Essay Review: Early Translations of De Revolutionibus De Revolutionibus: Die erste deutsche Übersetzung in der Grazer Handschrift

Gingerich Owen , An annotated census of Copernicus' De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566) (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 2002). For an account of the author's extensive and protracted research, see Gingerich Owen , The book nobody read: Chasing the revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (New York, 2004).

Westman Robert S. , “The Melanchthon circle, Rheticus and the Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 165–93.

Brahe Tycho , Opera omnia, ed. by Dreyer J. L. E. (15 vols, Copenhagen, 1913–29), vi, 362, 28–29 for the draft by Rothmann; vii, 323, 31–36 for Tycho's letter to Hagecius.

Rosen Edward , “The earliest translation of Copernicus' ‘Revolutions’ into German”, Sudhoffs Archiv, lxvi (1982), 301–5.

Jardine Nicholas , 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).

Rosen Edward , Three Imperial Mathematicians: Kepler trapped between Tycho Brahe and Ursus (New York, 1986); Gingerich Owen Westman Robert S. , The Wittich connection: Conflict and priority in late sixteenth-century cosmology (Philadelphia, 1988); Lerner Michel-Pierre , Le monde des sphères, ii: La fin du cosmos classique (Paris, 1997); and Launert Dieter , Nicolaus Reimers (Raimarus Ursus) Günstling Rantzaus — Brahes Feind Leben und Werk (Munich, 1999). See also Granada Miguel A. , El debate cosmológico en 1588: Bruno, Brahe, Rothmann, Ursus, Röslin (Naples, 1996), and Sfere solide e cielo fluido: Momenti del dibattito cosmologico nella seconda metà del Cinquecento (Milan, 2002).

Jardine Nicholas Segonds Alain , La guerre des astronomes: La querelle au sujet de l'origine du système géo-héliocentrique à la fin du XVIe siècle (2 vols, Paris, 2008). For the sake of completeness, I should mention also the recent study by Mosley Adam , Bearing the heavens; Tycho Brahe and the astronomical community of the late sixteenth century (Cambridge, 2007).

Hamel Jürgen , Die astronomischen Forschungen in Kassel unter Wilhelm IV. Mit einer Teiledition der deutschen Übersetzung des Hauptwerkes von Copernicus um 1586 (Frankfurt, 1998).

Cf. Leopold J. H. , Astronomen Sterne Geräte: Landgraf Wilhelm IV. und seine sich selbst bewegenden Globen (Lucerne, 1986), 213–15.

Piñeiro M. Esteban Crespo F. Gómez , “La primera versión castellana de De revolutionibus orbium coelestium: Juan Cedillo Díaz (1620–1625)”, Asclepio, xliii (1991), 131–62. Fifteen years after this article, which made public for the first time the existence of this translation, no monographic study has been published on it (to our knowledge), and the manuscript remains unedited. Nevertheless, comments on the translation have been published recently as part of more general studies on the mathematical and astronomical work of Cedillo, as well as in recent studies on the development of astronomy and cosmology in Spain in that period. See Brotóns V. Navarro , “La astronomía (siglos XVI—XVII)”, in Historia de la ciencia y de la técnica en la Corona de Castilla, iii: Siglos XVI y XVII, ed. by Piñero J. M. López (Valladolid, 2002), 259–317, see pp. 295–9; and Botey V. Rosselló , Tradició i canvi científic en la astronomia espanyola del segle XVII (Valencia, 2000). I am grateful to V. Navarro Brotóns for drawing my attention to these studies.

Fol. 108r, reproduced by Piñeiro Esteban Crespo Gómez , op. cit. (ref. 10), 136.

Copernicus is named in places where he mentions his own observations or calculations. Thus, in chap. III, 2, where he says “nos etiam Anno Christi MDXXV” (“Haben demnach wir in jahr Christi 1525”, German translation, p. 79), Cedillo translates: “Copernico últimamente el año 1525”; where Copernicus says in the same chapter “nostris temporibus” (“zue unser zeit”, German translation, p. 81), Cedillo translates “en el tiempo de Copernico”. Still more significantly, in chap. 6, where Copernicus says “MDCCCXIX annis a Timochari ad nos” (“1819 jahr uon dem Timochare auf uns”, German translation, p. 89), Cedillo translates: “desde Timocarides hasta nosotros Copernico” (fol. 176r), where a horizontal trace above and below “nosotros” seems to indicate that this word is to be replaced by “Copernico”. To sum up, Cedillo, who has written his own name as the author after the title of the work on fol. 108r, goes on to mention Copernicus in the third person; throughout the manuscript the first person always designates Cedillo.

Bucciantini Massimo , Contro Galileo: All'origine dell'affaire (Florence, 1995), 141–7, and Appendices 2 and 3, pp. 207–12 (Appendix 3 reproduces the text of the decree of May 1620). See also Lerner M.-P. , “Copernic suspendu et corrigé: Sur deux décrets de la Congrégation romaine de l'Index (1616–1620)”, Galilaeiana, i (2004), 2004–89.

Fol. 180r. Thus, all references in the first person by Copernicus apply in the translation to Cedillo. Cf. the solemn statement in chap. I, 10: “Y aunque esto es dificultoso y contra la oppinion de todos, confio, que en el discurso de la obra siendo Dios seruido, quedara tan claro, que no haga dificultad a los entendimientos, principalmente a los que hubieren algun conocimiento en la facultad Astronomica y Geometrica”, fol. 119r [“Quae omnia cum difficilia sunt, ac paene inopiniabilia, nempe contra multorum sententiam, in processu tamen, favente Deo, ipso sole clariore faciemus, mathematicam saltem artem non ignorantibus”].

According to this realist adoption of Copernicus, all the cosmological passages in Book I are translated by literally Cedillo , without diminishing their cosmological import. Cf. chap. I, 10, fol. 118v: “y por tanto no nos empacha confesar que todo lo que el orbe de la Luna rodea y el centro de la tierra con ella se mueue alrededor del Sol dentro de un año en aquel orbe concentrico al propio Sol, como las otras estrellas errantes se mueuen, y que el Sol es el centro del mundo, y que estandose este quieto, el mouimiento que nos parece verse en el, se uerifica de la tierra” [“Proinde non pudet nos fateri hoc totum, quod luna praecingit, ac centrum terrae per orbem illud magnum inter caeteras errantes stellas annua revolutione circa solem transire, et circa ipsum esse centrum mundi; quo etiam sole immobili permanente, quicquid de motu solis apparet, hoc potius in mobilitate terrae verificari”]. Cf. ref. 17 below.

Tomás J. Pardo , Ciencia y censura: La Inquisición Española y los libros científicos en los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid, 1991), 183–9. Cf. Lerner, “Copernic suspendu et corrigé” (ref. 13), 85–88: “si le livre [De revolutionibus] lui-même n'est pas mentionné, son auteur, et surtout l'héliocentrisme en tant que doctrine réprouvée par l'Église, figurent bel et bien après 1620 dans différentes éditions de l'Index espagnol” (p. 85).

As indicated, the fair copy does not adopt any of the corrections established by the decree of 1620. We limit ourselves to giving two samples: (1) De rev., I, 5, p. 6: “Si tamen attentius rem consideremus, videbitur haec quaestio nondum absoluta, et idcirco minime contemnenda”; correction proposed: “Si tamen attentius rem consideremus, nihil refert an Terram in medio mundi an extra medium existere, quoad salvandas coelestium motuum apparentias, existimemus”; translation by Cedillo: “Si lo miramos con cuydado hallaremos que esta duda aun no está del todo resuelta y assi no es de estimar en poco”. (2) De rev. I, 8, p. 6: “Cur ergo haesitamus adhuc mobilitatem illi formae suae a natura congruentem concedere, magis quam quod totus labatur mundus, cuius finis ignoratur scirique nequit; neque fateamur ipsius quotidianam revolutionem in caelo apparentiam esse, et in terra veritatem? Et haec perinde se habere, ac si diceret Virgilianus Aeneas”; correction proposed: “Cur ergo non possumus mobilitatem illi formae suae concedere, magis quam totus labatur mundus, cuius finis ignoratur scirique nequit et quae apparent in coelo, proinde se habere ac si diceret Virgilianus Aeneas?”; translation by Cedillo: “Pues por que dudamos mas en concederle movimiento tan conueniente a su forma que en conçeder que el cielo se mueue cuyo fin no sabemos ni se puede saber? y por que no confesaremos que la reuolucion diurna es aparente, y en la tierra verdadera? y que se han como dize Eneas a quien celebra tanto Virgilio”. Cf. ref. 15 above, the quotation of De rev. I, 10.