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Copernicus’ treatise On the Revolutions of the
Celestial Spheres marks the beginning of modern astronomy.
It inaugurated the “Copernican Revolution” and inspired Kepler,
Galileo, and Newton by placing the sun at the center of what could now
only be called the “solar system.” Indeed, it was only the
advocacy of Copernicus’ work by Kepler and Galileo that inspired
the belated prohibition of this book in 1616 by the Catholic Church.
De Revolutionibus was a revolutionary new blueprint for the planetary system, in which the earth no longer rested solidly in the center of the cosmos but spun on its axis, revolving around a distant, fixed sun. Copernicus’ arguments seem highly compelling in retrospect, but his cosmology appeared ridiculous to his contemporaries. The first edition of his book probably numbered only 400 to 500 copies; Copernicus, elderly and bedridden, received the completed volume on the day he died.
The original book imaged for this edition:
10 15/16 x 8 3/16 inches (278 x 208 mm)
De Revolutionibus was a revolutionary new blueprint for the planetary system, in which the earth no longer rested solidly in the center of the cosmos but spun on its axis, revolving around a distant, fixed sun. Copernicus’ arguments seem highly compelling in retrospect, but his cosmology appeared ridiculous to his contemporaries. The first edition of his book probably numbered only 400 to 500 copies; Copernicus, elderly and bedridden, received the completed volume on the day he died.
The original book imaged for this edition:
10 15/16 x 8 3/16 inches (278 x 208 mm)
Sidereal System
Several landmark scientific books changed how we look at our place in the universe. The first of these was Nicholas Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Published in 1543, De Revolutionibus gave a revolutionary new blueprint for the planetary system. The earth, instead of resting solidly in the center of the cosmos, was set awhirl, spinning on its axis every twenty-four hours and revolving around a distant, fixed sun. The new cosmology was not a clarion call from the stars, inevitable and proven by fresh Renaissance observations of the planets; instead it was something truly subtle and wonderful, a “theory pleasing to the mind.” Chapter 10, with its famous sun-centered diagram of the planetary system, was intended to convince not by physical or astronomical “proof,” but by aesthetics, by the beauty of the explanation. From a geometric point of view, Copernicus’ arguments were highly compelling, but to the great majority of his contemporaries, any claims for physical reality seemed ridiculous. If the earth were spinning daily on its axis, a stone thrown upward would surely land in another county. As the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe would say later in the sixteenth century, “The Copernican arrangement nowhere offends the principles of mathematics, but it casts the earth, a lazy, sluggish body unfit for motion, into a movement as fast as the aetherial torches [i.e., the stars themselves].”
Several landmark scientific books changed how we look at our place in the universe. The first of these was Nicholas Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Published in 1543, De Revolutionibus gave a revolutionary new blueprint for the planetary system. The earth, instead of resting solidly in the center of the cosmos, was set awhirl, spinning on its axis every twenty-four hours and revolving around a distant, fixed sun. The new cosmology was not a clarion call from the stars, inevitable and proven by fresh Renaissance observations of the planets; instead it was something truly subtle and wonderful, a “theory pleasing to the mind.” Chapter 10, with its famous sun-centered diagram of the planetary system, was intended to convince not by physical or astronomical “proof,” but by aesthetics, by the beauty of the explanation. From a geometric point of view, Copernicus’ arguments were highly compelling, but to the great majority of his contemporaries, any claims for physical reality seemed ridiculous. If the earth were spinning daily on its axis, a stone thrown upward would surely land in another county. As the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe would say later in the sixteenth century, “The Copernican arrangement nowhere offends the principles of mathematics, but it casts the earth, a lazy, sluggish body unfit for motion, into a movement as fast as the aetherial torches [i.e., the stars themselves].”
Pontifical Pardon
Even though Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus died the very day he received his copy of his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) in 1543, he had included in the preface of the book a plea to Pope Paul III to consider his revolutionary theory that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around. “I can readily imagine, Holy Father, that as soon as some people hear that in this volume I ascribe certain motions to the terrestrial globe...they will shout that I must be immediately repudiated together with this belief... Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.” Copernicus argued that his logic and the soundness of his principles would “dispel the fog of absurdity by most luminous proofs,” but his feared repudiation became a reality in 1616 when the Vatican placed De Revolutionibus on its list of forbidden books. The book was removed from the list in 1822, but it was only recently in June 1999 that Pope John Paul II pardoned and defended Copernicus in an address to Polish academics and scientists.
Even though Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus died the very day he received his copy of his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) in 1543, he had included in the preface of the book a plea to Pope Paul III to consider his revolutionary theory that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around. “I can readily imagine, Holy Father, that as soon as some people hear that in this volume I ascribe certain motions to the terrestrial globe...they will shout that I must be immediately repudiated together with this belief... Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.” Copernicus argued that his logic and the soundness of his principles would “dispel the fog of absurdity by most luminous proofs,” but his feared repudiation became a reality in 1616 when the Vatican placed De Revolutionibus on its list of forbidden books. The book was removed from the list in 1822, but it was only recently in June 1999 that Pope John Paul II pardoned and defended Copernicus in an address to Polish academics and scientists.
Bookworms
In a bookseller’s catalog one never hears of termites, by far the most destructive agents; for insects that can turn houses into sawdust, a book is barely an hors d’oeuvre. Librarians and booksellers do, after all, require a physical object to shelve or to sell: termites tend to leave only a little confetti between the covers. Many of what we call bookworms feast on the paste and leather of books’ bindings or take up residence inside books, leaving behind them mysterious stains or rubbed areas often attributed to common wear and tear rather than insect damage. Holes tunneled through the pages of books clearly indicate the presence of bookworms; in many examples of fifteenth- through eighteenth-century European books these holes are caused by the furniture beetle (Anobium punctatum) and the death-watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum), both of which invaded furniture as well. Such a bookworm hole can be seen from view 105 through 137 in Octavo’s Edition of Nicolaus Copernicus De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
In a bookseller’s catalog one never hears of termites, by far the most destructive agents; for insects that can turn houses into sawdust, a book is barely an hors d’oeuvre. Librarians and booksellers do, after all, require a physical object to shelve or to sell: termites tend to leave only a little confetti between the covers. Many of what we call bookworms feast on the paste and leather of books’ bindings or take up residence inside books, leaving behind them mysterious stains or rubbed areas often attributed to common wear and tear rather than insect damage. Holes tunneled through the pages of books clearly indicate the presence of bookworms; in many examples of fifteenth- through eighteenth-century European books these holes are caused by the furniture beetle (Anobium punctatum) and the death-watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum), both of which invaded furniture as well. Such a bookworm hole can be seen from view 105 through 137 in Octavo’s Edition of Nicolaus Copernicus De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
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