I collated the entire translation of the Commentariolus with the Latin text in ProweL., Nicolaus Coppernicus, ii: Urkunden (Berlin, 1884), 184–202 (the editors' base text). A partial collation of the translation of the Narratio prima with the Latin edition in Kepler, Gesammelte Werke, i (Munich, 1938), 86–131 (not the editors' base text, but the one accessible to me), revealed a similarly high level of accuracy. For the most part, I have confined my attention in this review to the Commentariolus, simply in order to save space.
2.
SwerdlowN., “The derivation and first draft of Copernicus's planetary theory: A translation of the Commentariolus with commentary”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxvii (1973), 423–512.
3.
Introductions, e.g. pp. 72 n.(a), 77 n.13, 79 n.(b), 82 n.(a), 82 n.27, etc.; cf. p. 69.
4.
I give the relevant passages in parallel columns. Introductions, p. 79: “La lune nous semble mue de quatre mouvements en plus de la révolution annuelle que l'on a mentionnée. Sur son orbe déférent, en effet, elle accomplit autour du centre de la terre des révolutions mensuelles, selon l'ordre des signes. Ce déférent, à son tour, porte l'épicycle que les astronomes appellent l'épicycle de la première inégalité ou de l'argument, mais que nous appelons le premier ou le grand épicycle. Ce premier épicycle tourne en un peu plus d'un mois [sidéral, i.e. en un mois anomalistique], d'un mouvement opposé, du moins dans sa partie supérieure, à celui de l'orbe déférent, et il entraîne, attaché a lui, un second épicycle. Finalement, la lune, fixée sur le second épicycle, accomplit deux révolutions en un mois [synodique] dans le sens opposé à celui du mouvement du premier épicycle….” Swerdlow, op. cit., pp. 454–55: “The moon appears to us to wander about with four motions in addition to the annual revolution that has been mentioned. For in its deferent sphere it completes revolutions in a [sidereal] month about the center of the earth in the order of the signs. The deferent sphere in turn carries what [astronomers] call the epicycle of the first anomaly or of the argument, but we call the first or larger epicycle, and attached to the first epicycle is another epicycle which it carries around in a period [i.e., an anomalistic month] slightly longer than the [sidereal] month in the direction opposite to the motion of the sphere in [its] higher arc. Finally, the moon, fixed in the second epicycle, completes two revolutions in a [synodic] month in the direction opposite to the motion of the first epicycle….” The reader will note that the French editors have not always remembered either to insert the requisite term or to employ square brackets when they do so. And if he compares these passages with the Latin original in Prowe, op. cit., 192, and with the older translation and commentary by Rosen, Three Copernican treatises (3rd edn, New York, 1971), 68–69, he will have no doubts as to the source of these inserted words—or as to the unintelligibility of the text without them.
Introductions, 75 n.9: “Cette équation maximale de 2°10′ correspond à une distance entre le centre de l'orbe et le soleil de 1/26′46 du rayon de l'orbe; en effet 1/26,46 = 0,0378 = sin 2°10′. La valeur de 1/25 donnée par Copernic est donc une valeur approchée.”
8.
Prowe, op. cit., 196, 11. 19–21.
9.
Introductions, 84 n.30: “Ce qui signifie que la planète, le soleil et la terre forment un angle de 120°. Pour l'expression ‘trine aspect’, voir en particulier Pline, Histoire naturelle, II, 59 … [what follows is irrelevant to the point at issue].”
10.
For Maestlin's analysis of the similarities between the Ptolemaic and Copernican models, see GraftonA., “Michael Maestlin's account of Copernican planetary theory”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxvii (1973), 527–9, 539–40.
11.
Swerdlow, op. cit., 466–71; NeugebauerO., “On the planetary theory of Copernicus”, Vistas in astronomy, x (1968), 89–103, pp. 92–96.
