Speaker
Description
Owen Gingerich, recently passed away, has been one of the most important historians of astronomy between the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. Teacher of history of astronomy at the Harvard University (1967-2000) contributed with fundamental studies from the astronomy of ancient Greece to the birth of astrophysics.
His most important job has been the search and study of the copies of first (1543) and second (1566) editions of the "De revolutionibus" of Copernicus. A job that led him to personally visit hundreds of libraries and collections of rare books around the world.
I will try to describe his main contributions and teachings through his texts and personal memories mainly about his relationship with Italy, on the copies of the "De revolutionibus" described in his works and on the copies he was not able to include in an update of the "Census" never published but which deserve a new study.
