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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 Maria Novara in Bologna. At the origin of astronomical studies in Ferrara we find Giovanni Bianchini, whose astronomical tables were the most used at the time. Bianchini had been in correspondence with Regiomontanus, the Copernicus' main modern source. Copernicus' relations with Ferrara did not end with his degree. In the sixteenth century figures such as Calcagnini, Giraldi, Patrizi were attentive to the novelties of scientific knowledge. In the following century heliocentrism entered as a polemical reference in the works of the Ferrara Jesuits Riccioli and Cabeo. In the eighteenth century Bonati dealt with the diurnal motion of the Earth. Historical interest in Copernicus also developed in Ferrara after the unification of Italy with participation in the Copernican celebrations of 1873, with the discovery of the recording of
Copernicus degree in 1876. An interest that surfaced in 1932, in 1993, in 2003, in relation to important city events.
