The Milky Way from Galileo to Wright

As developed in my forthcoming book, The Milky Way: An elusive road for science, to be published by Neale Watson of New York, and in my article, which surveys its first three chapters, “The Milky Way before Galileo”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ii (1971), 161–167. Here too, only the most essential references will be given.

Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger, translated with an introduction by Rosen E. (New York, 1965), 36.

Much of that polemic literature is reprinted in the Edizione nazionale of Galileo's works, iii (Florence, 1892).

See Iacchaeus G. , Institutiones physicae (Leiden, 1614); Mulerius N. , Institutionum astronomicarum libri duo (Groningen, 1616): Blaeu W. J. , Tweevoudigh Onderwiis (Amsterdam, 1620), better known in its Latin translation, Institutio astronomica (Amsterdam, 1634).

See Bartholinus C. , De mundo and Uranologia (Copenhagen, 1617).

See Liceto F. , De novis astris (Venice, 1622); Aversa R. , Philosophia (Rome, 1625); Fromondus L. , Meteorologicorum libri sex (Antwerp, 1627).

See Blancano J. , Sphaera mundi (Bologna, 1620); Lereuchon J. , Récréation mathématique (Paris, 1624).

See Werke, ed. Caspar M. , vii (Munich, 1953), 44–45.

Ibid., 288.

Descartes R. , Le monde, ou Traité de la lumière , in Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery , xi, Part 2 (Paris, 1909), 107.

In “Préface pour le Traité du Vide”, in Pascal B. , Oeuvres complètes, ed. Chevalier J. (Paris 1954), 534.

Bouillau I. , Astronomia philolaica (Paris, 1645), 12–13.

See Gassendi P. , Opera (Lyons, 1658), i, 504–508.

Ibid., 729.

Letter of August 1625 to Galileo, in Opera, vi, 4–6.

Wilkins J. , Discovery of a world in the Moone (London, 1640), 179. On Fromondus see ref. 6.

Ward Seth , De cometis (Oxford, 1653), 24.

Comenius A. , Physicae ad lumen divinum reformatae synopsis (Amsterdam, 1643), 92.

See Cottunio J. , Lectiones in primum Aristotelis librum de meteoris (Bologna, 1631); Trimarchi G. , Disputationes in libros Aristotelis meteororum (Genoa, 1637); Mastrius B. , Disputationes in libros de caelo et mundo et metheoris (Venice, 1640); Fernandez-Bejarno F. M. , Super quatuor libros meteororum Aristotelis quaestiones (Lyons, 1643); Bérigard C. , Circulus Pisanus Claudii Berigardii … de veteri et peripatetica philosophia Aristotelis (Utini, 1643); Cabeo N. In quatuor meteorologicorum Aristotelis commentaria (Rome, 1646).

See, for instance, de Roy (Regius) Henry , Fundamenta physices (Amsterdam. 1646) and Rohault J. , Traité de physique (Paris, 1671), both of which were not only treatises of physics but general accounts of the cosmos as well.

Strauch E. , Astrognosia (Wittenberg, 1659), 114.

Halley E. , Catalogue des estoilles australes (Paris, 1679), [4] and [32].

von Guericke Otto , Experimenta nova (Amsterdam, 1672), 226–229 and 29–34.

Discursus de via lactea (Helmstadt, 1665). Dissertations of those times carried more prominently the name of the professor presiding at the defence, than the name of the candidate for the degree. Often these works were quoted under the name of the praeses-professor who in this case was Sigismund Hosemann.

Hertzberger Jonas (praes.: Andreas Glauchius), Theoria viae lacteae (Leipzig, 1663) and Wexstedt Olaus (praes.: Georg Funccius), De galaxia seu circulo lacteo (Rostock, 1686).

See translation by Rendell J. R. and Tansley I. (London, 1912), 257–258.

See reprint edition with an introduction by Hoskin M. A. (London, 1971), 39–40.