Copernicus in Paris in 1612: A Teaching Text Edition of DE REVOLUTIONIBUS

The Sphaera Nicolai Copernici is not mentioned in the bibliographies of Lalande, Houzeau & Lancaster, and Grassi. It does not figure in H. Baranowski's Bibliografia kopernikowska 1509–1955 (Warsaw, 1958). There is no reference to it in the catalogues of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, of the British Library, or of the Library of Congress.

The first copy of the Sphaera is in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris (shelfmark: 4° S 3300). It is bound together with three works by Philip van Lansberge. In this volume the Sphaera follows after the Progymnasmatum astronomiae restitutae liber I De motu Solis (Middleburg, 1619). The second copy is at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris (shelfmark 4° R 24). This copy carries a note on the title page stating that it came from the Oratorian Seminary of Saint-Magloire in Paris (“Ex libris Oratorij Sammagloriani”) and on the inside of the binding an old catalogue shelfmark ‘Y 47’ and the date ‘1662’, the probable year of its incorporation into the library of the Oratorians of Saint-Magloire. See the manuscript inventory drawn up in 1674 by Pierre de la Planche with the title Catalogus alter librorum Bibliothecae Sammaglorianae in tres classes divisus …, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Ms 5337, f. 43, where the work is described thus: Copernicus. Sphaera seu Systema mundi. See also Franklin A. , Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris , ii (Paris, 1870), 365–8. The same mention of origin, but in more explicit terms, “Ex dono R. P. De Ste Marthe” (= Abel-Louis de Sainte-Marthe (1621–97), Supérieur Général of the Oratorians of France) is to be found in the copy of the Ephemerides novae of Georg Joachim Rheticus (Leipzig, 1550), in the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire, Paris (Figure 3). Before being incorporated into the library of the Oratorians of Saint-Magloire (cf. Catalogus alter, f. 61, shelfmark Y 58), this copy of the Ephemerides novae had been acquired in 1551 by François Rasse des Neux, a Paris surgeon who also possessed a copy of Rheticus's Canon doctrinae triangulorum (Lepizig, 1551) as well as a copy of the Supplementum ephemeridium [sic] Petri Pitati Veronensis (Venice, 1542). Both these copies came into his possession in 1552 and are today in the library of the Paris Observatory (see infra, ref. 37). Our thanks go to the libraries of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers and the Observatoire de Paris for authorizing reproduction of the documents appearing in this study, as well as to Roland Lehoucq for the photographs of the Sphaera Nicolai Copernici.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon, shelfmark 367411. There is on this copy an ex libris of the Lyons Jesuits, with the date ‘1674’.

In-4°, 54 pp. sigs A-F⁸, G⁶ (Air°: Title — verso blank — Aijr°: Beginning of text — Giijv°: End of text). Title: SPHAERA NICOLAI / COPERNICI. / SEV SYSTEMA MVNDI / SECVNDVM COPERNICVM. / Rule / Jean Libert's printer's mark / PARISIIS, / Ex Typographia IOANN. LIBERT, via Diui / Ioann. Lateranensis prope Collegium / Cameracense. / M. DC. XII. It is only on p. 41 of the Sphaera that the author of the text can be clearly seen to be Copernicus, for there the following title appears: NICOLAI/ COPERNICI REVO-/ LUTIONVM LIBER/ TERTIVS./, followed by the title of the first chapter of this book: De Œquinoctiorum solstitiorumque anticipatione Cap. I. The typographical similarity between p. 41 of P and f. 63 of N is evident.

For a preliminary list of the 1543 and 1566 editions of the De revolutionibus held in France, see Cazenave M. and Taton R. , “Contribution à l'étude de la diffusion du De revolutionibus en France”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xxvii (1974), 307–27. Owen Gingerich has announced the forthcoming publication of a list of all the copies of the two editions of Copernicus's book existing at present in libraries throughout the world.

See for example op. cit. (ref. 4): Lib. I, cap. 5 reproducitur N P (cf. p. 9, 11. 27–28): producitur B; lib. I, cap. 11 distantiam N P (p. 32, 1. 15): distantem B; lib. III, cap. 2 subtendit segmentum circuli HGL partium CLXXVI. erit ipsa HOI N P (p. 46, ll. 25–26): Omitted in B.

Sphaera Nicolai Copernici (ref. 4), 11, 27, 31 and 32. For the diagram in Chapter 10 showing Copernicus's heliocentric universe, the printer inexplicably left a blank at the foot of p. 26 (Figure 7) (corresponding to five lines of text), useless for the diagram of the cosmos which should have had a block to itself on p. 27. In the case of the second diagram in Chapter 11 (p. 32), the printer composed the two captions accompanying “Partes Boreæ” and “Partes Austrinæ” placed respectively above and below the diagram (Figure 8) as in N (f. 1lv). Page 54, the last of our text (Figure 6), corresponds to f. 67v of N.

Op. cit. (ref. 4), 45, 51, 52 and 53.

The reader mainly focused his attention on the chapters in the first book, in particular on Chapter 8, where Copernicus refutes the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic objections to the idea of the Earth rotating about itself (ibid., 15–20).

See Mellot J.-D. and Queval E. , Répertoire d'imprimeurs/libraires XVIe-XVIIIe siècle: État en 1995, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris, 1995), 398. Our basic information is taken from Martin H.-J. , Livre, pouvoirs et société à Paris au XVIIe siècle (1598–1701) (2 vols, Geneva, 1969), i, 193–4, 343, 397 and 408–9; see also Arbour R. , L'Ere baroque en France: Répertoire des éditions de textes littéraires, 1585–1643 (4 vols and supplement, Geneva, 1977–85), passim, and, by the same author, Un éditeur d'Œuvres littéraires au XVIIe siècle: Toussaint Du Bray (1604–1636) (Geneva, 1992), in which one will find, on p. 170, a comparative table (by genres) of the books produced between 1604 and 1636 by some ten Paris printer-booksellers, among whom was Jean Libert.

The typographical mark (Figure 1) had at first been used by both the printer-booksellers Guillaume Morel and Etienne Prevosteau — one can distinguish on the lower part the initials E P (see Renouard Ph. , Les marques typographiques parisiennes des XVe et XVIe siècles (Paris, 1928), nos. 786 and 929, pp. 248–9 and 298–9). This mark associates the Greek letter Theta , “symbol of death, with two serpents interlaced round this Theta, representing immortality. Love, seated on the branch of the Theta, signifies that in death one must love immortality, with the following verse Victurus genium debet habere liber”. We borrow this description from de la Caille Jean , Histoire de l'imprimerie et de la librairie … (Paris, 1689), 123–4; see also ibid., 171.

See Martin , op. cit. (ref. 10), i, 406–9 (in which there is an interesting description of Libert's home with an inventory of his possessions) and Map 5 at the end of vol. ii. On the contract of marriage between Jean Libert and Jeanne Guillemot, his second wife, whom he married on 16 July 1638, and on the publishing activities of the latter from 1646 on, see Arbour R. , Les femmes et les métiers du livre (1600–1650) (Chicago and Paris, 1998), 183–5.

See for example the Oedipus tyrannus of Sophocles and the Oratio ad Philippum of Isocrates, texts in Greek published by Libert in 1633 and 1634. But the main bookseller of the Jesuits at that time was Sébastien Cramoisy, also “Printer to the King” from 1633: See “Un grand éditeur parisien au XVIIe siècle, Sébastien Cramoisy” in Martin H.-J. , Le livre français sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, 1987), 55–64. For a comparison between Libert and Cramoisy from the point of view of their editions of classical works, see, by the same author. Livre, pouvoirs et société (ref. 10), i, 193–5.

This Declamatio, a best seller, had already been published several times from 1605 by E. Prevosteau, Jean Libert's father-in-law. Nicolas Bourbon was Royal Reader in Greek from 1611 to 1619. In 1612 Libert also produced a versified French translation of Jean Morel's Calotta, salutare admodum capitis operimentum which had appeared the previous year. He further published Le dedain amoureux, a pastoral adapted from the Italian author Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, as well as a textbook edition of the Decerpta ex IIII Honorij Panegyrico Claudiani, etc.

In the Physica (Paris, 1617), 284–9, Jean Crassot first expounded the arguments in favour of Copernicus, then refuted them (without any allusion to the De revolutionibus's having being placed on the Index in 1616).

On Morin J.-B. , see the study by M. Martinet in Quelques savants et amateurs de science au XVIIe siècle (Cahiers d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences, no. 14; Paris, 1986), 69–87 (“Bibliographie primaire”, ibid., 83–85).

On the distinction between collèges de boursiers and collèges de plein exercice, see Compère M. M. and Julia D. , Les collèges français, 16e–18e siècles, i: Répertoire France du Midi (Paris, 1984), 4. The volume on the Paris colleges is being prepared by M. M. Compère.

The Collège de Tréguier was also to offer classroom space to the Royal Readers. In fact, the work of construction of the Collège Royal began only in 1610, in the grounds belonging to these two colleges: See Gouget C. P. , Mémoire historique & littéraire sur le Collège Royal de France (3 vols, Paris, 1758), Première Partie, espec. pp. 47 and 67, and Lefranc A. , Histoire du Collège de France (Paris, 1893), 237–47.

To illustrate this fact, we may cite the publication, in 1609, of the Orationes duae habitae in auditorio regio by Georges Critton, Royal Reader in Greek from 1595 to 1611. (On George Critton, whose favourite bookseller until 1608 seems to have been E. Prevosteau, see Gouget , op. cit. (ref. 18), Première Partie, 175–86.) In 1612, Libert published an In Lauream Doctoralem D. D. Guil. Du Val Regii Professoris Philosophiae Graecae & Latinae composed in verse by Pierre Oriot in honour of this professor who occupied his chair at the Collège Royal for no less than forty years, from 1606 to 1646, and was to be himself the author of a book entitled Le Collège Royal de France ou institution, establissement et Catalogue des lecteurs et professeurs ordinaires du Roy (Paris, 1644).

See Jourdain C. , Histoire de l'Université de Paris au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1862–66; reprint Brussels, 1966), 115–17, and Lefranc , op. cit. (ref. 18), 243–8. Until the appearance of the new Histoire du Collège de France (in preparation), one may consult the Actes du Colloque International held in Paris in 1995 and edited by M. Fumaroli under the title Les origines du Collège de France (1500–1560) (Paris, 1998).

As is revealed in the “Recepte des Louages des chambres & boutiques … dudict college” which figures each year in the accounts of the Collège de Cambrai, now in the Archives Nationales de France (shelfmark H3 27963), this college rented out space to certain booksellers for the practice of their trade. This was notably the case with Etienne Prevosteau, who ran a shop from 1600 to 1607. Throughout this period he gave as an address on the title page of the books produced by his press, E typographia Steph. Prevosteau in Coll. Cameracensi. My thanks go to M. M. Compère and Didier Julia for their information concerning this archive source.

See “Liste des professeurs depuis la fondation du Collège de France en 1530”, Collège de France [Affaires culturelles et Relations extérieures] (Paris, 1995), 6, 19, and 25.

See the miscellany of texts by Sainclair collected together under the cat. no. V 6224 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. On David Sainclair (or Sinclair, or Sanclarus), a Scot by origin, see Gouget , op. cit. (ref. 18), Seconde Partie, 44–45.

First edition, Paris, printed by J. Moreau, 1620; see Gouget , ibid., 45. The inventaire après décès of Boulenger drawn up in 1637 mentions the presence in his library of two copies of De revolutionibus, one of which is described as the 1543 edition.

Discours touchant la grandeur de l'eau et de la terre, pris de Picolomini followed by Annotations de lacques Martin Piedmontais, sur la Sphère du monde de Picolomini (Paris, 1608), 233–48. The 1608 edition was reprinted in Paris in 1618 and 1619.

Sphaera Ioannis de Sacrobosco emendata … annotationibus Jacobi Martini Pedemontani … aucta. Gouget , op. cit. (ref. 18), Première Partie, 74, mentions a Jacobi Martini Pedemontani & Ramei Mathematicarum artium Professoris, pro Cathedra Ramea Oratio (Paris, printed by Pierre Menier, 1610). Also by Jacques Martin was a Praxis geometrica printed in 1612 by François Gueffier who, like Jean Libert, had a shop “via S. Ioannis Lateranensis, e regione Gymnasi Cameracensis”. Finally, from Jacques Martin we also have a course on astronomy In Almagestum Ptolemei, which has remained in manuscript, without any indication of date, but was probably composed about 1602.

The expression systema mundi was not yet in current usage at this date (see Lerner M.-P. , “Sur l'expression ‘système du monde’”, forthcoming): Its presence in our title can be explained by reading Galileo's text quoted below.

Bibliothèque Inguimbertine de Carpentras, ms 1774, f. 452. This unpublished note by Peiresc (written a few months after the De revolutionibus had been placed on the Index on 5 March 1616) helps to enrich our knowledge of the reception of Copernicus in France in the second half of the sixteenth century. It also tells us that Sainclair (a reader of the works of Della Porta) had invented an arrangement with a mirror for observing the Sun and that he held in great esteem “un Euclide en Anglois ou sont les traductions de tous les scoliastes Grecs faicte [sic] par un Maire de Londres” (this was a reference to H. Billingsley's edition containing an extensive “Mathematicall Praeface” by Dee John , published in 1570).

Cf. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. lat. 7377, ff. 39–55v. The transcription of these lectures, whose complete title is “In Spheram Copernici. Lector Sanclarus 1607 “and subject matter an exposition of the first two books of De revolutionibus, is due to a certain R. Gillocques, as can be seen at the bottom of f. 39: “R. Gillocques haec scripsi In Collegio Cameracensi parisiis 1607.” Between April and August 1608, Sainclair gave lectures on Euclid under the title “In Euclidis Opticam & Catoptricam cum quibusdam Vitellionis rationibus a D[omi]no Sanclaro Lectore Regio” (see ms. lat. 7377, ff. 71–89). We do not know if Sainclair gave a course in the following years on Copernicus's Books III to VI.

A translation into French of the plan drawn up by Maestlin for a preface to the De revolutionibus appears in Kepler J. , Le secret du monde, French transl. by Segonds A. (Paris, 1984), 189–92.

See the texts quoted by I. Pantin in her edition of Kepler Jean , Dissertatio cum nuncio sidereo. Discussion avec le messager céleste (Paris, 1993), pp. xiv–xv.

See de Dainville F. , La géographie des humanistes: Les Jésuites et l'éducation de la société française (Paris, 1940), 210.

See Galileo , Sidereus nuncius (Venice, 1610), D4r, and also D3r and G4v (= English transl. by Van Helden Albert (Chicago, 1989), 57, 55 and 86; Le messager céleste , Latin text and French transl. by Pantin I. (Paris, 1992), 21–22, 20 and 48). Galileo employs once the expression systema alone and twice the expression systema mundi, which latter is to be found in the title of the Sphaera Nicolai Copernici.

On the reception (very reserved) of heliocentrism in France, see Baumgartner F. J. , “Scepticism and French interest in Copernicanism to 1630”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xvii (1986), 77–88, and Heller H. , “Copernican ideas in sixteenth century France”, Renaissance and Reformation, n.s., xx (1996), 5–26. For the reception of Copernicanism in the collèges de plein exercice before 1640, see Brockliss L. W. B. , “Copernicus in the university: The French experience”, in New perspectives on Renaissance thought: Essays in the history of science, education and philosophy, ed. by Henry J. and Hutton S. (London, 1990), 191–3 and 202. Sainclair's lectures at the Cambrai College in 1607–8 and the publication of the Sphaera Nicolai Copernici four years later help to support the conclusions of this study for the first two decades of the seventeenth century.

In the same year as Clavius's death, Christoph Scheiner s.j. wrote in his De maculis solaribus … accuratior disquisitio that Clavius had invited astronomers “ut … de alio caelorum systemate provideant”: See Lerner M.-P. , “L'entrée de Tycho Brahe chez les jésuites, ou le chant de cygne de Clavius”, in Les jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et production de savoir, ed. by Giard L. (Paris, 1995), 145–85, espec. pp. 164–6. If Libert had printed the Sphaera Nicolai Copernici for a professeur of mathematics of the Company of Jesus, for whose members Clavius was as famous an authority as if he had been a new Euclid, he would undoubtedly have had the IHS monogram placed on the title page.

Bruno had been appointed by Henri II in 1581 for five years as “lecteur extraordinaire”. He may have still occupied this post in 1586 at the time of the session mentioned above: See Girot J. E. , “La notion de lecteur royal: Le cas de René Guillon (1500–1570)”, in Fumaroli (ed.), Les origines du Collège de France (ref. 20), 48–108, espec. pp. 53–54.

An account of this turbulent session, which apparently ended in Bruno's defeat and his precipitous departure from Paris, has been conserved for us by two witnesses. That of Guillaume Cotin, set out in his Journal for the dates of 28 and 29 May 1586, is reproduced by Spampanato V. , Vita di Giordano Bruno, con documenti inediti e editi (Messina, 1921; reprinted Rome, 1986), 657–9 (but see also ibid., 398 seq). That of François Rasse des Neux, unpublished until recently, is in Veyrin-Forrer J. , “Un collectionneur engagé, François Rasse Des Neux, chirurgien parisien”, La lettre et le texte: Trente années de recherches sur l'histoire du livre (Paris, 1987), 423–77, espec. p. 468. Rasse des Neux had acquired after 1559 a copy of the first edition of De revolutionibus, now in the Bibliothèque Municipale at Evreux (shelfmark b 454); as mentioned above, he already possessed works by Rheticus. See also the study by Perfetti A. , “Un nuovo documento sul secondo soggiorno parigino di Giordano Bruno (1585–1586)”, in Giordano Bruno: Gli anni napoletani e la ‘peregrinano’ europea, ed. by Canone E. (Cassino, 1992), 99–109. In the same volume, pp. 161–80, there is a complete photographic reproduction of the Centum, et viginti articuli de natura et mundo adversus Peripateticos printed at Paris — without mention of the bookseller — on the occasion of the dispute at the Cambrai College. The name of the Paris college appears in a re-edition of the celebrated theses (reduced to eighty and accompanied by their reasons) published at Wittenberg in 1588 under the title Camoeracensis [sic] acrotismus, seu rationes articulorum physicorum adversus Peripateticos Parisijs propositum.