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Book/Printed Material Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI. Habes in hoc opere iam recens nato, & ædito, studiose lector, motus stellarum, tam fixarum, quàm erraticarum, cum ex ueteribus tum etiam ex recentibus obseruationibus restitutos De revolvtionibus orbium cœlestium / De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium

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Title

  • Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI. Habes in hoc opere iam recens nato, & ædito, studiose lector, motus stellarum, tam fixarum, quàm erraticarum, cum ex ueteribus tum etiam ex recentibus obseruationibus restitutos: & nouis insuper ac admirabilibus hypothesibus ornatos. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas, ex quibus eosdem ad quoduis tempus quàm facillime caculare poteris. Igitur eme, lege, fruere. [Line in Greek].

Other Title

  • De revolvtionibus orbium cœlestium
  • De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium

Summary

  • De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), written by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and published just before his death, placed the sun at the center of the universe and argued that the Earth moved across the heavens as one of the planets. Copernicus anticipated his ideas would be controversial and waited more than 30 years to publish his book. De Revolutionibus opens with a brief argument for the heliocentric universe and follows with an extensive set of mathematical proofs and astronomical tables. Copernicus was not trying to disparage the accepted wisdom of astronomers and religious thinkers; instead he sought to uncover a more elegant order in the universe. His ideas were revolutionary, but they built on an existing line of thinking. The movement of Mercury and Venus had long perplexed philosophers and astronomers. Plato and Eudoxus noted that these planets never strayed far from the sun; it was almost as if they were tethered to the sun, as they could only move a bit ahead of or lag a bit behind it. In the fifth century, Martianus Capella had argued that Mercury and Venus orbited the sun, which in turn rotated around the Earth. Aristarchus of Samos had proposed a heliocentric system and the Pythagoreans before him had argued that the sun was the "central fire." Although not part of the mainstream, these were all ideas that Copernicus built upon. While Copernicus made revolutionary contributions to astronomy, his conception of the solar system was fundamentally different from that of present-day science. His model still assumed perfect circular motion in the heavens. This meant that, like Ptolemy, he needed to use circles on circles, or epicycles, to account for the movement of the planets. Copernicus's circles were much smaller than those used in the Ptolemaic system, but they still were required to make his model work. Later astronomers, including Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642), and Isaac Newton (1642-1727), all built upon the work of Copernicus to advance humanity's understanding of the solar system. World Digital Library.

Names

  • Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1473-1543.
  • Petrejus, Johannes, 1497-1550, printer.

Created / Published

  • Norimbergæ, apud Ioh. Petreium, 1543.

Headings

  • -  Astronomy--Early works to 1800
  • -  Solar system--Early works to 1800

Notes

  • -  Published also under title: Astronomia instaurata, libris sex comprehensa, qui De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium inscribuntur. Nunc ... restituta ... studio d. Nicolai Mvlerii.
  • -  Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site.
  • -  LAC ecr 2018-10-24 update (1 card)

Medium

  • [12], 196 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • QB41 .C76 1543

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 46031925

Online Format

  • pdf
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Copernicus, Nicolaus, and Johannes Petrejus. Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI. Habes in hoc opere iam recens nato, & ædito, studiose lector, motus stellarum, tam fixarum, quàm erraticarum, cum ex ueteribus tum etiam ex recentibus obseruationibus restitutos: & nouis insuper ac admirabilibus hypothesibus ornatos. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas, ex quibus eosdem ad quoduis tempus quàm facillime caculare poteris. Igitur eme, lege, fruere. Line in Greek. Norimbergæ, apud Ioh. Petreium, 1543. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/46031925/.

APA citation style:

Copernicus, N. & Petrejus, J. (1543) Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI. Habes in hoc opere iam recens nato, & ædito, studiose lector, motus stellarum, tam fixarum, quàm erraticarum, cum ex ueteribus tum etiam ex recentibus obseruationibus restitutos: & nouis insuper ac admirabilibus hypothesibus ornatos. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas, ex quibus eosdem ad quoduis tempus quàm facillime caculare poteris. Igitur eme, lege, fruere. Line in Greek. Norimbergæ, apud Ioh. Petreium. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/46031925/.

MLA citation style:

Copernicus, Nicolaus, and Johannes Petrejus. Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI. Habes in hoc opere iam recens nato, & ædito, studiose lector, motus stellarum, tam fixarum, quàm erraticarum, cum ex ueteribus tum etiam ex recentibus obseruationibus restitutos: & nouis insuper ac admirabilibus hypothesibus ornatos. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas, ex quibus eosdem ad quoduis tempus quàm facillime caculare poteris. Igitur eme, lege, fruere. Line in Greek. Norimbergæ, apud Ioh. Petreium, 1543. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/46031925/>.