This is the third in a series of discussion of selected parts of Paul Strathern’s The Other Renaissance: From Copernicus to Shakespeare, (Atlantic Books, 2023). For more general details on both the author and his book see the first post in this series.
Today’s subject is Nicolaus Copernicus and I have to admit that, based on the two chapters that I had already read, I expected the Copernicus chapter to be more of a train wreck than it is. That is not to say that it isn’t a train wreck but there are less derailed carriages, decapitated corpses, and severed limbs than I expected.
One interesting aspect is that Strathern here reveals a couple of the sources that he used to write this chapter and they don’t cast a particularly good light on the level of his research for the book. The two sources that the names are Arthur Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe, and Jack Repcheck’s Copernicus’ Secret. He describes Recheck as Copernicus’ biographer. I am not knocking Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers; it is a beautifully written book and above all it is one of the books from my youth that inspired me to become a historian of science. But let’s face it, the book was not free of errors when it was written and that was sixty years ago, the research has moved on a bit since then. Repcheck’s book is more recent, 2007, it is a pop biography strong on the personal, but weak on the science, the “secret” of the title, which forms the central part of the book is the fact that Nicky was apparently banging his housekeeper. A common practice amongst “celibate” Catholic clerics, which reliable sources tell me is still practiced in Catholic villages in Germany today. Strathern, of course, writes about the episode and manages to produce a wonderful howler in doing so.
Strathern manages to stumble several times in the opening paragraphs to the chapter. He opens with:
Perhaps the greatest renaissance, in its literal form of the rebirth of ancient learning, took place in the field of astronomy. During the third century BC, the Ancient Greek Aristarchus of Samos was a mathematician in the greatest centre of learning in the ancient world – namely Alexandria, in northern Egypt. His only surviving work is On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, which assumes a heliocentric world view. And his contemporary, the supreme mathematician Archimedes, elaborated on Aristarchus’s ideas as they appeared in his lost works: ‘His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit.’ Aristarchus proposed that the stars were merely other suns, which despite their fixed motions did in fact move relative to each other and the earth. Unfortunately, the telescope had yet to be invented, which meant that he was unable to prove or demonstrate in any way his seemingly non-intuitive hypotheses.
That Aristarchus worked in Alexandria is speculative and by no means an established fact. On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, assumes a geocentric world view and not a heliocentric one. I will return to Aristarchus, heliocentricity, and rebirth. Strathern follows this with:
Nearly four centuries later, the Ancient Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who also worked in Alexandria, wrote The Almagest, which proposed an alternative astronomical picture that appeared to accord more closely with human observation. This was a geocentric model, placing the earth at the centre of the universe.
Does one really have to point out that the geocentric model of the universe predated Aristarchus’ musing on a heliocentric model and that Ptolemy was merely codifying the work of numerous other astronomers in his Mathēmatikē Syntaxis (to give it its correct title, Almagest was a title it acquired centuries later in Arabic translation). Following a description of the Mathēmatikē Syntaxis,
Ptolemy’s geocentric system was in time accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, and thus became part of theological doctrine. This meant that throughout the Middle Ages the Ptolemaic system could not be contradicted. Anyone who did so was committing heresy. This fact is central to the life and conduct of Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who is credited with resurrecting the ideas of Aristarchus.
The Catholic Church accepted Aristotle’s geocentric cosmology. Ptolemy’s geocentric astronomy (not the same thing at all, in fact the two systems were contradictory in numerous points) was viewed merely as a mathematical system used by astronomers for their calculations. The Ptolemaic system was often contradicted during the medieval period, by Aristotelians, who thought that his deferent/epicycle models for the planetary orbits contradicted Aristotle’s homocentric cosmology and by adherents of the geo-heliocentric model of Martianus Capella (fl. c. 410–420), which was very popular in the Middle Ages. To contradict the Ptolemaic system was not in anyway heretical.
Here we return to Strathern’s opening statement, “Perhaps the greatest renaissance, in its literal form of the rebirth of ancient learning, took place in the field of astronomy” here given flesh, “Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who is credited with resurrecting the ideas of Aristarchus.” There is absolutely no evidence that Copernicus resurrected the ideas of Aristarchus. As far as can be determined, Copernicus conceived the concept of a heliocentric cosmos without any knowledge of Aristarchus and his theory. Later when writing De revolutionibus he played the game of seeking out and quoting predecessors. He was justifying his own concept, after the fact, by saying look I’m not the only one who had these ideas.
There is a puzzle about Copernicus’ knowledge of Aristarchus and his heliocentric theory. He originally included the following in the manuscript of De revolutionibus but deleted it in the printed version.
Philolaus believed in the earth’s motion for these and similar reasons. This is plausible because Aristarchus of Samos too held the same view according to some people, who were not motivated by the argumentation put forward by Aristotle and rejected by him.
Commentators have argued that Copernicus could not have known about the Archimedes text as it was first published the year after his death. However, there is a plausible possibility how he could have known about it. The Archimedes was published by the Nürnberger Thomas Venatorius (1488–1551). Rheticus became friends with Venatorius when he was in Nürnberg before he travelled to Frombork to visit Copernicus and ask him about De revolutionibus. Rheticus took six books containing related material with him as a present for Copernicus, as well as astronomical observations made earlier in Nürnberg by Bernhard Walther (c. 1430–1504). He could well have also brought information on the Archimedes text. Why Copernicus originally included this knowledge and then deleted it is not known.
Strathern continues:
The importance of Copernicus’s feat is all but impossible to exaggerate. Nearly three centuries later, the German poet and polymath Goethe would write in an oft-quoted passage:
Of all discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the centre of the universe.
Unfortunately, Goethe is here contributing to a couple of eighteenth-century myths. The European world had known the world to be round since at least the fourth century BCE and far from the Earth being the privileged centre of the universe in the geocentric model, it was to quote Otto von Guericke, the dregs: (details here)
Since, however, almost everyone has been of the conviction that the earth is immobile since it is a heavy body, the dregs, as it were, of the universe and for this reason situated in the middle or the lowest region of the heaven… [my emphasis]
Strathern now starts a fairly standard biography of Copernicus but runs into problems here:
When Nicolaus was just ten years old, his father died. All the children were then taken into the care of their maternal uncle Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, an intellectual who moved in humanist circles. Besides being a wealthy man, Watzenrode was also a canon – a member of the clergy who took ‘first orders’, including the vow of chastity. This post was often, but not always, held prior to taking full ‘higher orders’ and becoming an ordained priest. Watzenrode had ambitions: he was a canon of Frombork Cathedral, and within six years he would become Prince-Bishop of Warmia, a district of north-eastern Poland abutting the Baltic Sea.
A canon is a member of the chapter of a cathedral, a college of clerics formed to advise a bishop. Put differently, the cathedral chapter was effectively the ruling council of the bishopric. In the case of Warmia the cathedral chapter were the government of the Prince Bishopric, which was not a district of north-eastern Poland but an automatous, self-governing region under the protection of the Polish Crown.
Turning to Copernicus’ education Strathern bizarrely writes the following:
Nicolaus was enrolled to study canon law,* with the aim of following his uncle’s path to an important clerical post.
* This was the body of ecclesiastical law which in general governed ordained members of the Catholic Church. Those outside the Church – the lay population – were governed by what is known as civil or common law. This system of dual jurisdiction prevailed throughout the medieval era, but generally fell into abeyance following the Reformation.
I say bizarrely, because he appeared to be totally unaware of the existence of canon law in his chapter on Cusanus.
We then get a standard idiot-level historical claim:
Quite apart from the ever-evolving Renaissance, this was a time of world-changing discovery. In 1493, Columbus returned from his first transatlantic voyage to what he thought was Cathay (China). Ironically, it was this mistake which meant most to the natural philosophers (scientists) of the time. To them it proved, once and for all, that the world was round.
Firstly, nobody in Europe doubted that the world was round. Secondly, Columbus sailing across the Atlantic to the Americas and then back to Europe in no way whatsoever proves that the world was round. Sailing about 7000 km west and then 7000km back east proves nothing and anybody, who thinks it does, needs their head examined.
Strathern now turns to Copernicus’ studies at the University of Kraków and his time with Albert Brudzewski (c. 1445–c. 1497) the leading scholar of astronomy there. Here Strathern drops the bomb that I already revealed in the last post about Nicholas of Cusa and Regiomontanus:
Brudzewski had read Regiomontanus and shared his belief that the geocentric Ptolemaic model had its flaws. He had also read the work of the Austrian Georg von Peuerbach, who had lived during the earlier years of the century (1423–61). Peuerbach had been taught by Regiomontanus [my emphasis] and had collaborated with him, using instruments which he invented to measure the passage of the stars in the heavens. In 1454 Peuerbach completed his Theoricae Novae Planetarium (New Theories of the Planets), which presented a more simplified form of Ptolemy’s system.
I’ve already dealt with the “Peuerbach had been taught by Regiomontanus” last time, Peuerbach was of course Regiomontanus’ teacher, but I still shudder every time I read this sentence. Peuerbach’s Theoricae Novae Planetarium, became the first every printed mathematical science book every published in 1473, printed and published by Regiomontanus in Nürnberg. It is not a more simplified form of Ptolemy’s system, it’s a cosmology of his system. It shows how the epicycle/deferent orbits of the planets fitted into the crystalline spheres. For a long time, it was thought that the work was original to Peuerbach, but in the 1960s an Arabic manuscript of Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses (Ὑποθέσεις τῶν πλανωμένων, lit. Hypotheses of the Planets), previously unknown, was found and it was realised that the Peuerbach was just a modernised version of Ptolemy’s work. Strathern doesn’t mention that Brudzewski wrote Commentariolum super Theoricas novas planetarum Georgii Purbachii […] per Albertum de Brudzewo — a commentary on Georg von Peuerbach’s text. He also makes no mention of The Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemae co-authored by Peuerbach, first six books, and Regiomontanus, remaining seven books, a manuscript of which was taken to Kraków by Marcin Bylica (c.1433–1493) from Budapest. Copernicus first became aware of this important text in Kraków, which would later become the model for his own De revolutionibus. The two books Peuerbach’s Theoricae Novae Planetarium and the Peuerbach/Regiomontanus Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemae were the primary texts from which Copernicus learnt his astronomy.
Strathern:
In 1495 Copernicus left the University of Kraków without a degree and returned to stay with his uncle Lucas Watzenrode who had now become Prince-Bishop of Warmia. Watzenrode intended to make his nephew a canon, a sinecure which would have supported him during his ensuing studies, but this appointment was held up over a dispute concerning another candidate. So Watzenrode decided to send Copernicus to study in Italy, with the aim of furthering his career in the Church. Two years later, while he was away in Italy, Copernicus would be appointed a canon by proxy, thus guaranteeing him an income.
We don’t know why the appointment of Copernicus as a canon was initially not granted in 1495 but there is no talk of a dispute concerning another candidate. More likely this blatant act of nepotism was viewed negatively by some, especially given Copernicus age and obvious lack of any formal qualifications.
Although Copernicus was still supposed to be studying canon law, at the University of Bologna he so impressed the authorities with his astronomical knowledge that he was able to become an assistant to the renowned astronomer Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. Together, Copernicus and Novara observed a lunar occultation of Aldebaran.
Copernicus didn’t have to impress any “authorities with his astronomical knowledge” to take up extracurricular studies of astronomy with Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. He just had to go and ask the man.
The year 1500 saw huge celebrations in Rome, marking one and a half millennia since the birth of Christ. Copernicus was present in the Holy City, as his uncle had arranged for him to undertake an apprenticeship at the Curia. He took this opportunity to deliver a number of lectures in Rome, casting doubt on the mathematical calculations of Ptolemaic astronomy.
Copernicus’ supposed astronomical lectures in Rome in 1500 are only mentioned posthumously by Rheticus and there is considerable doubt concerning their existence and/or contents.
Later, Copernicus would study at the universities of Padua and Ferrara, between times making further visits back to his uncle in Warmia. During one of these visits, Uncle Lucas instructed Copernicus to broaden his studies by learning medicine at Padua, which was a renowned centre of medical studies at the time. In 1503, Copernicus also completed a doctorate in canon law. All this gives an indication of the depth and breadth of Copernicus’s learning. It was also during this time that Leonardo da Vinci’s wide variety of pursuits made him the epitome of what came to be known as a Renaissance man. One of the great distinctions of this period was the ever-expanding breadth of knowledge of those who contributed to its discoveries. Ideas from one field were likely to inspire breakthroughs in other fields. The greatest advances in Renaissance thought, literature, ideas, science and the arts all took place in the field they referred to as the humanities. Nowadays the humanities are contrasted with the sciences, but in the Renaissance the humanities included the sciences. In accord with its name, this was the study of humanity in all its manifestations, and anything to do with it – in contrast to religious studies.
Difficult to know where to start with this word salad. Copernicus had a degree in canon law in which he never appeared to be very interested and had studied medicine without a degree, he had a driving passion for astronomy is this an indication of depth and breadth? Medicine was a standard further study for astronomer/mathematicians during the period because of the dominance of astro-medicine. Why the comparison with Leonardo? Two completely different animals. But it’s the waffle about the humanities that I find more than somewhat bizarre.
Let’s look what the etymological dictionary has to say on the subject:
1702; plural of humanity (n.), which had been used in English from late 15c. in a sense “class of studies concerned with human culture” (opposed variously and at different times to divinity or sciences). Latin literae humaniores, the “more human studies” (literally “letters”) are fondly believed to have been so called because they were those branches of literature (ancient classics, rhetoric, poetry) which tended to humanize or refine by their influence, but the distinction was rather of secular topics as opposed to divine ones (literae divinae).
Or:
From the late Middle Ages, the singular word humanity served to distinguish classical studies from natural sciences on one side and sacred studies (divinity) on the other side. … The term’s modern career is not well charted. But by the eighteenth century humanity in its academic sense seems to have fallen out of widespread use, except in Scottish universities (where it meant the study of Latin). Its revival as a plural in the course of the following century apparently arose from a need for a label for the multiple new ‘liberal studies’ or ‘culture studies’ entering university curricula. [James Turner, “Philology,” 2014]
We are of course dealing with Renaissance Humanism here, which as I wrote in my blog post on the topic:
They [Renaissance Humanists] referred to their own activities as studia humanitatis, from the Latin humanitas meaning education befitting a cultivated man. Once again, the origin of the modern words: humanism, humanist, and the name, the humanities. These student of humanitas devoted themselves to searching out manuscripts in monastic libraries in Latin but also in Greek that fulfilled their concept of such an education, history, music, art, literature and poetry predominating.
The relationship between the original Renaissance Humanists and science was complex and to say the least fraught, and their concept of the humanities did not include the sciences, whereas the basic, medieval, scholastic university education did. At least nominally, the undergraduate degree at the scholastic university was based on the seven liberal arts, which included the quadrivium–arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy.
By the time Copernicus returned home to Warnia he was thirty years old. Apart from brief visits to Kraków, Thorn and Gdańsk he would remain in Warmia for the rest of his life, living as a canon of Frombork Cathedral. He would characterize this spot as ‘the remotest corner of the world’. Despite Copernicus’s great learning, he was not an ambitious man in any way. According to his biographer Jack Repcheck, ‘He was a retiring hermit like scholar who wanted nothing more than to be left alone.’ His uncle’s intention that he should one day succeed him as Prince-Bishop of Warmia was politely declined, and he lived out the rest of his days as a lowly canon, fulfilling just the minimum of duties for which he was being paid, and occasionally being called into service as his uncle’s physician.
Copernicus returned to Warmia in 1503 and from then till at least 1510 and probably till 1512 he lived in the prince-bishop’s castle at Heilsberg (Lidzbark) serving as his uncle’s personal physician and secretary. In this capacity he took part in all of his uncle’s administrative and diplomatic activities, travelling throughout Warmia, Royal Prussia, and Poland. Only around the time of his uncle’s death did he take up residence at Frombork Cathedral. Also, here he took on many administrative activities in his function as a canon, which was expected of him. He continued to work as a physician treating the various prince-bishops, who succeeded his uncle, other residents and even on occasion Duke Albrecht of Royal Prussia. Between 1516 and 1521 Copernicus was resident in Allenstein (Olsztyn), the chapters economic and administrative centre. He was there during the siege of Allenstein in 1521 and was responsible for organising the towns defences. There is much more but I’m not writing a biography of Copernicus. However, a large part of his life in Warmia as a canon of the cathedral chapter was anything but “fulfilling just the minimum of duties for which he was being paid”!
Strathern now begins to quote Koestler on Copernicus and encapsulates Koestler’s theory of The Sleepwalkers thus, “The scientists of this new age were blundering forward, towards they knew not what.” He then produces another of his extraordinarily wrong assessment of the Middle Ages:
To a greater or lesser extent, this is true of all great ages of discovery. Each new addition contributes its part in the construction of a world which was previously inconceivable. In the case of the Renaissance, this was very much so. Although the Ancient Greeks and Romans had known much of what was rediscovered during the Renaissance, the medieval world had persisted for centuries in a kind of Aristotelian dream. No matter that many of Aristotle’s findings did not in fact accord with reality: his words and his ideas, together with all the ideas which had accrued to his vision of the world (such as the Ptolemaic view of the cosmos), were simply not permitted to be questioned, any more than it was permissible to question one’s faith in God.
I could give Strathern a long list of books on the history of medieval science that would explain to him why it was not only permitted to question many of Aristotle’s finding but was actually done with great vigour by many scholars, starting at the latest with John Philoponus in the sixth century CE. As I like to point out, “the Ptolemaic view of the cosmos” and Aristotle’s cosmology actually contradicted each other in several key points and both of them were subjected to widespread criticism during the medieval period.
After more quotes from Koestler, Strathern writes:
Newton famously characterized his great discoveries by claiming that he had only made them ‘by standing on the shoulders of giants’. In the case of Copernicus, we have seen how he stood on the shoulders of Aristarchus, Nicholas of Cusa, Peuerbach and Regiomontanus (to name but a few).
As already pointed out Copernicus did not stand on the shoulders of Aristarchus and almost certainly first became aware of Aristarchus’ theories long after he had formulated his own heliocentric hypothesis. Nicholas of Cusa doesn’t appear anywhere in De revolutionibus and to quote Edward Rosen from his notes to the English translation of Copernicus’ magnum opus, “it cannot be shown that Copernicus was acquainted with the writings of Nicholas of Cusa,” so no shoulders there. Copernicus did learn much of his astronomy from the readings of Peuerbach and Regiomontanus and De revolutionibus is modelled on the Peuerbach-Regiomontanus Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolema, so we’ll give him that one. However, although Peuerbach and Regiomontanus contributed substantially to Copernicus’ astronomical education, it’s unlikely that anything either of them wrote contributed to his “discovery”. Interestingly, we don’t actually know what motivated Copernicus to adopt a heliocentric model; there are lots of theories put out by historians of astronomy, but they are all speculative. In terms of Strathern’s insistence that Copernicus dared to reject Aristotle, in fact, the only motivation that Copernicus gives is the desire to remove Ptolemy’s equant point because it contradicted Aristotle’s cosmological axioms.
In 1517, Luther’s theses burst upon Europe, creating turmoil throughout western Christendom. Meanwhile Copernicus continued painstakingly setting down his ‘larger work’, making the requisite mathematical calculations based upon astronomical observations he had made in Italy, and further observations which he now continued to make despite the cloudy northern nights of Warmia.
There are only sixty known observations made by Copernicus over a period of the fifty years that he was interested in astronomy, so not in any way a significant observational astronomer.
The breadth of knowledge and wisdom possessed by the scholarly canon soon began to spread further afield. In 1519, King Sigismund I of Poland became distressed at the sheer economic muddle which had overtaken his kingdom. Trade was clogged, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. For a start there were no less than three currencies in circulation: that of Royal Prussia, the Polish currency, and the currency minted by the Teutonic Order of Knights. In an attempt to retain the Order’s wealth and status, the last of these three currencies had been systematically debased. (Similar practices prevailed amongst the other currencies, though on a lesser scale.) Meanwhile, citizens had begun hoarding more valuable coins for their higher true-metal content, and only using debased or ‘clipped’ coins.
Copernicus wrote a paper for King Sigismund I, suggesting a reform of the currency situation, with the maintenance of a single uniform currency.
Copernicus’ initial work on theories of currency was conducted together with and on request of the Royal Prussians and not Sigismund of Poland. It is true that both the Prussians and the Poles read his finished document but neither of them acted upon it. Strathern goes off on a long spiel that Copernicus anticipated Gresham’s Law.
Almost at the end of the chapter, Strathern finally reaches De revolutionibus again emphasising the observations and claiming that one of them confirmed his heliocentric hypothesis. It didn’t! He then makes a bizarre statement that I can’t explain, can any of my readers? Personally, I think it’s garbage.
Copernicus’s heliocentric system also explained certain anomalies. As the earth orbited on its circular path around the sun, it tilted slightly on its axis. This accounted for why certain eclipses took place a few minutes before or after their predicted time.
We then get the big Copernicus myth:
As he grew older, Copernicus began to attract a number of visiting intellectuals, keen to hear his latest ideas. One of these was the twenty- five-year-old Austrian-born Lutheran scholar Georg Joachim Rheticus, who would remain with the ageing Copernicus as his assistant.
Rheticus, as well as others, kept urging Copernicus to publish his work, but Copernicus demurred. Being a canon of the Church he was loath to promulgate ideas which might be mistaken for heresy. [my emphasis]
This myth has been rejected by historians of astronomy for decades. Various high Church official, well aware of Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis, were urging him to publish. For example, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg (1472–1537), Archbishop of Capua wrote to Copernicus in 1536:
Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you… For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe… Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject …
He even offered to cover the costs of having a fine copy of Copernicus’ manuscript made.
It is fairly certain that Copernicus was reluctant to publish because he couldn’t prove the truth of his heliocentric hypothesis, which he had claimed he would do in the Commentariolus, his first early outline of his hypothesis. Not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn “to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses.”
We then get the story of Dantiscus banishing Copernicus’s housekeeper, Anna Schilling, from Frombork in spring 1539. Here Strathern once again manages to produce some true garbage:
Indeed, Copernicus’s indiscretion might have been overlooked while his uncle Lucas was prince-bishop, but this was not the case with some of his successors. Prince-Bishop Johannes Dantiscus was particularly upset when in 1537 he succeeded to the bishopric, and wrote to his predecessor [my emphasis] Tiedemann Giese, whom he knew was a friend of Copernicus, remonstrating about his canon’s behaviour: ‘In his old age… he is still said to let his mistress in frequently in secret assignations. Your Reverence would perform a great act of piety if you warned the fellow privately and in the friendliest terms to stop this disgraceful behaviour.’ And not only was Copernicus living with his mistress, he was also entertaining in his house Lutherans such as Rheticus.
Prince-Bishop [my emphasis] Giese, who had influence at the royal court and was senior to Prince-Bishop[my emphasis] Dantiscus, proved a true friend.
Tiedemann Giese (1480–1550), who was Copernicus’ best friend, was Bishop of Kulm (Chełmno). He was not at that time a prince-bishop and was in the Church hierarchy junior to Danticus, whose successor he was and not his predecessor. Dantiscus, who was a highly educated and knowledgeable man, would have had no problems with Rheticus’ presence in Warmia. Rheticus was a protégé of Philip Melanchthon. Dantiscus knew Melanchthon personally and respected him highly, only regretting that he was a Protestant, his protégé Rheticus would have been a welcome guest. Dantiscus was a fan of Copernicus’ astronomical work and even invited Gemma Frisius, who he knew personally, to come to Frombork to work with Copernicus.
Strathern continues with more nonsense:
Not only did he protect Copernicus from censure, but in league with Rheticus he persuaded Copernicus to part with a copy of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, allegedly so that they could study it in greater detail. Between the two of them, Giese and Rheticus then contrived to have Copernicus’s work published in Nuremberg in 1543.
I have no idea where Strathern dredged up this little piece of fantasy. The was no conspiracy, no skulduggery. Buoyed by the positive reception of Rheticus’ Narratio Prima, published in Danzig in 1540 and again in Basel in 1541, and convinced by the quality of the science books published by Johannes Petreius, brought by Rheticus as a gift to Frombork, Copernicus gave a manuscript of his De revolutionibus to Rheticus to take to Nürnberg to be published by Petreius.
The rubbish continues:
They intended Copernicus’s work to be judged on its own merit; and wished, as far as possible, to avoid any controversy. Unfortunately, Rheticus was called away from supervising the publication in Nuremberg, and this task was taken over by a Lutheran theologian called Andreas Osiander, who had ideas of his own. Osiander was a reformer of considerable influence; indeed, some years previously he had been instrumental in Nuremberg becoming a Protestant city. Purely on his own initiative Osiander inserted an anonymous preface of his own into De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, giving the impression that the preface had in fact been penned by Copernicus himself. In doing so, Osiander managed to undermine the two most important principles which Copernicus wished to uphold: the avoidance of controversy, and the certain truth of his system. Not only did Osiander make a show of how offensive Copernicus’s system was to long-accepted orthodoxy; at the same time he stated that the author believed its contents to be a mere hypothesis. At a stroke, he left Copernicus open to a charge of heresy yet simultaneously implied that he did not believe in the truth of what he was saying.
I know this is nit picking but Osiander wrote an ad lectorum, address to the reader, not a preface and it was obviously inserted in the book with the full knowledge and approval of Petreius the publisher. This is very obvious from the very rude answer that Petreius gave the Nürnberg City Council, when they questioned him following the receipt of a letter from Tiedemann Giese complaining about the inclusion of the ad lectorum. He basically said, I’ll include in my books what I want. To anybody, who actually reads the ad lectorum, it is obvious from how it is phrased that it was not written by the author of the book.
The rest of Strathern’s comment is a total inversion of the effect of the ad lectorum. Far from leaving Copernicus open to a charge of heresy; by indicating that the book could also be simply read as a mathematical hypothesis, Osiander actually defused the possibility of such an accusation.
One last piece of Strathern confusion:
Fortunately, Copernicus would never see these words. By now he was seventy and lay on his deathbed, having suffered a stroke. However, according to legend, the final printed pages of Copernicus’s masterpiece were delivered to him in Warmia, where he still lived in an isolated tower outside Frombork, whereupon he is said to have woken briefly from his coma.
Copernicus acquired a house outside of the cathedral walls in 1512 in which he was still living when he died. In 1514 he purchased the north-western tower within the walls of the Frombork stronghold, which it is assumed that he used for his astronomical observations. It would appear that Strathern has a black belt in mangling facts.