Astronomia Instaurata ? The Third Edition of Copernicus's DE REVOLUTIONIBUS (Amsterdam,1617)

Delambre J. B. J. , Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (2 vols, Paris, 1821), i, 85: “Le livre de révolutions qui a changé la face de la science, a paru pour la première fois à Nuremberg en 1545, peu de jours avant la mort de l'auteur, don't le véritable nom était, dit-t-on, Zepernic…. La première édition … j'ai pu … comparer à celle de 1566 et à celle de 1617, qui est la meilleure et la plus correcte des trois. Celle de 1566 paraît calquée presque entièrement sur l'édition originale…. Quoique sortie des mêmes presses, la seconde n'est pas aussi belle, et elle n'est pas plus correcte. On y retrouve toutes les fautes de l'ancienne, avec quelques inexactitudes nouvelles; mais elles ont disparu de la troisième, qui est augmenté de quelques notes de l'éditeur J. Muller.”

Cf. Shipman J. C. , “Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg publisher of scientific works, 1524–1550”, in Homage to a bookman: Essays on manuscripts, books and printing written for Hans P. Kraus, ed. by Lehmann-Haupt H. (Berlijn, 1967), 147–62.

Copernicus N. , Astronomia instaurata (Amsterdam, 1617), title page: Nicolai Copernici Torinensis Astronomia instuarata libri sex comprehensa, qui de Revolutionibus orbium coelestium inscribuntur / Nunc demum post 75 ab obitu authoris annum integrati suae restituta, Notisque illustrata, opera & studio D. Nicolai Mulerii / Medicinae ac Matheseos professoris ordinarij in nova Academia quae est Groningae / Amstelrodami Excudebat Wilhelmus Janssonius, sub Solari aureo / Anno MDCXVII.

It is not clear why Delambre wrote ‘J.’ instead of ‘N.’ Muller, while the quotation suggests he had this book in his possession.

Cf. Koyré A. , The astronomical revolution: Copernicus – Kepler – Borelli (London, 1980), 1.

Westman R. S. , “The Melanchton circle, Rheticus and the Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory”, Isis , lxvi (1975), 165–93; Westman R. S. , “The Copernicans and the Churches”, in God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science , ed. by Lindberg D. C. Numbers R. L. (Berkeley, 1986), 76–113, pp. 82–4.

Westman , “The Copernicans and the Churches” (ref. 6), 85.

Psalm 104:5; cf. Joshua 10:12–14 and Psalm 93:1.

Gingerich O. , An annotated census of Copernicus' De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566) (Leiden, 2002), pp. xiv, xxvi.

Mayaud P. N. , La condamnation des livres coperniciens et sa révocation à la lumière de documents inédits des Congrégations de l'Index et de l'Inquisition (Rome, 1997).

Ibid., 70.

Ibid., 77.

Hooykaas R. , “The Aristotelian background to Copernicus cosmology”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xviii (1987), 111–16, p. 111. Rumours about a reprint of the 1617 edition are false. This has been very convincingly argumented by Rosen E. , “No edition of Copernicus in 1640 or 1646”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xvii (1986), 58–9, but these reprints are still mentioned in some literature.

Cf. Swerdlow N. M. , “On establishing the text of ‘De revolutionibus’”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xii (1981), 35–46, p. 36: “Pity the author whose drafts are published as his finished work.”

Gingerich , An annotated census (ref. 9); Gingerich O. , The book nobody read: Chasing the revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (London, 2004).

Koestler A. , The sleepwalkers: A history of man's changing vision of the universe (London, 1959), 191.

Gingerich O. , “Copernicus's De revolutionibus: An example of Renaissance scientific printing”, in Print and culture in the Renaissance, ed. by Tyson G. P. Wagonheim S. S. Gingerich O. (Newark, 1986), 55–73, pp. 59–60.

Ibid.

Gingerich , An annotated census (ref. 9), p. xxvi.

Birkenmajer A. , Mikolaj Kopernik (Warsaw, 1953), 7, plate 26; Cynarski S. Tabakowska E. , Reception of the Copernican theory in Poland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Crakow, 1973), 11, 26; Gingerich, An annotated census (ref. 9), 153–5.

Antwerp , Museum Plantin Moretus (MPM), inventory number 1022: “Cahier de Francfort” spring 1617, 3.

Cf. MPM, inventory number 269: “Catalogus Francfurtensis” 1617.

Koeman C. , “Willem Blaeu's Catalogus librorum of 1633: Analysis of the cartographic books”, Quaerendo, iii (1973), 131–40. Copernicus is on p. 5 of the catalogue.

Blaeu J. , Catalogus librorum omnium facultatum et variarum linguarum, qui in officina Joannis Blaeu, venales reperiuntur (Amsterdam, 1659).

Vermij R. , The Calvinist Copernicans: The reception of the new astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575–1750 (Amsterdam, 2002), 51. Cf. “Ubbo Emmius geschokt”, http://www.xs4all.nl/∼adcs/stevin/varia/emmius.html.

Biographical data are derived from my biography of Mulerius: van Netten D. , Nicolaus Mulerius (1564–1630): Een geleerde uit Groningen in de discussies van zijn tijd (Groningen, 2010). Unfortunately there is hardly anything to be found about Mulerius in English.

Mulerius N. , Tabulae Frisicae lunae-solares quadruplices (Alkmaar, 1611).

Mulerius N. , Institutionum astronomicarum (Groningen, 1616), fol. (?)7r.: “Erudita & acris, sed sine odio….”

Vermij , The Calvinist Copernicans (ref. 25), 30. Cf. Westman , “The Copernicans and the Churches” (ref. 6), 85.

van Netten , Nicolaus Mulerius (ref. 26), 61–2.

Jorink E. , “Reading the book of nature in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic”, in The book of nature in early modern and modern history, ed. by van Berkel K. Vanderjagt A. (Leuven, 2006), 45–68, p. 47.

Vermij , The Calvinist Copernicans (ref. 25), 47; Jorink E. , “Tussen Aristoteles en Copernicus: De natuurfilosofische opvattingen van Nicolaus Mulerius (1564–1630)”, in Zeer kundige professoren: Beoefening van de filosofie in Groningen van 1614 tot 1996 , ed. by Krop H. A. van Ruler J. A. (Hilversum, 1997), 69–83, p. 77.

Huisman G. C. , “Boeken en brieven van Nicolaus Mulerius”, in Bibliotheek, wetenschap en cultuur , ed. by Engels L. J. Huisman G. C. Kingma J. (Groningen, 1990), 283–96. Thanks to Gerda Huisman for permission to peruse her copy of the catalogue.

All notes in the margins are published in Gesamtausgabe / Nicolaus Copernicus, viii/1: Receptio Copernicana, ed. by Nobis H. M. Pastori A. M. Folkerts M. (Berlin, 2002), 485–90.

Cf. Gesamtausgabe / Nicolaus Copernicus, ii: De revolutionibus libri sex, ed. by Nobis M. (Hildesheim, 1984), 581; de Smet A. , “Copernic et les Pays-Bas”, Janus , lx (1973), 12–23, p. 18.

Rood W. , Comenius and the Low Countries: Some aspects of life and work of a Czech exile in the seventeenth century (Amsterdam, 1970), 22; Murphy D. , Comenius: A critical reassessment of his life and work (Dublin, 1995), 10; Nikolaus Kopernikus Gesamtausgabe, i (Munich, 1944), pp. xvii–xviii.

Cf. Swerdlow , “On establishing the text” (ref. 14).

Gingerich O. , “An early tradition of an extended errata list for Copernicus's ‘De revolutionibus’”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xii (1981), 47–52.

Cf. for example 1543, pp. 115–16, and 1617, pp. 272–4. At the first mentioned page the extra ‘r’ in ‘cirrculos’ has disappeared, but on the next page the missing word ‘numeris’ is still missing.

Cf. Genette G. , Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation (Cambridge, 1997).

As for a biography, the most recent one in English is Keuning J. Vrij M. Donkersloot-De , Willem Jansz. Blaeu: A biography and history of his work as a cartographer and publisher (Amsterdam, 1973). A more recent overview, more geared towards cultural and book history, can be found in the Dutch-language collection of essays by de La Fontaine Verwey H. , In en om de ‘Vergulde Sonnewyser’ (Amsterdam, 1979). In my dissertation Koopman in kennis (Zutphen, 2012), Blaeu and his place in the scholarly world of his times are discussed at length.

Cf. van Berkel K. , “De illusies van Martinus Hortensius: Natuurwetenschap en patronage in de Republiek”, in Citaten uit het boek der natuur: Opstellen over de Nederlandse wetenschapsgeschiedenis, ed. by van Berkel K. (Amsterdam, 1998), 63–84.

Vermij , The Calvinist Copernicans (ref. 25).

Blaeu W. J. , Tweevoudigh onderwiis van de hemelsche en aerdsche globen (Amsterdam, 1634).

Ibid., title page: “Het een na de meyning van Ptolemaeus met een vasten aerdkloot; het ander na de natuerl cke stelling van N. Copernicus met een loopenden aerdkloot.”

Van Berkel , “De illusies van Martinus Hortensius” (ref. 42), 83.

Blaeu , Tweevoudigh onderwiis (ref. 44), ‘voor-reden’: “Wat belangt de redenen, waerom gelooft wort, dat de stellingh des hemelloops met een loopenden Aerdkloot, gelijckformich is met het gene in de natuer bestaet, en niet die metten vasten Aerdkloot: Heb ick niet oft weynigh geroert; dewyl het is geweest buyten mijn voornemen, en zulcx bij andere genoegh gedaen is.” Translation and italics by the present writer.

Cf. Vermij , The Calvinist Copernicans (ref. 25), 69; Vermij R. , “Nederlandse wereldkaarten en het stelsel van Copernicus in de 17de eeuw”, Caert-thresoor , xvi (1997), 33–40.

Johannes Kepler gesammelte Werke , xvii, ed. by Casper M. (Munich, 1955), 53–4 and 66. Cf. Gingerich , An annotated census (ref. 9), pp. xxvi and 93–4; Kepler J. , Le secret du monde , ed. by Segonds Alain (Paris, 1984), Appendix III; Lerner M.-P. , “Copernicus in Paris in 1612: A teaching text edition of De revolutionibus”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxi (2000), 55–67.

Copernicus , Astronomia instaurata (ref. 3), title page, verso: “Typographus lectori salutem. Quamvis Copernicus duabus editionibus, Norimbergensi & Basileensi in folio prodierit, tamen hanc formam praeferendam alijs duximus….”

Ibid .: “… tum quia tijpi [sic] nostri huic formae erant aptiores, tum etiam ut cum Copernico jungi possint unaque copulari Tabulae Frisicae ante quinquennium editae….”