One of many vexatious problems in Copernican scholarship is the question of Copernicus’s views concerning astrology. Historians have tended to interpret the absence of direct evidence on this matter as evidence that Copernicus either rejected astrology altogether or simply chose to remain silent on the question. In 1990, I associated myself with this majority view in a study of Copernicus’s...
Most of the research on the education of Nicolaus Copernicus has been focused understandably on his astronomy and natural philosophy. Burning questions about his own statements and arguments in support of heliocentrism, however, led me to focus more on his education in logic. This paper does discuss Copernicus’s natural philosophy, trigonometry, and astronomy, but its most substantive and...
This paper dwells on the methodos that Copernicus presents in the Dedication to Paul III as the demonstrative path leading man to comprehend the true foundations of the universe, the Earth’s motions. These not only accurately account for celestial phenomena without departing from the first principle of the uniformity of circular motions, but reveal the divine creator’s imprint on the...
A close reading of Copernicus’s two key texts, Commentariolus and De revolutionibus, reveals his commitment to the Platonic program of True astronomy, which is to discover the well-proportioned, harmonious universe hidden beyond visible phenomena but accessible through mathematical reasoning. There are several types of evidence of varying weight that support this claim, both textual and...
In his "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium", Nicolaus Copernicus mentions only a few observational instruments. At first glance, their general structure appears identical to those described in Claudius Ptolemy’s "Almagest". A more attentive look, however, reveals that Copernicus instruments include a number of modifications devised by other Arabic and European astronomers.
In any case, the...
One of the first results of the publication of the De revolutionibus has been the preparation and the publication of the Prutenicae Tabulae Coelestium Motuum, first published in 1551 by Erasmus Reinhold. In my contribution I will present a brief excursus of the astronomical tables in use before the publication of these two groundbreaking works, the main characteristics of the tables included...
Copernicus's astronomical models include a number of elements also found in the works of Maragha astronomers, such as the Tusi couple. It is commonly held that Copernicus must have learned of these ideas somehow, most likely during his time in Italy. In previous articles, I argued that the case for this conclusion is not convincing. Here I give an update on the current state of this debate,...
In 2002, the astronomer Owen Gingerich published his Annotated census of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus, in which he described some 600 copies of the first two editions of the heliocentric work of the Polish astronomer (Nuremberg 1543 and Basel 1566); two years later, Gingerich discussed his argument further in his best-selling The book nobody read: chasing the revolutions of Nicolaus...
Has Copernicus’ Italian passage left some traces in art? Can we find his portrait somewhere in Early Renaissance Italy?
A scientist’s portrait can be interesting in itself, but even more so, as it bears witness of his connection to a place and to an intellectual environment. Between 1496 (or maybe a little earlier), and 1503, Copernicus sojoururned in Bologna, Ferrara and Padua as a student,...
The Astronomical Observatory of Padua is the only one in the world to present a pictorial cycle telling the progress of astronomical knowledge from antiquity to the 18th century. It was designed by the first director, Giuseppe Toaldo (1719-1797), to make the observatory a beautiful place for study and research and to transmit educational and historical-scientific notions to a broad public. The...
Thanks to the organizers’ fruitful suggestion, this paper explores Copernicus’s reading of Johannes Regiomontanus and Cardinal Bessarion, extending beyond strictly textual matters to the more nebulous question of the two thinkers’ influence on Copernicus. With a few exceptions, the paper is synthetic, summarizing what we know with certainty, but also suggesting what one can reasonably infer,...
My point of departure is Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404-1472) insight into the nature of visual representation. As an Italian humanist and artist, he was aware of the critical power of visual evidence and a rational deliberation of the appearances vis-à-vis the traditional authority of the ancients. Simultaneously he also challenged a subservient approach to the appearances that might turn out...
Around 1518, the Ferrara humanist Celio Calcagnini (1479-1541) wrote an original defense of Earth's motion, Quod caelum stet, terra moveatur vel de perenni motu terrae (The Heavens Stand, the Earth Moves, or the Perennial Motion of the Earth). It was a short but complex philosophical treatise, written in a sophisticated style, on a topic of undoubted interest to the history of cosmology. It is...
According to his disciple Rethicus, Copernicus had been "adiutor & testis observationum doctissimi viri Dominici Mariae", in the years in which he lived and studied in Bologna, at the end of the 15th century. This is Domenico Maria Ploti da Novara, holder of the chair “at Astronomiam” in the Bolognese Studium. A pupil in Ferrara of Giovanni Bianchini and in correspondence with Regiomontanus,...
When Copernicus arrived in Ferrara to obtain a degree in canon law, Ferrara was at the height of its splendor under the guidance of Ercole I d'Este. The year before, Lucrezia Borgia had arrived in Ferrara with a large dowry. But
what attracted Copernicus to Ferrara were not the glories of the Court, but the tradition of astronomical studies that he knew from his acquaintance with Domenico...
Not only Copernicus in Roma! This paper will be on the production of maps in the time of Copernicus. Copernicus was not the first. It starts with Brudzewski (ca. 1445 – ca. 1497) who was the teacher of Wapowski (1475 – 1535) and Copernicus (1473 – 1543) in Kraków. Of course, also Brudzewski relies on earlier ideas, in astronomy as well as in geography. Wapowski and Copernicus become lifelong...
It belongs to the frequently repeated topoi of the Copernicus biographies that Nicolaus Copernicus left his place of study in Bologna in the Holy Year 1500, traveled to Rome and spent some time there. In Rome he held lectures as a “professor of mathematics” and enjoyed public attention. This was reported for the first time by his only disciple Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574) in his Narratio...
Tra gli studi di Bronisław Biliński su Copernico valore particolare hanno le sue tre pubblicazioni nella collana "Conferenze" dell'Accademia Polacca delle Scienze. Si tratta di: 1/ Il pitagoreismo di Niccolò Copernico (1977) 2/Tradizioni dell’astronomia polacca a Roma (1976); 3/Alcune considerazioni su Niccolò Copernico e Domenico Maria Novara (1975). Nel suo studio del 1976 Biliński ha...
Nel contributo, presentato con il prof. Jerzy Miziolek dell'Università di Varsavia, verranno analizzate tre immagini ottocentesche relative al soggiorno di Copernico a Roma nel 1500 (lezione di matematica e osservazione dell'eclissi solare), confrontandole con l'iconografia copernicana della stessa epoca e con le fonti letterarie sulla presenza dello scienziato nella Roma.
The idea that Copernicus’s theory of heliocentricity underlies Michelangelo’s depiction of Christ in the Last Judgment as an ‘Apollonian’ sun-god in the centre of a cosmic circular design was consistently rejected on the grounds that Michelangelo’s fresco was finished in 1541, two years before the publication of Copernicus’s Revolutions, in 1543. However, it can be demonstrated that the...
We discuss one of the most plausible bona fide portrait of Copernicus during his Italian stay, brought to the attention by Sergio Bettini in 1975: that in the fresco dedicated to the Marriage of the Virgin in the Scoletta del Carmine, probably painted by Giulio Campagnola (1480-1515) in the first decade of 1500. The strange Juxtaposition of the astronomer and several celebrated painters...
For most Jesuits, after the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), the center of the universe continued to be occupied by the Earth. As a head of mathematicians at the Collegio Romano, C. Clavius attacked Copernicus based on astronomical reasons. One of the essentials was the motion and position of inferior planets, Venus and Mercury. In some ancient world-systems, these...
In this communication, we will present an astronomical work, inspired by Copernicus, that has thus far escaped the scrutiny of the historians of Renaissance astronomy. The Pontifical Antonian Library of Padua preserves a Latin manuscript in Italian, which is of great scientific quality and bears a Copernican-sounding title: Delle revolutioni delle sfere celesti libri IX (On the Revolutions of...
In this paper, I would like to analyse Copernicus' legacy by using two dissimilar texts which conceal a continuity far greater than one might think, namely Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius and The Other World: States and Empires of the Moon by Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac. After considering the Sidereus Nuncius as a manifesto of the scientific method, I will stress the similarity between...
“Il Copernico” by Giacomo Leopardi is an ironic short treatise, written in dialogue form,
that the Italian poet wished to include in his “Operette morali” collection. However, he did
not, being aware that the treatise would have been noticed and rejected by the Neapolitan
censorship. “Il Copernico” was thus included in the collection and published only 8 years
later, when Leopardi had...
The celebrations of the fourth centenary of Copernicus' birth held in Rome in 1873 at La Sapienza University gave rise to the idea of a permanent museum dedicated to the famous Polish astronomer. Despite the great interest that the initiative awakened from the very beginning, many years passed before a definitive location for the Museum was identified, which was associated with the Observatory...
The aim of the present paper is to present an interesting and rather obscure figure of Artur Wolynski - political emigre, scholar and publicist, a man actively engaged in the life of the Polish emigration community, co-founder of such institutions as The Academy of Adam Mickiewicz in Bologna, The Polish Library in Rome and above all - The Museum of Nicolaus Copernicus in Rome. The main area of...
