Review, Isis, xlvi (1955), 69. Considering his sparse bibliography, it is doubtful that Duncan even troubled to check this review.
2.
Cf.RheticusJoachim Georg, Narratio prima (1540) in the Maestlin edition (Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke, i (1938), 104–5).
3.
See the useful commentaries on symmetria by Fritz Krafft and Gerard Simon in [DelormeSuzanne], Avant, avec, après Copernic. La representation de l'Univers et ses consequences épistemologiques (Paris, 1975), 130–1, 136–7.
4.
The main papers in the exchange are: SwerdlowNoel M., “The Derivation and First Draft of Copernicus' Planetary Theory: A Translation of the Commentariolus with Commentary”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxvii (1973), 423–512; RosenEdward, “Copernicus' Spheres and Epicycles”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxv (1975), 82–92; SwerdlowNoel M., “PSEUDODOXIA COPERNICANA: Or, Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths, mostly concerning spheres”, ibid., xxvi (1976), 108–58; RosenEdward, “Reply to N. Swerdlow”, ibid., 301–4. That Swerdlow has successfully established the case for Copernicus's belief in solid spheres now seems clear and beyond any reasonable doubt.
5.
On the important question of how Copernicus discovered the heliocentric theory, there are the early attempt by BirkenmajerA. (“Comment Copernic a-t-il conçu et realisé son oeuvre?”, Organon, i (1936), 111–34, reprinted in Études d'histoire des sciences en Pologne, Studia Copernicana, iv (Warsaw, 1972), 589–611); the fascinating, but ultimately mistaken, effort of RavetzJ. R. to relate Copernicus's discovery to the calendar reform (Astronomy and cosmology in the achievement of Nicolaus Copernicus (Warsaw, 1965) and “The Origins of the Copernican Revolution”, Scientific American, ccxv (1960), 88–98); and two recent reconstructions whose conclusions rest upon Copernicus's rejection of the Ptolemaic equant (SwerdlowN. M., “Derivation and First Draft”, 471ff, and WilsonC. A., “Rheticus, Ravetz, and the ‘Necessity’ of Copernicus' Innovation”, in WestmanR. S. (ed.), The Copernican achievement (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1975), 17–39). The best analysis of the technical content of De revolutionibus, including valuable comparisons with corresponding planetary models in the Almagest, is Moesgaard'sK. P.“Success and Failure in Copernicus' Planetary Theories”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxiv (1974), 73–111, 243–318.
