regular trapezoid results, and the dashed line replicates the uniform motion around the equant.

  Copernicus' replacement of the equant by a pair of uniform circular motions.

  The epicycle always moves to form an isosceles trapezoid.

  The path that results, shown by the dashed circle, is in fact not quite a circle because it bows out slightly on the sides—the opposite way compared to Kepler's ellipse.

  Appendix 2

  LOCATIONS OF DE REVOLUTIONIBUS

  THE TWO LISTS that follow do not exactly match those in An Annotated Census of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus because here some of the private collections have been omitted as have copies that have been sold to undisclosed locations and copies destroyed during World War II. In each list the copies are listed alphabetically by country, and within the countries alphabetically by city (or by state).

  Locations of the First Edition of De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543)

  Bibliographic Notes

  THE TITLE of this adventure is taken ironically from Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers (London: Hutchinson, 1959), but actually The Book Nobody Read is the story of making my An Annotated Census of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566) (Leiden: Brill, 2002), a compendium that served as a constant reference in writing the present book. In the process of researching the Census, I wrote many essays on various aspects of the history of astronomy, and a number of these essays have been collected in an anthology, The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993). In the notes that follow, I cite some of the essays from the anthology rather than their original publications, which will often be rather more difficult to find.

  Four other books were indispensable in writing The Book Nobody Read. The first is N. M. Swerdlow and O. Neugebauer's magisterial Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (New York: Springer, 1984), which includes Swerdlow's concise and authoritative biography of Copernicus. Second, I found myself very frequently checking dates and details in Marian Biskup's comprehensive Regesta Copernicana (Calendar of Copernicus' Papers) (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1973). Edward Rosen's Three Copernican Treatises (New York: Octagon, 1971) includes a helpful collection of detailed biographical chapters, and on matters pertaining to Rheticus, Karl Heinz Burmeister's Georgjoachim Rhetikus, 1514—1574, Eine Bio-Bibliographie (Wiesbaden: Guido Pressler Verlag, 1967), in three volumes, provided the basic reference source.

  For many decades I have written weekly letters to my family; copies of these letters reminded me of many details that would otherwise have faded. In addition, the notes I made of the hundreds of copies of De revolutionibus are dated, which proved helpful in solidifying the chronology of these episodes. There are many other places in the text, however, where the curious reader may desire further information or the sources of some of the quotations, and this information is given in the following notes with no attempt to be definitive or comprehensive with respect to the literature.

  4: THE LENTEN PRETZEL AND THE EPICYCLES MYTH

  Christopher Clavius' remark that Ptolemy's arrangement was not the only way to do it is found in the third edition of his textbook In Sphaeram loannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius (Rome, 1581), pp. 435—37. Kepler's comment about awakening from sleep is from the beginning of chapter 56 of his As­tronomia nova (Prague, 1609), and his plaint about making at least seventy tries is in the middle of chapter 16.

  My project beloved of the computer magazines was described in American Scientist, "The Computer versus Kepler," and is reprinted in The Eye of Heaven, pp. 357—66. The follow-up paper seven years later is "The Computer versus Kepler Revisited," in The Eye of Heaven, pp. 367—78.

  Copernicus' comparison of the Ptolemaic system to a monster is found in the middle of his Preface and Dedication to Pope Paul III. Three English translations of De revolutionibus have been made. The first, by Charles Glenn Wallis, appears in The Great Booh of the Western World (Chicago: Encyclopae­dia Brittannica, 1952). The second, by Alistair M. Duncan, was published as Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976). The third, an extended project by Edward Rosen, was intended as volume 2 oi Nicholas Copernicus Complete Works but was published unnumbered in a matching format as Nicholas Copernicus: On the Revolutions (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press and London: Macmillan, 1978).

  With regard to the epicycles-on-epicycles mythology, my first foray in print on this venerable misconception was "Crisis versus Aesthetic in the Copernican Revolution," reprinted in The Eye of Heaven, pp. 193-204. Melvin Tucker and I published "The Astronomical Dating of Skelton's Garland of Laurel" in the Huntington Library Quarterly 32 (1969): 207—20.

  5: "EMBELLISHED BY A DISTINGUISHED MAN"

  Astronomical details of the Tower of the Winds are found in Juan Casanovas' "The Vatican Tower of the Winds and the Calendar Reform," in G. V Coyne, M. A. Hoskin, and O Pedersen, eds., Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, 1582-1982 (Vatican City: Specula Vaticana, 1983), pp. 189-98 and color pictures of the frescoes are in Fabrizio Mancinelli and Juan Casanovas, La Torre dei venti in Vaticano (Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vat­icana, c. 1980).

  Tycho's letter to Peucer, 13 September 1588, is found in Tychonis Brahe Opera omnia, vol. 7 (Copenhagen, 1924), pp. 127-41. My invited discourse for the International Astronomical Union's Extraordinary General Assembly in Warsaw is titled "The Astronomy and Cosmology of Copernicus" and appears in The Eye of Heaven, pp. 162—84.

  See Samuel B. Hand and Arthur S. Kunin, "Nicholas Copernicus and the Inception of Bread-Buttering," Journal of the American Medical Assoda-tion 214, no. 13 (1970): 2312-15.

  Ernst Zinner's helpful list of seventy locations for the first edition of De revolutionibus is found in appendix E to his Entstehung und Ausbreitung der coppernicanischen Lehre (Erlangen: Sitzungsberichte der Physikalisch-medi-zinischen Sozietat zu Erlangen, vol. 74, 1943); Petrus Saxonius' list of his library, which contained many volumes from his teacher, Johannes Praetorius, is reprint
ed in appendix D.

  Robert S. Westman presented two particularly influential papers during the quinquecentennial year, both published two years later: "The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg Interpretation of the Copernican Theory," bis 66 (1975): 165-93, and "Three Responses to the Copernican Theory: Johannes Praetorius, Tycho Brahe and Michael Maestlin," in Westman, ed., The Copernican Achievement (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 285-345.

  6: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

  The results of R. Taton and M. Cazenave's search for Copernican copies in France appear in "Le De Revolutionibus en France," Revue d'Histoire des Sciences 27 (1974): 318. Coryate's travels and the fanciful picture of the unicorn are found in Thomas Coriate traveller for the English wits: greeting: from the court of the Grand Mogul, resident at the towne of Asmere, in Easterne India ([London], 1616).

  The closing quotation from Johannes Kepler is paraphrased from the very end of chapter 55 of his Astronomia nova (Prague, 1609).

  7: THE WITTICH CONNECTION

  The remark by Anthony a Wood, published more than a century after his death, is in Atheniae Oxoniensis (London, 1815), pp. 491-92. J. L. E. Dreyer's comment on Wittich concludes his paper "On Tycho Brahe's Manual of Trigonometry," Observatory 39 (1916): 127-31.

  The monograph on Paul Wittich by Owen Gingerich and Robert S. Westman, The Wittich Connection: Priority and Conflict in Late Sixteenth-Century Cosmology, is published as Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 78, no. 7, (1988). Our "A Reattribution of the Tychonic Annotations in Copies of Copernicus' De revolutionibus" appears in Journal for the History of Astronomy 12 (1981): 53-54. Owen Gingerich and Miriam Gingerich, "Matriculation Ages in Sixteenth-Century Witten­berg," is in History of Universities 6 (1987), 135-37.

  Edward Rosen's "Render Not unto Tycho That Which Is Not Brahe's" is in Sky and Telescope 66 (1981): 476-77. His "Was Copernicus' Revolutions Annotated by Tycho Brahe?" is in Papers of the Bibliographical Soriety of America 75 (1981): 401—12, and my rejoinder, "Wittich's Annotations of Copernicus," is in Papers of the Bibliographical Sodety of America 76 (1982): 473-78.

  8: BIGGER BOOKS LINGER LONGER

  For additional details on Ursus's attack on Tycho, see Nicholas Jardine, The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science: Kepler's A Defence of Tycho against Ursus with Essays on Its Provenance and Significance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

  Information on the editions and surviving copies of Thomas Digges's A Prognostication Everlasting is found under almanacs in A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, second edition completed by Katharine F. Pantzer, A Short-Title Catalogue of Booh Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Booh Printed Abroad, 1475—1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1986). Information about the piracy of the ship with Pinelli's library on board is found in a note in Agnes Bresson, ed., Lettres a Claude Saumaise et a son entourage: 1620-1637 (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1992), pp. 224-26.

  For a clear and authoritative account of early printing practices, consult Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). Rich details of the Plantin-Morerus Press are found in Leon Voet, The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Offirina Plantiniana at Antwerp (Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1969-c. 1972).

  A charming, largely anecdotal account of the problems of survival is William Blades, The Enemies of Booh (London: Triibner, 1879). The quotation from John Bale is in his preface to John Leyland, The laboryouse journey & serche... for Englandes antiquitees... byj. Bale (1549) and is quoted in part in Francis Wormald and G. E. Wright, ed., The English Library before 1700 (London: University of London, the Athlone Press, 1958), p. 156. The facsimile of the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogs by Georg Willers is published as Die Messkataloge Georg Willers (Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1972).

  9: FORBIDDEN GAMES

  The Luther quotation is from his Tischreden; the English translation by Theodore G. Tappert, under the general editorship of Helmut T. Lehmann, is Luther's Worh, vol. 54, Table Talk (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1967), pp. 358-59. The quotations from Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (New York: Appleton, 1896) are found in vol. 1 on pp. 130 and 127, respectively.

  Edward Rosen's detailed detective work on "Calvin's Attitude toward Copernicus" appeared in Journal of the History of Ideas 21 (1960): 431—41. A few years later he examined as well "Copernicus on the Phases and the Light of the Planets," in Organon 2 (1965): 61-78. Both of these article are reprinted in Rosen's Copernicus and His Successors (London and Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press, 1995), Erna Hilfstein, ed.

  The French scholarship cited in the footnote is by Richard Stauffer, "Calvin et Copernic," Revue de I'Historie des Religions 179 (1971): 31—40, and a follow-up discussion by Christopher B. Kaiser is "Calvin, Copernicus, and Castellio," Calvin Theological Journal 21 (1986): 5—31. Rheticus' little booklet is transcribed and translated by R. Hooykaas, G.J. Rheticus' Treatise on Holy Scripture and the Motion of the Earth (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1984).

  For the cosmological impact of the Council of Trent, see Olaf Pedersen, Galileo and the Council of Trent (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1991). Details of the Catholic censorship of De revolutionibus are found in appendix 3 of my Census and also in "The Censorship of Copernicus's De revolutionibus," in The Eye of Heaven, pp. 269-85.

  10: THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE

  My review of the East German facsimile of the princely Peter Apian book appeared as "Apianus' Astronomicum Caesareum and Its Leipzig Facsimile," in Journal for the History of Astronomy 2 (1971): 168—77.

  Concerning celestial circles, see Harold P. Nebelsick, Circles of God: Theology and Science from the Greeh to Copernicus (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985).

  The Maestlin quotation is from a letter to Kepler, 1 October 1616, in Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke, vol. 17, no. 744, lines 24-29. The Kepler quotation "Oh ridiculous me!" is from chapter 58 of his Astronomia nova; see Kepler's New Astronomy, translated by William H. Donahue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Some details of the effects of Kepler's various improvements of the orbit of Mars are presented in "Giovanni Antonio Magini's 'Keplerian' Tables of 1614 and Their Implications for the Reception of Keplerian Astronomy in the Seventeenth Century" (with James Voelkel), Journal for the History of Astronomy 32 (2001): 237-62.

  11: THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE

  See "The Master of the 1550 Radices: Jofrancus Offusius" (with Jerzy Do­brzycki) in Journal for the History of Astronomy 24 (1993): 235—53. For fresh information on Rheticus, I am indebted to the doctoral thesis of Jesse Kraai.

  Geographical places of the sixteenth century may be conveniently checked on a CD Rom edition of Gerhardus Mercator's 1595 Atlas sive cosmographi-cae meditationes (Palo Alto: Octavo, 1999).

  12: PLANETARY INFLUENCES

  For information on Herrera, his library, and the astrology of the Escorial palace, see Rene Taylor, "Architecture and Magic: Considerations on the Idea of the Escorial," in Douglas Fraser, Howard Hibbard, and Milton J. Lewine, eds., Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1967), pp. 81-109.

  The cluster of papers on Galileo's lunar observations and the Cosimo horoscopes include Guglielmo Righini, "New Light on Galileo's Lunar Observations," in Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli and William R. Shea, eds., Reason, Experiment, and Mystiasm in the Sdentific Revolution (New York: Science History Publications, 1975), pp. 59-76, and my response, "Dissertatio cum Pro-fessore Righini et Sidereo nuncio," pp. 77-88 in the same volume; also Guglielmo Righini, Contributo alia interpretazione sdentifica dell'opera astronomica di Galileo (Monografia no. 2, Florence: Institute e Museo di Storia delle Scienza 1978, no. 2). See also "From Occhiale to Printed Page: The Making of Galileo's Sidereus nundus" (with Albert van Helden), Journal for the History of Astronomy 34 (2003): 251—67. The quotation from the dedication to Galileo's book is fr
om the translation by Albert Van Helden, Sidereus Nundus or The Sidereal Messenger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

  14: THE IRON CURTAIN: BEFORE AND AFTER

  Thanks to Robert McCutcheon for the translation of the Deutsch memoir, which appeared in Russian in the Astronomischeskii Kalendar for 1953 (Moscow, 1952). F. G. W. Struve's proud description of the library appears in the Description de I'Observatoire astronomique central de Poulkpva (St. Petersburg, 1845), pp. 237-46. For highlights of the Crawford Library, see A Heavenly Library: Treasures from the Royal Observatory's Crawford Collection (Edinburgh: Royal Observatory Edinburgh, and National Museums of Scotland, 1994).