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...