The Origin and Meaning of “World System”

Le opere di Galileo Galilei , ed. by Favaro A. (20 vols, repr. Florence, 1964–68; hereafter Galileo , Opere ), iii, 73 and 75; see also Le Messager céleste, French transl. by Pantin Isabelle (Paris, 1992), 21–22 and 48.

Letter of 7 May 1610, Galileo , Opere , x, 351. In this letter Galileo lays out, as it were, a program of publication for the following years.

Lerner M.-P. , “Copernic suspendu et corrigé: Sur deux décrets de la Congrégation Romaine de l'Index (1616–1620)”, Galilaeana: Journal of Galilean studies , i (2004), 21–89.

In a letter to George Fortescue of February 1630, Galileo puts the genesis of his magnum mundi systema, which he was about to produce, some thirty years previously (cf. Galileo, Opere , xiv, 85). In his first letter written to Kepler in 1597, Galileo declared that he had been a Copernican “for a good number of years” (see Galileo , Opere , x, 67–68). Concerning this letter, see Bucciantini M. , Galileo e Keplero: Filosofia, cosmologia e teologia nell'Età della Controriforma (Turin, 2003), 49–68, and Galileo , Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo , ed. by Besomi O. Helbing M. (2 vols, Padua, 1998), ii, 3–8.

First edition: Laplace Simon Pierre , Exposition du système du monde (Paris, 1796). The expression “système du monde” twice occurs in the memoirs written by Laplace in the years 1770. Duhem Pierre , in his Le système du monde: Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic (Paris, 1913–59), quotes Laplace six or seven times, but mainly for his Traité de mécanique céleste. He has however a quotation taken from Laplace's Exposition du système monde concerning the latter's explanation of the phenomenon of precession of the equinoxes ( Système du monde , ix, 361, note 2).

Brenner A. , in his study Duhem: Science, réalité et apparence (Paris, 1990), 177, limits himself to saying that, for the title of his book, Duhem “repeats the received expression”, in the use of which, according to Brenner, Duhem was referring to Newton, but not to Galileo (?), nor to Laplace (?). Brenner makes no further mention of the expression in the presentation of his recent anthology of texts written by Duhem, published with the title, Duhem P. , L'aube du savoir: Epitomé du 'Système du monde’ (Paris, 1997). The same lack of concern for the expression appears in Jaki S. L. Ariew R. , respectively author of the preface and translator of an anthology of texts extracted from the Système du monde and published under the title Medieval cosmology: Theories of infinity, place, time, void and the plurality of worlds (Chicago, 1985).

Certain chapters containing material which was to have gone into the complete work are to be found in Duhem's Le mouvement absolu et le mouvement relatif (Montligeon, 1909). See Stoffel J.-F. , Pierre Duhem et ses doctorants: Bibliographie de la littérature primaire et secondaire (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1996), 95–96, and Le phénoménalisme problématique de Pierre Duhem (Académie Royale de Belgique, Mémoires de la Classe des Lettres, 3rd ser., xxvii; Brussels, 2002), 241–53.

Such, for example, occurs in the case of the critical edition by Libero Sosio published in Turin in 1970. Among the most important translations of the Dialogo may be cited that in German by Emil Strauss (Leipzig, 1891; repr. Stuttgart, 1982; see Besomi O. , “Emil Strauss e Antonio Favaro: La corrispondenza tra due studiosi di Galileo”, Galilaeana , ii (2005), in press); that in Spanish by Marí Beltran A. (Madrid, 1994); those in English by S. Drake (Berkeley, 1953; 2nd edn, 1967), and by Finocchiaro A. , Galileo on World Systems: A new abridged translation and guide (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1997); and that in French by R. Fréreux with the assistance of F. de Gandt (Paris, 1992). In her study Galilée: Le dialogue sur les grands systèmes du monde: Rhétorique, dialectique et démonstration (Paris, 2004), M. Spranzi likewise omits to gloss the title of Galileo's book. See however the edition by Besomi and Helbing (ref. 4), who try to some extent to fill this gap: See vol. ii, 111. Regarding the suggestion of Besomi and Helbing on this point, it would not seem that Galileo borrowed the terms sistema and massimo sistema from his father Vincenzo, even if these musical terms are present in the Dialogo della musica antica e moderna, published by the latter in Florence in 1581. As will be shown below, systema mundi was an expression already consecrated among astronomers when Galileo in turn employed it from the year 1610 on.

See Cohen I. B. , Introduction to Newton's Principia (Cambridge, MA, 1978), 109–15 and 327–35, and Blay M. , “Systèmes du monde”, in Blay M. Halleux R. (eds), La science classique XVIe-XVIIIe siècle: Dictionnaire critique (Paris, 1998), 812–26. For Laplace, see Merleau-Ponty J. , La science de l'univers à l'âge du positivisme: Etude sur les origines de la cosmologie contemporaine (Paris, 1983), 11–69, and Sur la science cosmologique: Conditions de possibilité et problèmes philosophiques (Les Ulis, 2003), 259–300; and Hahn R. , Le système du monde: Pierre Simon Laplace, un itinéraire dans la science , French transl. (Paris, 2004).

See also her chapter with the same title in Taton R. Wilson C. (eds), Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics , Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton (The general history of astronomy , vol. 2A; Cambridge and New York, 1989), 33–44.

Baroncini Gabriele , “Nota sulla formazione del lessico della metafora ‘machina mundi’”, Nuncius , iv (1989), 3–30; see also Dijksterhuis E. J. , The mechanization of the world picture , English transl. (Oxford, 1961), 495–501; Nobis H. M. , “Frühneuzeitliche Verständnisweisen der Natur und ihr Wandel bis zum 18. Jahrhundert”, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte , xi/1 (1967), 37–58 (esp. pp. 44–52); and Mittelstrass J. , Machina mundi: Zum astronomischen Weltbild der Renaissance (Vorträge der Aeneas Silvius Stiftung an der Universität Basel, xxxi; Basel and Frankfurt/Main, 1996).

Mittelstrass , op. cit. (ref. 10), 18–19, and von der Stein A. , “Der Systembegriff in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung”, in Diemer A. (ed.), System und Klassifikation in Wissenschaft und Dokumentation (Meisenheim am Glan, 1968), 1–13, p. 7, claim, without any textual reference, that the expression systema mundi is found in medieval manuals of astronomy. Likewise N. Jardine writes that in sixteenth-century astronomy, the terms systema mundi, hypothesis and ordo mundi were widely used to designate world systems, but he too gives no precise references: See The birth of history and philosophy of science: Kepler's A defense of Tycho against Ursus with essays on its provenance and significance (Cambridge, 1984), 284. One finds no further textual justification in A. Funkenstein when he states: “the very word ‘system’ stood, until the seventeenth century, not for a set of interdependent propositions, but for a set of things — for example, systema mundi or systema corporis” (?): See his Theology and scientific imagination from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century (Princeton, 1986), 6 and n. 9.

For remarks on the use of the word ‘system’ in the classical world and in the modern period, see Riedel M. , “System, Struktur” in Brunner O. Conze W. Koselleck R. (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland , vi (Stuttgart, 1990), 285 sq.; see also the article “System” in Ritter J. Grunder K. (eds), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie , x (Basel, 1998), cols 824–56, esp. cols 824–7.

The use of the word sustêma by Diogenes Laertius (third century) to describe a particular phase in the cosmogonic process, as reported by Leucippus (fifth century b.c.), should however be noted. In the course of the formation of worlds, certain atoms were said to regroup themselves and temporally form themselves into a sustêma sphairoeides. See the text and commentary in Kirk G. S. Raven J. E. Schofield M. , The Presocratic philosophers: A critical history with a selection of texts 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1983), no. 563, pp. 416–17. See also Laertius Diogenes , Vitae philosophorum , IX, 31 (ed. by Marcovich M. , i (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999), 653).

See von Arnim A. , Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (4 vols, Stuttgart, 1905–24; repr. 1978), ii, no. 527, p. 168, lines 11–13. Immediately after the cited definition, Chrysippus adds that by ‘world’ is also understood “the assemblage of the Gods and men with all that is seen for them” ( ibid. , lines 13–14: “ek theôn kai anthrôpôn sustêma kai ek toû heneka toutôn gegonotôn”). See also nos 526 and 528–9, ibid. , pp. 168–70.

See De mundo , 2, 391b 9–10: “Kosmos … esti sustêma ex ouranou kai gês kai tôn en toutois periechomenôn phuseôn”; and ibid. , 2, 391b 10–11: “kosmos [esti] hé tôn holôn taxis te kai diakosmêsis, hupo theou te kai dia theon phulatomenê”. For an analysis of the De mundo , see Festugière A.-J. , La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste, II: Le Dieu cosmique (Paris, 1949; repr. 1981), 477–518.

Goldschmidt Victor , Le système stoïcien et l'idée de temps (Paris, 1953), 61. One finds confirmation of this in the monograph by W. Kranz on the notion of cosmos, “Kosmos”, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte , ii/1 (1955), 5–282. See also the remarks on the history of the notion of cosmos and its derivatives by Roques R. , L'univers dyonisien: Structure hiérarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys (Paris, 1954), 40–67. One may still find useful the remarks of Alexander Humboldt in his Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung (original edn, 5 vols, Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1845–65), English transl. by Otté E. C. , Cosmos: A sketch of a physical description of the universe (2 vols, New York, 1850; repr. Baltimore and London, 1997, with Introduction by Rupke Nicolas A. ), i, 68–71. On this work of Humboldt's see the special number of the review Philosophia naturalis , xvii/4 (1979).

Concerning that which follows we take our information from Rashed M. , “Alexandre d'Aphrodise et la ‘magna quaestio’: Rôle et indépendance des scholies dans la tradition byzantine du corpus aristotélicien”, Les études classiques , lxiii (1995), 295–351, see p. 334 (scholie 7).

See De caelo, I 10, 280 a 21: “tou holou sustasis esti kosmos kai ouranos” (as J. Mansfield remarks, art. cit. infra, ref. 31, 409, n. 58, Aristotle does not here give a definition of the cosmos).

See in particular Timaeus 32 C, 54 A and 57 C. On the different usages of sustasis by Plato, see E. des Places, Lexique de la langue philosophique et religieuse de Platon ( Platon , Œuvres complètes , xiv; Paris, 1970), Part 2, 488. Sustasis is in one case associated with sustêma in a cosmological context: See Epinomis 991E.

Cf. Exposition des connaissances mathématiques utiles pour la lecture de Platon , transl. by Dupuis J. (Paris, 1892; repr. 1966). See iii, $41, 322: “hé toû kosmou sustasis tetagmenôs epi mias archês”. In iii, š 16, 239, Theon says that he had constructed a mechanical model (sphairopoiia) of the gores in Book X of Plato's Republic. The word is a technical term also found in Geminus's Introduction aux phénomènes, ed. and transl. by G. Aujac (Paris, 1975); see XIII, 23, p. 67, for the designation of each planet's spherical system.

This is claimed by Rashed M. , op. cit. (ref. 17), 341–2. According to him, Simplicius employs the word only in its musical sense.

Cf. In Timeum , i, 319 Diehl (Leipzig, 1903); French transl. by Festugière A.-J. : Proclus, Commentaire sur le Timée (5 vols, Paris, 1966–70): See vol. ii, 177 (other occurences are to be found in the De providentia et fato and in the In Parmenidem, but not in the Hypotyposis astronomicarum positionum).

Philoponus , De opificio mundi libri VII , ed. by Reichardt (Leipzig, 1897): See 298. 16–17.

This is seen in the case of Origen, Basil of Cesaria and Gregory of Nazianzus (cf. Lampe G. W. H. (ed.), A patristic Greek lexicon, s.v. sustêma). The word sustêma is found employed a dozen times in the Septuagint with different meanings, and notably in Genesis 1:10, with the meaning of “heap” or “mass” of the waters forming the seas. See the note by M. Alexandre on this word in Le commencement du livre Genèse I-II: La version grecque de la Septante et sa réception (Paris, 1988), 118.

See Gregory T. , “The Platonic inheritance”, in Dronke P. (ed.), Twelfth century Western philosophy (Cambridge, 1988), 54–80.

On the few facts concerning physical and cosmological Stoic doctrine that were known in the twelfth century, see Lapidge M. , “The Stoic inheritance”, in Dronke (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 25), 99–112.

See Barker P. , “Jean Pena (1528–1558) and Stoic physics in the sixteenth century”, in Epp R. H. (ed.), Recovering the Stoics (Spindel Conference 1984; The Southern journal of philosophy , xxiii (1985)), 93–107. See also Lerner M.-P. , Le monde des sphères , ii: La fin du cosmos classique (Paris, 1997), 11–15, and Granada M. A. , “Pietro Ramo e Jean Pena: Critica della cosmologia aristotelica e delle ipotesi astronomiche verso la metà del Cinquecento”, in Sfere solide e cielo fluido: Momenti del dibattito cosmologico nella seconda metà del Cinquecento (Milan, 2002), 6–23.

See Granada M. A. , “Giordano Bruno et la Stoa: Une présence non reconnue de thèmes stoïciens?”, in Moreau P. F. (ed.), Le stoïcisme au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle (Le retour des philosophies antiques à l'âge classique, ii; Paris, 1999), 140–74.

The publication of Physiologiae Stoicorum libri tres by Justus Lipsius in 1604 is an important date for marking the putting into circulation of these teachings. See Paganini G. , “La ‘Physiologia stoicorum’ à la fin de la Renaissance: Juste Lipse”, in Bloch O. R. (ed.), Philosophies de la nature (Publications de la Sorbonne; Paris, 2000), 79–91.

Calcidius , Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus , ed. by Waszink J. H. (London and Leiden, 1962), 92, line 16. Capella Martianus : De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii , IX, š954 (“Quid sit systema”). For Boethius, who repeats a word that he may possibly have read in Ptolemy's De harmonia, see De institutione musica, IV 15, English transl. and notes by Bower M. C. , ed. by C. V. Palisca under the title Fundaments of music (New Haven and London, 1989), 153.

On the question of the Aristotelian authenticity of the De mundo (generally rejected today), see among others Mansfield J. , “PERI KOSMOÛ: A note on the history of a title”, Vigiliae Christianae , xlvi (1992), 391–411. J. Kraye evokes the debate that this question raised in the Renaissance: See her “Daniel Heinsius and the author of the De mundo” in The uses of Greek and Latin: Historical essays (Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, xvi; London, 1988; repr. in Classical traditions in Renaissance philosophy , Aldershot, 2002), 171–97. One finds in the edition of the De mundo by Reale G. , one of the very rare defenders of the Aristotelian authenticity, a review of the doxography concerning this work up until the modern period. See Aristotele , Trattato sul cosmo per Alessandro (Naples, 1974), 3–34. G. Reale confirms this thesis in a second edition: See Aristotele , Trattato sul cosmo , in collaboration with A. P. Bos (Milan, 1985). On the Greek traditions of De mundo on one hand and the Syriac and Arab ones on the other, see the notices by Besnier B. Raven W. Goulet in R. (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Supplément (Paris, 2003), 475–83.

Aristoteles latinus , xi, 1–2 (editio altera): De mundo, translationes Bartholomaei et Nicolas , ed. by Lorimer W. L. Minio-Paluello L. (Bruges and Paris, 1965), 4, 30, 55, 70, 85, 101, 104, 107 and 110. In his Latin adaptation of De mundo, Apuleius (c. 125 — post 170 a.d.) had thus translated the corresponding passage in the Greek: “Mundus omnis societate caeli et terrae constat et eorum natura quae utriusque sunt”: See Opuscules philosophiques et fragments , ed. by Beaujeu J. (Paris, 1973), 122. For Cleomedes , Caelestia (Meteôra) , 1, 1, ed. by Todd R. (Leipzig, 1990), 1, see the Latin translation published by R. Balfour under the title De contemplatione orbium coelestium libri duo (Bordeaux, 1605), I and ibid. , Commentarius, 136, in which the author gives a list of other equivalents and justifies his own translation as the only faithful one in the spirit of Cicero. See also Cleomedes , Théorie élémentaire (“De motu circulari corporum caelestium”) , French transl. and notes by R. Goulet (Paris, 1980), 87 and 178.

Cf. Melanchthon Philipp , Initia doctrinae physicae , in Corpus Reformatorum , ed. by Bretschneider C. G. , xiii (Halle, 1846), cols 213–14: “Mundus est compages coelestium et inferiorum corporum arte distributorum, continens animantia et alias naturas …” The Initia was published in 1549.

Cf. Melanchthon Philipp , Compendium, f. 20v: “Mundus est systema (ut Aristoteles ait) coelestium atque inferiorum corporum arte distributorum …”, text cited in Bellucci D. , Science de la nature et réformation: La physique au service de la Réforme dans l'enseignement de Philippe Melanchthon (Rome, 1998), 141, n. 25.

Peucer Caspar , Elementa doctrinae, sign. Cviiv: “Mundus … est systema vel compages coelestium et inferiorum corporum apte dispositorum.” The word apte introduces a purposive notion directly inspired from Melanchthon. Peucer also employed systema to designate either the entirety of the circles (systema circulorum) concerned with the motion of a planet, or of that of the first heaven, or the totality of the celestial orbes carried round the poles of the world by the motion of the first heaven (“circa mundi polos totum coelestium orbium systema”): See Hypotheses astronomicae seu theoriae planetarum ex Ptolemaei et aliorum veterum doctrina ad observationes Nicolai Copernici, & canones motuum ab eo conditos accommodatae (Wittenberg, 1571), 375, 376, 411, 428 and passim.

Meigret Loys , Le livre du monde faict par Aristote (Paris, 1531), 5 (“The world is a mass assembled from heaven and earth, together with the other natures which are contained in it”). In spite of the title given to the French translation of his Peri kosmou, namely Lettre d'Aristote à Alexandre sur le systême du monde (Paris 1768), the Abbé Batteux rendered the passage that concerns us thus: “The world is composed (Le monde est un composé) of heaven and earth and of all the beings that they contain” ( op. cit. 11).

“… accidit eis perinde, ac si quis e diversis locis, manus, pedes, caput, aliaque membra, optime quidem, sed non unius corporis comparatione, depicta sumeret, nullatenus invicem sibi respondentibus, ut monstrum potius quam homo ex illis componeretur”; cf. Copernicus N. , De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri sex (Nuremberg, 1543), Epist. dedic., f. iiiv; Eng. transl. by Rosen E. , in Nicholas Copernicus On the Revolutions (Warsaw and Cracow, 1978), 4 (modified). For this image of the “monster”, the commentators quote Horace, Ars poetica , 1–13: See Hallyn F. , La structure poétique du monde: Copernic, Kepler (Paris, 1987), 86–101, and Westman R. S. , “Proof, poetics and patronage: Copernicus' preface to De revolutionibus”, in Lindberg D. C. Westman R. S. (eds), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), 167–205, pp. 182–4. One could also mention the criticism addressed by Vitruvius ( De architectura , VII 5) to his contemporaries for their excessive taste for hybrid figures, “these things that do not exist, cannot exist and will never exist”: See Morel P. , Les grotesques: Les figures de l'imaginaire dans la peinture italienne de la fin de la Renaissance (Paris, 1997), 115 sq.; see also infra 39.

Copernicus , De revolutionibus (ref. 37), f. iiii: “Atque ita ego positis motibus, quos terrae infra in opere tribuo, multa & longa observatione tandem reperi, quod si reliquorum syderum errantium motus, ad terrae circulationem conferantur, & supputentur pro cuiusque syderis revolutione, non modo illorum phaenomena inde sequantur, sed & syderum atque orbium omnium ordines, magnitudines, & caelum ipsum ita connectatur, ut in nulla sui parte possit transponi aliquid, sine reliquarum partium, ac totius universitatis confusione.” Eng. transl. in Rosen, op. cit. (ref. 37), 5.

Copernicus , De revolutionibus (ref. 37), f. 182v: “Quam vim effectumque haberet assumpta revolutio terrae in motu apparente longitudinis errantium siderum, & in quem ea omnia cogat ordinem, nempe certum & necessarium pro eo ac potuimus, indicavimus.” Eng. transl. in Rosen , op. cit. (ref. 37), 306 (slightly modified). The same idea is expressed in the preamble to Book V, f. 133v: “Aggredimur modo quinque errantium stellarum motus, quorum orbium ordinem & magnitudines ipsa terrae mobilitas consensu mirabili, ac certa symmetria connectit.” According to G. Hon and B. R. Goldstein, “Symmetry in Copernicus and Galileo”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxv (2004), 273–92, Copernicus uses the word symmetria in the Preface to De revolutionibus, and again in chap. 10 of the first book, to characterize the order of the heliocentric world. He does so in a sense close to that of Vitruvius, who uses it in his De architectura to designate a human body, or a building, of which the parts are so arranged that they form a well proportioned whole.

Copernicus , De revolutionibus (ref. 37), I 10, f. 8v: “Oportebit igitur, vel terram non esse centrum, ad quod ordo syderum orbiumque referatur: Aut certe rationem ordinis non esse, nec apparere cur magis Saturno quam Iovi seu alii cuivis superior debeatur locus”, Eng. transl. by Rosen , op. cit. (ref. 37), 20 (modified). N. R. Hanson writes that Copernicus was the first to invent a “systematic” astronomy: See his “The Copernican disturbance and the Keplerian revolution”, Journal of the history of ideas , xxii (1961), 169–78; see also Goldstein B. R. , “Copernicus and the origin of the heliocentric system”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxiii (2002), 219–35, espec. pp. 221–2.

Nor, a fortiori, the expression systema mundi. To designate the universe as a totality, Copernicus uses the traditional expressions machina mundi, forma mundi and mundi fabrica: See De revolutionibus (ref. 37), Epist. dedic., f. iiiv, and I 10, f. 10). On this terminology, see Weichenhan M. , “Ergo perit coelum …”: Die Supernova des Jahres 1572 und die Überwindung der aristotelischen Kosmologie (Munich, 2004), 581–3 (note 130).

Rheticus G. J. , Narratio prima , ed. by Hugonnard-Roche H. Verdet J.-P. (Wrocłw, 1982): cf. viii 54–55, p. 56; Eng. transl. by Rosen E. in Three Copernican treatises 3d edn (New York, 1971), 138.

Rheticus , op. cit. (ref. 42), viii 56–60, p. 56; Eng. transl. by Rosen , op. cit. (ref. 42), 138.

Rheticus , op. cit. (ref. 42), x 100–103, p. 60; Eng. transl. by Rosen , op. cit. (ref. 42), 147.

Rheticus , op. cit. (ref. 42), “Glossaire”, 263. On the theme of harmony, see Spitzer L. , Classical and Christian ideas of world harmony: Prolegomena to an interpretation of the word “Stimmung” (New York, 1963); see also Fabri N. , Cosmologia e armonia in Kepler e Mersenne: Contrapunto a due voci sul tema dell ‘Harmonice mundi (Florence, 2003).

Rheticus , op. cit. (ref. 42), viii 90–93, p. 57: “posito telluris motu in eccentrico in promptu esse certam rerum coelestium doctrinam, in qua nihil mutandum, quin simul totum systema, ut consentaneum erat, de novo in debitas rationes restitueretur”; Eng. transl. in Rosen , op. cit. (ref. 42), 140.

Rheticus , op. cit. (ref. 42), xiii 58–65, p. 69: “Posset quispiam fortasse ea, quae de motu terrae circa Solis Lunaeque apparentes motus dicuntur, eludere, quanquam non video, quando praecessionis rationem ad sphaeram stellarum transtulerit. Reliquorum profecto planetarum apparentes motus, si aut ad principalem astronomiae finem et systematis orbium rationem ac consensum aut ad facilitatem suavitatemque, undique causis apparentium elucentibus, respicere quis velit, nullis aliis assumptis hypothesibus commodius ac rectius demonstraverit. Adeo omnia haec tanquam aurea catena inter se pulcherrime colligata esse apparent” (my emphasis); Eng. transl. in Rosen, op. cit. (ref. 42), 164–5.

See Blair A. , “Tycho Brahe's critique of Copernicus and the Copernican system”, Journal of the history of ideas , li (1990), 355–77.

On Rothmann C. , see Hamel J. , Die astronomischen Forschungen in Kassel unter Wilhelm IV (Thun and Frankfurt am Main, 1998), 14–42 and 77–84, and Granada M. A. , El debate cosmológico en 1588: Bruno, Brahe, Rothmann, Ursus, Röslin (Naples, 1996), 61–76; Sfere solide e cielo fluido (ref. 27), 47–136 and 183–202.

Brahe Tycho , Epistolarum astronomicarum liber primus [1596], in Tychonis Brahe opera omnia , ed. by Dreyer J. L. E. (Copenhagen, 1913–29; repr. Amsterdam, 1972; hereafter TBOO ), vi, 158 9–14: “At Copernicea [dispositio] non tantum, quod fiant regressiones & stationes illae ostendit, sed etiam quare sic fiant, non quod tanta sit motus inconstantia in ipsis Planetis, qui semper suum proprium motum aspiciant, sed quod regressiones illae ita nobis propter motum Terrae appareant, Planetisque putentur inesse, cum tamen revera Terrae insint” (my emphasis). One notes the parallel with the passage in De revolutionibus (I, 10, f. 10) in which Copernicus remarks that only the motion of the Earth provides a causal explanation of this behaviour of the planets: “Quae omnia ex eadem causa procedunt, quae in telluris est motu”.

Tycho , op. cit. (ref. 50), 158 24–28: “Dij boni, per iocum aiebat, oportet circulum illum Solis aeneo longe esse fortiorem, cum tot Planetas trahere secum possit. Scilicet haerebat in animo, quod Illustrissimae ipsius Celsitud. toties ad aurem decantaram, Tractionis motum e Coelo tollendum esse”.

It is well known that while claiming to all who would listen that his system had been stolen from him by Ursus, Tycho was avidly looking for approval of it by other colleagues. See letter from Rothmann to Tycho of 22 Aug. 1589, op. cit. (ref. 50), 183 13–14: “Scriberem etiam de Vrso illo Dithmarso, deque systemate illo Mundi tibi surrepto …”; see also below, ref. 76.

Tycho , op. cit. (ref. 50), 158 29–38: “Praeterea introducit haec inversa Copernici ratio confusionem in Sphaeras Planetarum…. Tamen nulla Sphaerarum vera aut determinata distinctio manet, sed omnes inter se confunduntur. At Copernicea Hypothesis suum unicuique Planetae & determinatum spatium attribuit, e quo motu suo egredi non possit. Scis autem Deum non confusionis sed ordinis authorem esse, naturamque ita condidisse, ut a confusione abhorreat. Nedum ut pulcherrimum hoc & sapientiae inexhaustae aedificium tanta labe aspergere voluerit” (to be compared with the passage in the De revolutionibus quoted in ref. 39). The terms used by Rothmann to formulate his choice of heliocentrism as a physical doctrine should be emphasized: “… aliud invenire non possum, quam nullam praeter unicam Copernici Hypothesin veram esse” ( ibid. , 159 1–3; my emphasis). M. Bucciantini notes that Galileo carefully read the arguments advanced by Rothmann in rejecting Tycho's arrangement of the heliocentric model: See Galileo e Keplero (ref. 4), 56–62.

See Jarrell R. A. , “The life and scientific work of the Tübingen astronomer Michael Maestlin (1550–1631)”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1971, and Betsch G. Hamel J. (eds), Zwischen Copernicus und Kepler: Michael Maestlin Mathematicus Goeppingensis 1550–1631 (Frankfurt am Main, 2002). On Maestlin's role as editor and commentator of Rheticus's text, see Tredwell K. A. , “Michael Maestlin and the fate of the Narratio prima”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxv (2004), 305–25.

“Excellentissimi nonnulli ex recentioribus Mathematici … Terram quidem cum antiquis hypothesibus, in Lunaris, et stelliferae sphaerae, nec non totius Vniversi medium reponunt immobilem, Solem autem cum Copernico caeterorum planetarum centrum, mobilem tamen, profitentur…. Verum hac hypothesium emendatione nihil nisi vetustam et attritam togulam novo panno resarciunt, cuius ruptura post maior fieri solet. Nam hac positione profecto motuum centra et virtutes motrices dissolvuntur, et distrahuntur, caeteri et motus et orbes … multo pluribus intricatissimis involvuntur tricis, nec cum ratione, aut magnitudinum motuumque et ordinis ulla proportione, quicquam cum altero consociatur” (see Kepler Johannes , Gesammelte Werke , ed. by Caspar M. (Munich, 1937—; hereafter KGW ), i, 84 36–47 (my emphasis).

De mundo (ref. 15), 2, 391b 9–10 and 11–12. A useful presentation of the content of Maestlin's treatise can be found in Rex F. , “Keplers Lehrer Michael Maestlin und sein Lehrbuch der Astronomie (1582)”, in Betsch Hamel (eds), op. cit. (ref. 54), 11–32.

Maestlin M. , Epitome astronomiae (1582; ed. cited: Tübingen, 1588), lib. I, secunda pars, 29–30. Although Maestlin appears to attribute the De mundo to Aristotle, he emphasizes the Stoic (and pious) nature of the second definition of the world examined below: See the following ref.

Cf. Melanchthon , Initia doctrinae physicae (ref. 33), col. 214: “Et quanquam interdum necesse est Stoicorum dicta reprehendi, tamen hoc dictum probandum est, quod ait omnia in natura rerum propter homines nasci, homines autem natos esse propter Deum, videlicet, ut innotescat et celebretur Deus”.

Maestlin , Epitome astronomiae (ref. 57), 30–31: “Verum ista definitio si adiecta vocula pepôiêmenê, emendaretur, nobis in nostra S.S. religione omnino etiam satisfaceret.” According to J. R. Voelkel, the distinction that Maestlin makes in the Epitome astronomiae between the theoretical part of astronomy and its physical part on one hand, and his refusal on the other to permit astronomy to venture on to the terrain of the four Aristotelian causes (material, formal, efficient and final), would be at the basis of his rejection of speculations that were not purely mathematical in the Mysterium cosmographicum: See Voelkel's The composition of Kepler's “Astronomia nova” (Princeton and Oxford, 2001), 67–69.

Neander Michael (not to be confused with the humanist and philologist Michael Neander [= Neumann] (1525–95)) studied mathematics and medicine at Wittenberg. He taught medicine at the University of Jena from 1560 till his death (see the short notice by I. Schneider in The dictionary of scientific biography , x, 7–8). On his conception of Stoic inspiration, and of celestial matter as fluid, see Randles W. G. L. , The unmaking of the medieval Christian cosmos, 1500–1760: From solid heavens to boundless aether (Aldershot, 1999), 46.

Neander Michael , Elementa sphaericae doctrinae (Basel, 1561), 19: “Sub Aristotelis nomine vulgo circumferuntur Mundi duae definitiones, quorum prima partialis est [there follows the Greek text which Neander renders into Latin]: ‘Mundus est illud systema, seu illa concinna compages caeli & terrae, & naturarum in his existentium.’ Altera est causalis …: Mundus est universorum ordo, & exornata dispositio, a Deo et propter Deum conservata”.

Neander , op. cit. (ref. 61), 20: “Nos autem divinitus patefactam doctrinam amplectamur potius, quam caligantis Philosophiae sententiam. Huius autem systematis mundani finem aliquando fore, aperte Scriptura loquitur.” The idea that philosophy leads to fundamentally uncertain knowledge concerning the fabric of the world, whereas Scripture offers us a clear teaching, is one of the themes developed by Melanchthon in his Initia doctrinae physicae: Cf. ed. cit. (ref. 33), 216.

See KGW , i, 84 25–28: “Quomodo fieri potest, ut toto Mundi systemate, nullo eius orbe, nec etiam ignei elementi sphaera (si qua est) nec aeris superiore regione exceptis, circumagitato, hoc vnicum punctulum non convertatur?”.

See infra..

See for example in Fine Oronce , Sphaera mundi, sive cosmographia quinque libris recens auctis & emendatis absoluta (Paris, 1551), sign. aaiijv (“structura Mundana”), and f. 1 (“Mundi structura, sive compositio”), and five years later in Louis Féable (? — c. 1562), a canon in Tournai, doctor of the Parisian Faculty of Theology, and once collaborator of Lefèvre d'Etaples: See Ludovici Fidelis Nervij … de Mundi structura opusculum (Paris, 1556).

This is a criticism that the Copernican Thomas Digges ( c. 1546–96) expressed in 1573 in an interesting way from the point of view of the vocabulary he used: “quanta & quam optabilis occasio Terricolis oblata sit, examinandi an Monstrosum Coelestium globorum ab antiquis, Systema confictum …” (Alae seu Scalae Mathematicae … (London, 1573), sign. L2v, where the adjective monstrosum is doubtless an echo from his reading of the De revolutionibus, of which Digges made a partial English translation three years later: See Lerner , Le monde des sphères (ref. 27), ii, 153–7). But to indicate the whole world, Digges continued to employ the classical expression machina mundi , as well as syntaxis mundi: See ibid. , sign. Aiiiiv, A3v and L3r.

In the notes in the margin of his copy of the De revolutionibus, Maestlin held to the traditional way of expressing himself to designate the heliocentric universe which he adopted (while at the same time maintaining that, in his first book, Copernicus wrote as an astronomer and not as a physicist): “Rationi omnino consentaneum magis est talem constitutionem machinae mundi totius universi, quae firmiores admittit demonstrationes: Quae ita totum universum commovit [rather: Connectit], ut nihil sine totius confusione transponi possit; per quem omnium motuum phaenomena exactissime demonstrari possunt; et in qua nullum in processu occurit inconveniens (quantum ad Astronomiam, Copernicus enim totum hunc librum non ut physicus sed ut Astronomus scripsit)”, text transcribed by Gingerich O. , An annotated census of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566) (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 2002): cf. I. 178, p. 223, my italics. See also Maestlin's letter written towards the end of May 1596 to the Prorektor of the University of Tübingen, where he praises in similar terms the advantages of Copernicus's hypothesis ( cf. KGW , xiii, 84, Il. 17–23).

In 1556 he published at Erfurt his De calculatoria numerorumque natura sectiones quatuor..

See Tomasini J. P. , Illustrium virorum elogia Iconibus exornata (Padua, 1630), 181–5. Nabod entered into relations with G. A. Magini (1555–1617), who published his astrological works on the ‘directions’ as an appendix to his own De astrologia ratione, ac usu dierum criticorum…. His additur … de directionibus ipsis ex Valentini Naibodae scriptis (Frankfurt, 1608): See Favaro A. , Carteggio inedito di Ticone Brahe, Giovanni Keplero e di altri celebri astronomi e matematici dei secoli XVI e XVII con Giovanni Antonio Magini (Bologna, 1886), 490–3; see also ibid. 49, and Thorndike Lynn , A history of magic and experimental science (New York, 1923–58), vi, 119–23. Nabod , who had known Ramus during a stay in Paris in 1564, also seems to have composed commentaries on alchemy and on magic: cf. Secret F. , Postel revisité: Nouvelles recherches sur Guillaume Postel et son milieu (Première série) (Paris and Milan, 1998), 87–91. He died in tragic circumstances at Padua in 1593: See the account by Tommaso Campanella in his Astrologicorum libri VII (Frankfurt, 1630), 251.

Naiboda Valentinus , Primarum de coelo et terra institutionum … libri tres (Venice, 1573), Praefatio (no pagination).

Ibid. , f. 26v.

Ibid. , ff. 11 r (“praecipua naturae partes, e quibus mundanum systema … compingitur”), 20v, 23r, 24r, 33r (“systema maximarum mundi partium”), 38v, 39r (“physicarum corporum mundi systema”), and 41 and 41 v (“systema universitatis de sententia N. Copernici”). The same year, 1573, Gerard Mercator (1512–94) drew up for his friend Vivianus a Typus universitatis juxta dispositionem et economiam partium, i.e. a cosmological schema intended essentially for astrology: See Vermij R. , “Typus universitatis”, in Watelet M. (ed.), Gérard Mercator cosmographe (s.l., 1994), 235–9, and Broecke Vanden S. , The limits of influence: Astrology at Louvain University 1520–1580 (Leuven, 2000), 424.

See Kleinschnitzová F. , “Ex bibliotheca Tychoniana Collegii Soc. Jesu ad S. Clementem”, Nordisk Tidskrift för Bok- och Biblioteksväsen , xx (1933), 73–97, espec. pp. 89–90 (no. 28). But Tycho could also have read the word systema in Caspar Peucer, who used it not only to designate the world as a whole, but also the totality of the celestial orbs, and, in a more particular way, the circles constituting the “theoretical” behaviour of a planet (see supra ref. 35).

On Ursus , see Rosen E. , Three Imperial mathematicians: Kepler trapped between Tycho Brahe and Ursus (New York, 1986), passim, and especially Launert D. , Nicolaus Reimers (Raimarus Ursus): Günstling Rantzaus — Brahes Feind — Leben und Werke (Munich, 1999). See also Jardine , The birth of history and philosophy of science (ref. 11), and Granada, El debate cosmológico en 1588 (ref. 47), 77–107, and Sfere solide e cielo fluido (ref. 27), 137–81.

The work in which Tycho presents his system carries the title De mundi aetherei recentioribus phaenomenis: Cf. chap. 8, in TBOO , iv, 158. Ursus's work had the title Fundamentum astronomicum: See cap. 5. thesis 1, f. 37, where Ursus defines the world in these terms: “Mundus est systema rerum naturalium per se existentium vel omnium rerum naturalium inque tota rerum natura compages seu compraehensio” (to be compared with Röslin's definition quoted infra, ref. 78). Ursus's chapter in the Fundamentum is reproduced in Appendix 5 to the work of Granada, Sfere solide e cielo fluido (ref. 27), 263–78.

In a letter to Rothmann of 24 November 1589 ( TBOO , vi, 196), Tycho speaks of Ursus in these terms: “De surreptore mei Systematis nolo hic verbum addere, neque enim dignus est.” We shall not here go into the famous quarrel of priority between Tycho and Ursus: See on this Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 11); Gingerich O. Westman R. S. , “The Wittich connection: Conflict and priority in late sixteenth century cosmology”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society , lxxviii/7 (1988); and especially Jardine N. , “Tycho v. Ursus”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxvi (2005), 81–109, 125–65.

Unpublished text quoted by Granada, El debate cosmológico (ref. 49), 118; see also Sfere solide e cielo fluido , Appendix 6 (ref. 27), 279–94, where are quoted other letters to Maestlin from the years 1588–89 in which Röslin often employs systema and systema mundi.

Röslin Helisaeus , De opere Dei creationis … (Frankfurt, 1597; repr. with introd. by Granada M. A. (Lecce, 2000)), Appendix, 49: “Et sequitur etiam, Systema mundi ex his veris hypothesibus extructum, verum esse & unum, & nullum aliud esse, nec ullum aliud dari posse, nisi hoc unicum ex superioribus hypothesibus extructum.” See also this definition of the world — close to that of Ursus: “Mundus est Systema, compages seu comprehensio rerum omnium naturalium, in principio sex diebus à Deo unitrino ex nihilo creatarum …” (p. 10, thesis I); and again ibid. , Appendix, 43, 51, 53, 55.

“Non possum non magnopere probare Systema Universi a te excogitatum, quamvis cuperem Solis Orbem ac Martis nequaquam sese intersecare” (see Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (Wandsbeck, 1592); TBOO , v, 126). In his reply to Magini, Tycho repeated the same expression ( TBOO , vii, 293).

Aslachus Conrad , De natura caeli … (Siegen, 1597), 4. But in his Physica & ethica Mosaica … duobus libris comprehensa (Hanover, 1613), 48, Aslachus proposed to define the world as a “systema a Deo e nihilo creatum … coelum et terram, & quae in iis, continens”. On Cort Aslakssen, see Christianson J. R. , On Tycho's island: Tycho Brahe and his assistants, 1570–1601 (Cambridge, 2000), 252–3.

The De mundi aetherei recentioribus phaenomenis , printed on Tycho's own press in May 1588, was distributed only to a restricted number of chosen individuals. Only the Prague printing of 1603 and the edition of 1610 were distributed commercially. Ursus's two books had a restricted circulation (especially the De astronomicis hypothesibus, seu systema mundano, which was seized and destroyed as a result of a legal decision). On the printing and the distribution of these works, undertaken by Tycho himself, see Mosley A. J. , “Bearing the heavens: Astronomers, instruments, and the communication of astronomy in early modern Europe”, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 2002, and Jardine , “Tycho v. Ursus” (ref. 76).

This collection of letters concerning astronomy, the only volume published, is one of the first examples of scientific correspondence published in Europe. There was a further printing in 1601 and another in 1610 (on this matter, see Mosley A. J. Jardine N. Tybjerg K. , “Epistolary culture, editorial practice, and the propriety of Tycho's astronomical letters”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxiv (2003), 421–51). Galileo knew of this correspondence and Francesco Ingoli referred to it in his De situ et quiete terrae disputatio, composed between the end of 1615 and the beginning of 1616, in an attempt to convince Galileo (and Kepler) of the baselessness of the “Copernican system”: See Galileo , Opere , v, 403–12.

On Casmann O. , converted to Lutheranism by Rodolphe Goclenius, and who produced a number of works (more than twenty) destined for teaching, one should still consult the old study of Mahnke D. , “Rektor Casmann in Stade, ein vergessener Gegner aristotelischer Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft im 16. Jahrhundert”, Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und Technik , vi (1915), 182–97, 226–40 and 352–63.

The complete title is Astrologia, chronographia et astromanteia, seu Commentationum disceptionumque physicarum syndromus methodicus et problematicus III: De stellarum natura, affectione, motibus & effectibus, ex Dei verbo, philosophis et astrologis concinnatus. In 1598, again in Frankfurt, the indefatigable Casmann published one after the other a Cosmopoeia et Uranographia Christiana, seu commentationum disceptationumque physicarum syndromus methodicus et problematicus II: De mundo in genere & coelo, and a Somatologia physica generalis, seu Commentationum disceptationumque physicarum syndromus problematicus I: De naturalium corporum in genere essentia & ovalitatibus physicis, tum manifestis tum occultis.

Cf. Casmann , Astrologia, chronographia et astromanteia (ref. 84), sign.): (4 r-v. The “Epistola dedicatoria” is dated 13 September 1598.

Under the title “Eruditissima disceptatio de coeli syderei essentia … decerpta ex litteris Astronomicis”, Casmann reproduces long passages from three letters of these two astronomers written between August 1588 and February 1589: cf. Astrologia … (ref. 84), 46–64; see also, on the question of the status of hypotheses in astronomy, the extracts from the Tycho-Rothmann correspondence ( ibid. , 328–57); on the comet of 1577 ( ibid. , 414–23), etc.

For Röslin , see ibid. , 358–68: Casmann reproduces the relevant part of the Appendix to the De opere Dei creationis (ref. 78), 43–52, in which Röslin draws up a comparative table of the five rival world systems.

Although carrying the date 1596 on the title page, the printing of Kepler's Mysterium had not been completed before March 1597: See Kepler Jean , Le secret du monde , Introd., French translation and notes by A. Segonds (Paris, 1984), pp. xviii–xix.

It is to be noted that Kepler does not use the expression “systema mundi” in his Mysterium cosmographicum composed in the years 1595–96. By contrast, following Caspar Peucer (cf. supra, ref. 35), he uses there the word systema to designate the entirety of the circles concerned with explaining a planet's motion: See Tabella IIII of the Mysterium cosmographicum, in KGW , i, 49.

See KGW , xx/1, 53.12: “forma systematis mundi, quae hodie Tychoni placet….” Attacking in another passage Andreas Osiander's scepticism (the author of the Ad lectorem placed at beginning of the De revolutionibus), Kepler employs another expression: According to him, one can take it as certain that astronomy enables us to know the “vera mundi facies” ( ibid. , 27. 9–10). As is well known, the Apologia Tychonis remained unpublished until the nineteenth century.

KGW , iv, 301.35; see also Kepler Johannes , Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo / Discussion avec le Messager Céleste , text, French transl. and notes by Pantin I. (Paris, 1993), 22.

KGW , iv, 304.32–39; Eng. transl. by Rosen E. , Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger (New York, 1965), 38 (modified).

KGW , iv, 306.40–41; transl. by Rosen , 41 (modified): “This conclusion is more obvious to those who, together with you, Galileo, and with me, adopt Copernicus's system of the world (Copernicum sequitur in Systemate mundano)”.

See the title of Book 4, in KGW , vii, 256: “De partium mundanorum situ, ordine et motu, seu de systemate mundano”.

See for example the Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae, Lib. I, KGW , vii, 15.28–29 and 81.15 and 31.

Gilbert William , De mundo nostro sublunari (Amsterdam, 1651), lib. 2, cap. 20, 193: “Neque si mundus compages sit et systema rerum, idcirco terram centro destinari necesse est.” Gilbert is here thinking of the definition given by Ursus in his Fundamentum ( op. cit. (ref. 75), f. 37): See Lerner , Le monde des sphères (ref. 27), ii, 148–9.

Gilbert William , De magnete magneticisque corporibus et de magno magnete tellure, Physiologia nova (London, 1600), lib. VI, cap. viii, 234: “Et sane magis verisimile videri debet perpusilli terrestris corporis inflexu quodam et inclinatione, salvari manifesto caelestes apparentias posse, quam totius mundi systematis agitatione …”; Eng. transl. by Mottelay Fleury P. (New York, 1958; 1st edn 1893), 349 (slightly modified).

Bacon Francis , Descriptio globi intellectualis, chap. 6, in The Oxford Francis Bacon , vi, Latin text and transl. by Rees G. (Oxford, 1996), 116–32, espec. p. 117. Bacon does not deny to Copernicus's world the property of being a system — it has indeed a centre and an outer limit — yet he rejects his system on the grounds that it absurdly gives the Earth three motions and because it gives too much immobility to the world by placing the Sun at rest as well as all the stars ( ibid. , 118–22; see also Lerner , Le monde des sphères (ref. 27), ii, 137–42).

The complete title of the work is De principiis atque originibus secundum fabulas Cupidinis & Coeli: Sive Parmenidis et Telesii & praecipue Democriti philosophia tractata in fabula de Cupidine, Latin text and transl. by Rees (ref. 98), 196–267 (for the citation, see p. 250: “Siquidem de Systemate Mundi disserit [i.e. Telesius] non male, de Principiis imperitissime. Quin & in ipso quoque Systemate ingens est lapsus, quod tale constituat Systema, quod videri possit aeternum”). On the cosmology of the De rerum natura iuxta propria principia libri IX (Naples, 1586), see Lerner M.-P. , “La physique céleste de Telesio: Problèmes d'interprétation”, in Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi su Bernardino Telesio (Cosenza 12–13 Maggio 1989) , Accademia Cosentina (Cosenza, 1990), 83–114.

The expression systema universi is found in the first third of the seventeenth century employed by two declared anti-Copernicans. First by Chiaramonti Scipione , De tribus novis stellis, quae annis 1572, 1600, 1604 comparuere, libri tres (Cesena, 1628), 481: “Mira perturbatio et confusione esset in systemate universi, in eiusque partium distributione ex Copernici hypothesi.” And secondly by Inchofer Melchior S.J. , Tractatus syllepticus, in quo, quid de Terrae Solisque motu, vel statione, secundum S. Scripturam, & Sanctos Patres sentiendum … breviter ostenditur (Rome, 1633), 90: “Iam si Copernici positiones aptari possunt futuris temporibus, multo certius & Ptolomaei, & Alphonsi, & aliorum … ut hanc ob causam, alia argumenta non sint excogitatu necessaria, quibus Systema Universi perturbetur, quae praesertim nec Philosophiae verae, nec S. Scripturae sunt conformia”; on this text, see Beretta F. , “Omnibus Christianae, Catholicaeque Philosophiae amantibus. D. D.: Le Tractatus syllepticus de Melchior Inchofer, censeur de Galilée”, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie , xlviii (2001), 301–25.

Goclenius Rodolph , Lexicon philosophicum quo tanquam clave philosophiae fores aperiuntur (Frankfurt, 1613), 726, col. a. On Goclenius, see the notice by W. Schmidt-Biggemann in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts , iv, ed. by Holzhey H. Schmidt-Biggemann W. , Das heilige römische Reich deutscher Nation Nord-und Ostmitteleuropa (Basel, 2001), 398–9 and 402–6. Two years previously, in his Elementale mathematicum, in quo mathesis methodice traditur per praecepta brevia … (Frankfurt, 1611), Johann-Heinrich Alsted had proposed the following Latin equivalent of the definition of the cosmos in pseudo-Aristotle's De mundo: “Sphaera mundi est systema ex aethere & elementis constans” ( op. cit. , iv, Elementale Astronomicum, 129).

Cf. Bartholin Caspar , De mundo quaestiones et controversiae nobiliores (Copenhagen, 1617), Quaestio 3: “Quid sit mundus, & an exacte definiri possit?”, 3–4: “Mundus est systema caeli, elementorum, & eorum quae in ijs continentur, a Deo ex nihilo creatum, in sui gloriam & hominum utilitatem.” Here too a reading of Melanchthon has left its traces. On the Dane Caspar Bartholin the elder, an orthodox Aristotelian, author of numerous manuals, who successively taught Latin, medicine and theology at Copenhagen, see the notice by Koch C. H. , in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie , iv, ed. by Holzhey Schmidt-Biggemann (ref. 101), 1249–50.

Keckermann's Systema logicae appeared in 1600 and his Systema astronomiae compendiosum in 1611. His disciple Timpler's Physicae systema methodicum was published in 1605 and 1607. On Keckermann, see the notice by Rose P. L. in the Dictionary of scientific biography , vii, 268–70, and especially Freedman J. S. , “The career and writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d. 1609)”, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , cxli (1997), 305–64, repr. in Philosophy and the arts in central Europe, 1500–1700: Teaching and texts at schools and universities (Aldershot, 1999): See espec. pp. 312–14. See also, by the same author, European academic philosophy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: The life, significance and philosophy of Clemens Timpler (1563/4-1624) (2 vols, Hildesheim and New York, 1988).

In 1613, Alsted published a collection of the philosophical writings by Keckermann , who had died four years earlier. He published them with the suggestive title of Systema systematum. On this author, see Hotson H. , Johann Heinrich Alsted 1588–1638: Between Renaissance, Reformation and universal reform (Oxford, 2000). See also Tega W. , “Le prisme d'Alsted: L'encyclopédie comme système des systèmes”, in Girons Saint B. (ed.), Art et science à l'âge classique (Université Paris X-Nanterre, Paris, 2000), 35–72.

In 1612, one finds systema mundi in a work published in Paris under the title Sphaera Nicolai Copernici seu systema mundi secundum Copernicum, perhaps an echo from a reading of the Sidereus nuncius: See Lerner M.-P. , “Copernicus in Paris in 1612: A teaching text edition of the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxi (2000), 55–67. The variant sistema mondano is found written by Galileo in his texts of 1613, 1615 and 1616 (Galileo, Opere , v, 286, 355, 378, 436). Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) had stated in 1604 that mondo and sistema were the same, in his Del senso delle cose e della magia , i, 13: See the edn by Bruers A. (Bari, 1925), 32: “Democrito e Epicuro infiniti mondi fuor del nostro sistema dic[o]no essere”. Campanella also wrote in 1616 of a systema mundiale referred to by Philolaos and repeated by Copernicus: See Quod reminiscentur liber IV , ed. by Amerio R. (Florence, 1960), 42. Later, the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1601–80) would speak of a unique mundanum systema (also qualified with the expression “immensa Mundi machina”) embracing a multiplicity of particular and diverse systemata: See Itinerarium exstaticum quo mundi opificium … per ficti raptus integumentum explorata nova hypothesis exponitur ad veritatem (Rome, 1656), 335 (“tametsi omnia & singula mundana systemata diversa sint, in unum tamen perfecte conspirent …”) and 395.

Galileo , Opere , v, 238. The expression systema caeli appears two years later in a disputation held at Gdansk in 1615 by P. Kruger and J. Gerhard and published with the title De hypothetico systemate caeli disputatio publica … in Gymnasio Dantiscano (see Baranowski H. , Bibliographia Kopernikowska II (1956–1971) (Warsaw, 1973), no. 4158, p. 49). On P. Kruger (1580–1639), the teacher of the great astronomer Hevelius Johannes , see Rybka E. (ed.), Historia astronomii w Polsce , i (Wrocłw and Warsaw, 1975), 245–9, 256–9 and 276–8. In 1619, the expression, in Italian this time (“systema de’ Cieli”), appears in an anonymous work published in Milan with the title Assemblea celeste radunata novamente in Parnasso sopra la nova cometa: See the critical edition of this text by Besomi O. Camerota M. , in Galileo e il Parnaso Tychonico: Un capitolo inedito del dibattito sulle comete tra finzione letteraria e trattazione scientifica (Florence, 2000), 167–233, espec. p. 189.

The Latin translation of Galileo's Dialogo by Matthias Bernegger (Strasbourg, 1635) was published with the general title Systema cosmicum, another possible equivalent to the expression systema mundi (perhaps chosen in homage to Cosimo de Medici), but one also finds the expression systema mundi in his subtitle as well as on the engraving facing the title page (Dialogus de systemate mundi): See on this point the edition by Besomi-Helbing (ref. 3), ii, 962–3, and Figure 5. On the Latin translation of the Dialogo, see Garcia S. , “L'édition strasbourgeoise du Systema cosmicum (1635–1636), dernier combat copernicien de Galilée”, Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français , cxlvi (2000), 307–34.

Dialogo , ed. by Besomi-Helbing (ref. 4), i, 495: “qual sia l'ordine solamente de i corpi mondani e la integrale struttura delle parti dell'universo da noi conosciute, è stata dubbia sino al tempo del Copernico, il quale ci ha finalmente additata la vera costituzione e il vero sistema secondo il quale esse parti sono ordinate”; Eng. transl. by Drake , Dialogue (ref. 7), 455 (slightly modified). P. Galluzzi evokes in a note, the relation between ordine and sistema in this passage of the Dialogo, but without further comment: See “Il tema dell'ordine in Galileo”, in Ordo: II Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellectuale Europeo , ed. by Fattori M. Bianchi M. (2 vols, Rome, 1979), i, 235–77, p. 253. We have seen above that Copernicus employs the word ordo to characterize the necessary linkage between the parts of the heliocentric world and the motions that depend on it.

Guiseppe Biancani's Sphaera mundi seu Cosmographia, published at Bologna in 1620, four years after the placing of Copernicus's work on the Index, is the first manual of astronomy published by a member of the Company of Jesus advocating the adoption of the Tychonic hypothesis: See Lerner M.-P. , “L'entrée de Tycho Brahe chez les Jésuites ou le chant de cygne de Clavius”, in Giard L. (ed.), Les Jésuites à la Renaissance: Système éducatif et production du savoir (Paris, 1995), 145–85, espec. pp. 167 sq. For the use of the word systema by Christoph Scheiner first in 1612, then in 1614 in his Disquisitiones mathematicae de controversis et novitatibus astronomicis (a disputatio published under the name of Johannes Locher, but of which the author was in fact Scheiner), see ibid. , 165–6.

Of the works of Tycho which Galileo could have read, and for his judgement of the Danish astronomer, see Bucciantini , Galileo e Keplero (ref. 4), 33–48.

Galileo , Opere , vi, 232–3; Eng. transl. The assayer , in Drake Stillman O'Malley C. D. , The controversy of the comets of 1618 (Philadelphia, 1960), 184–5. Galileo does not specifically say why Tycho's system (which he describes as “null”) is incomplete, but it is obvious that the real reason for his forthright criticism was Tycho's refusal to accept the motion of the Earth. Since Galileo , as a Catholic, had to obey the decision of 1616, which even compelled him to declare the Copernican system to be false, he could not obviously publicly state this reason in The assayer. On Tycho's world system, see Margolis H. , “Tycho's system and Galileo's Dialogue”, Studies in history and philosophy of science , xxii (1991), 259–75: See also Besomi Camerota , Galileo e il Parnaso Tychonico (ref. 106), 135–8.

Kepler J. , Appendix Hyperaspistis, seu Spicilegium ex Trutinatore Galilaei, KGW , viii, 415–17; Appendix to the Hyperaspistes, Eng. transl. by Drake S. O'Malley C. D. , in The controversy on the comets of 1618 (ref. 111), 343–5. On the adoption of this position, see Bucciantini , Galileo e Keplero (ref. 4), 279–80.

See for example the letter from Kepler to Maestlin of 16/26 February 1599, KGW , xiii, 292: “Quid? ergone tot monstrosis motibus tota moles 5 planetarum una cum Sole centro ipsorum volvitur? Quanto facilius credi potest Copernico, solius id Terrae motu fieri: Cum ijdem utrinque sint effectus”.

On this author, see the collection of studies by Borgato M. T. under the title Giambattista Riccioli e il merito scientifico dei gesuiti nell'età barocca (Florence, 2002). For an analysis of the magnificent frontispice of the Almagestum novum, with the representation of the two main world systems in balance (the Copernican and the Tychonic one in Riccioli's version), see Weichenhan , “Ergo perit coelum …” (ref. 41), 11–17, and Remmert W. R. , “Die Einheit von Theologie und Astronomie: Zur visuellen Auseinandersetzung mit dem kopernikanischen System bei jesuistischen Autoren in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts”, Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu , lxxii (2003), 247–96, espec. pp. 275–88.

Riccioli Giambattista , Almagestum novum astronomiam veterem novamque complectens … in tres tomos distributos (Pars prior-posterior tomi primi) (2 vols, Bologna, 1651–53): See lib. IX, sectio III, cap. 2: “Quid et quotuplex sit Systema Mundi …”, tomus primus, pars posterior, p. 276, col. b: “Systema Mundi nihil aliud est, quam Coordinatio seu compositio magnarum Mundi partium, videlicet Elementorum ac Caelorum: Cuius veluti materia est numerus elementorum ac caelorum, tum totalium, tum partialium; forma autem est, ordo ac situs eorum inter se, ac relative ad centrum Universi. Spectatâ igitur formâ dividitur Systema Mundi in duo summa genera, videlicet in illud, quod construitur circa terram in centro Universi immobilem, & in illud quod construitur circa Solem in centro Universi immobilem, seu immunem a motu tês phoras kata topon, videlicet translationis, Terram autem per orbem annuum movens”.

First edition in 1621, the last (posthumous) in 1651. Burton writes: “But to avoid these paradoxes of the Earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical, as appears by Blancanus' and Fromondus' writings) our latter mathematicians … to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Daedalian heads.” There follow quotations from Fracastor, Ursus, Tycho, Roeslin, Copernicus, Lansbergen, etc. Burton Robert , The anatomy of melancholy , part. 2, sect. 2, memb. 3, ed. by Faulkner T. C. (3 vols, Oxford, 1989–94), ii, 43.

The first Jesuit manual of astronomy, officially advocating the “pure” Tychonic system, was Biancani's Sphaera mundi published in 1620. Riccioli proposed, in his Almagestum novum, a modified form of this system, before returning to a more traditional conception in his Astronomia reformata, published in 1665: See Lerner , “L'entrée de Tycho Brahe” (ref. 109), 180–3. An important fact to be noted is that the diagram of the world printed by Tycho in 1588 shows, above the sphere of the fixed stars, neither the Crystalline Heaven, nor the Empyrean Heaven. The Jesuits, in taking over the Tychonic system, re-introduced these starless heavens. See for example the “Systema Mundy ex vera Tychones Sent. [sic]” printed by the Jesuit Melchior Cornaëus in his Curriculum philosophiae peripateticae (Würzburg, 1657), 528.

On the traditional meaning of the word ‘hypothesis’ in astronomy according to Osiander, and on the new meaning of the word, understood as principle and foundation in the nature of things, given it by Copernicus — a meaning emphasized by the use of the pair of words principle and hypothesis — see Lerner M.-P. Segonds A. Ph. , “Editer et traduire Copernic”, Bruniana & Campanelliana , ix (2003), 379–408, espec. pp. 397–8 (notes 12 and 13).

Galileo explains very clearly, in his letter to Piero Dini of 23 March 1615, what distinguishes and opposes the Ptolemaic system to the Copernican one. The former satisfies the saving of appearances, but is unable to state how the parts of the universe subsist in rerum natura. The Copernican system both saves the phenomena and reveals the most important feature, i.e. “la vera dispositione delle parti del mondo” (cf. Galileo, Opere , v, 297–8).

In the “Censura et facultas Ordinarii” dated 10 October 1651 authorizing the printing of Christoph Scheiner's Prodromus pro Sole mobili et Terra stabili, contra Academicum Galilaeum a Galilaeis … (Prague, 1651), Caramuel wrote, in Osiander's mind and in that of all the defenders of the traditional status of astronomy: “Habet falsae positionis Regulas Arithmetica, & verum ex illis concludit: & Dialectica docet vera e falsis colligere: Nec existimo condemnari debere Astronomiam Copernicanam, quamdiu se contineat in hypotheseon orbita, nec temere ad Thesin adspiret” ( op. cit. , no pagination). On the position of this author concerning hypotheses in astronomy — he followed the Tychonic system — see Pastine D. , Juan Caramuel: Probabilismo e enciclopedia (Florence, 1975), 266 sq., and Botey Rosselló V. , “L'astronomie de Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz (1606–1682)”, Cronos: Cuadernos Valencianos de historia de la medicina y de la ciencia , v-vi (2002–3), 93–129.

As we have seen (ref. 108 and related text), in the Dialogo Galileo attributes to Copernicus the merit of having finally established “la vera costituzione ed il vero sistema secondo il quale esse parti [dell'Universo] sono ordinate”, a constitution of the universe of which he had said twenty years earlier, in the Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle machie solari, that it was “in un modo solo, vero, reale ed impossibile ad essere altramente” ( Galileo , Opere , v, 102).

The 1622 edition of this work, which no great public library seems to have in its collections, was reprinted by the author in 1654, at Florence, in a miscellaneous volume with the title Fasciculus trium verarum propositionum astronomicae, astrologicae et philosophicae. On Bocarro Francês, who also composed a Tratado dos cometas que apparecerem em Novembro passado de 1618 (Lisbon, 1619), see the brief notes by de Ventosa Rivera E. in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts , i, ed. by Schobinger J. P. Allgemeine Themen Iberische Halbinsel Italien (Basel, 1998), 343, and Randles , The unmaking of the medieval Christian cosmos (ref. 60), 100–1. For further information on the life of this strange figure, and on his astrologico-prophetic writings (Galileo appears to have contributed to the publication of one of them in 1626), see Guerrini L. , “Luz pequena: Galileo fra gli astrologi”, in Ricerche su Galileo e il primo Seicento (Pisa and Rome, 2004), 97–105 and 185–6, and Carolino L. M. , “Scienza, politica ed escatologia nella formazione dello ‘scienzato’ nell'Europa del XVII secolo: Il caso di Manuel Bocarro Francês-Jacob Rosales”, Nuncius , xix (2004), 477–506.

Boulliau's work, published anonymously, was entitled Philolai sive dissertationis de vero systemate mundi libri IV (Amsterdam, 1639). On this author, see Nellen H. J. M. , Ismaël Boulliau (1605–1694): Astronome, épistolier, nouvelliste et intermédiaire scientifique (Amsterdam and Maarsen, 1994).

The title of Deusing's book is interesting to the extent that our expression “world system” is employed in both senses: De vero systemate mundi dissertatio mathematica. Qua Copernici Systema Mundi reformatur: Sublatis interim infinitis pene orbibus, quibus in Systemate Ptolemaico humana mens distrahitur (Amsterdam, 1643). See also the work of Daniel Lipstorp published ten years later under the title Copernicus redivivus, seu de vero mundi systemate: Liber singularis (Leiden, 1653). On these last two authors, see Vermij R. , The Calvinist Copernicans: The reception of the new astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575–1750 (Amsterdam, 2002), respectively pp. 121–3 and 142–5.

Refusing to choose between the hypotheses of Ptolemy, Tycho and Aristarchus, Roberval wrote: “nec illud constat quidem, an ex tribus authorum ipsorum celeberrimorum diversis systematis, aliquod verum sit ac genuinum mundi systema: Forsan etiam omnia tria falsa sunt, et verum ignoratur”, text quoted by Mesnard J. , “Pascal et Copernic”, in Delorme S. (ed.), Avant avec après Copernic: La représentation de l'Univers et ses conséquences épistémologiques (Paris, 1975), 241–50, pp. 248–9; see also ibid. , 242–3.

“[The] true System of the World, which supposes the Annual and Diurnal Motions of the Earth, proposed first by Pythagoras, asserted by Copernicus, demonstrated by Kepler, and as most agreable to reason and experience approved and entertained by the ablest Astronomers of our Times”: See The doctrine of the sphere, grounded on the motion of the Earth, and the antient Pythagorean or Copernican system of the world [1680], Preface, sign. A 2 r-v, published with the writings of other authors in vol. i of Moore Jonas (ed.), A new system of the mathematicks (2 vols, London, 1681).

See his Preface (signed Fr Mer. Helmont) to the work of Anne Conway (1631–1679), The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy, published in 1690 in Amsterdam posthumously in a Latin version; Eng. transl. by Coudert A. P. Corse T. (Cambridge, 1996). According to More, “She [i.e. Anne Conway] understood perfectly, not only the true System of the World, call it Copernican or Pythagorick as you will, with all the Demonstrative Arguments thereof …” ( op. cit. 4). In 1678, Ralph Cudworth (1617–88) published, against the atheists, a work destined to become a great publishing success under the title The true intellectual system of the universe.

See Encyclopédie , xv, 779a (deals with the Copernican system).

Le Tonnelier de Breteuil Émilie du Châtelet Marquise , speaks twice of the “véritable systême du monde” restated by Copernicus, in the Exposition abrégée du systême du monde et explication des principaux phenomenes astronomiques tirés des Principes de M. Newton, following her translation in French of the Principia (3rd edition): See Principes mathematiques de la philosophie naturelle, par feue Madame la Marquise du Chastellet (2 vols, Paris, 1756; reprinted Paris, 1966), Exposition abrégée , ii, 2 and 4.

Montucla Jean-Etienne , Histoire des mathématiques [1758] (Paris, an VII), i, 621: We owe to the immortal Copernicus the recovery of “the true system of the Universe (véritable systême de l'Univers)”.

Leclerc G.-L. , comte de Buffon, Histoire naturelle des époques de la nature (Paris, 1779), Premier Discours, 38: “… dans le récit de Moyse … il ne s'agissoit pas de démontrer le vrai système du monde” (“there was no attempt to describe the true system of the world”). Jacques Roger published in 1962 a critical edition of this work under the title Buffon, Les époques de la nature (Mémoires du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, nouvelle série: Série C, Sciences de la Terre, x; Paris, 1962).

See Boscovich Roger , Nouveaux ouvrages … appartenant principalement à l'optique et à l'astronomie — Opera pertinentia ad opticam et astronomiam (5 vols, A Bassan-Bassano, 1785). See vol. v, Opuscule 4, Notice abrégée de l'Astronomie pour un marin, š iii: Des mouvemens vrais des astres & de leurs causes physiques , 304–5: “Dans le vrai systême du monde reconnu aujourd'hui généralement, il n'y a rien d'immobile …” (“in the true system of the world generally accepted today …”).

La Lande Joseph-Jérôme , article “Système”, in Bossut Ch. (ed.), L'encyclopédie méthodique mathématique (3 vols, Paris, 1789), iii, 82 col. a.

See Caritat M.-J.-A.-N. de Condorcet Marquis , Prospectus d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain [1793], Huitième époque: “Copernic ressuscita le véritable système du monde oublié depuis si longtemps”, in Tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain: Projets, esquisses, fragments, notes (1772–1794) , ed. by Schandeler J.-P. Crépel P. (Paris, 2004), 361.

See Hahn , Le système du monde (ref. 8). In spite of its title, one finds no treatment of the expression ‘world system’ in this monograph.

Laplace , op. cit. (ref. 5).

In the same book of the Exposition, the word ‘system’ in its “weak” sense often recurs to designate the different hypotheses conceived over the course of time, either by “peoples” such as the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, or by specific authors: See op. cit. (ref. 5), 211, 217, 236: One also finds the expressions “systême astronomique” from the School of Alexandria, ibid. 218; “systême de Ptolémée”, ibid. 242; “systême de Copernic”, ibid. 252; “systême de Brahe”, ibid. 256: “avec son systême astronomique, Tycho a méconnu le systême de la nature” (“with his astronomical system, Tycho misconceived the system of nature”); “systême de Descartes”, ibid. 276. The Précis de l'histoire de l'astronomie was re-edited with variants in 1821, and again in 1863.

Newton himself does not caracterize as “true” the world system expounded in the Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis, or in the De mundi systemate liber (published posthumously in 1728), but he uses “world system” exclusively in its third, objective, meaning. It is to be noted, however, that in the De mundi systemate liber, he mentions once the “vera systematis constitutio” resulting from the localization of the Sun in the lowest part (locus infimus) of the planetary system: See op. cit. , š 27, in I. Newtoni opera quae exstant omnia, commentariis illustrabat S. Horsley (5 vols, London, 1782), iii, 3, 198.

Merleau-Ponty J. Morando B. , Les trois étapes de la cosmologie (Paris, 1971), 86. One frequently finds in the Précis de l'histoire de l'astronomie the expressions “systême solaire”, Exposition (ref. 5), chap. 6, 263, 293, 296, 297, 309, and “systême planétaire” or “systême des planètes”, ibid. 215, 294, 295, etc. In its Latin form, “Systema Solare” seems to have been introduced by David Gregory (1661–1708) in his Astronomiae physicae & geometricae elementa (Oxford, 1702), see Lib. I, sect. VII and XI, 57 and 104; but Gregory also employs the expression “Systema Solis & Planetarum primariorum”, ibid. 62. According to van Helden A. , “The telescope in the seventeenth century”, Isis , lxv (1974), 38–58, espec. p. 56, note 96, this would be the first occurrence of this expression in Latin, whereas the English form “Solar System” would have appeared four years later, with John Locke (1632–1704) in his Elements of natural philosophy (1706).

Exposition (ref. 5), chap. 6, 304 sq.

On the cosmological thought of Laplace, see in particular Merleau-Ponty , opera cit. (ref. 8), and Hahn, Le système du monde (ref. 8).