A More Perfect Heaven

by Dava Sobel

  p. 180 “the structure … its parts.” Dedication (Rosen, 4).

  p. 180 “After long … philosophers” and “against … sense.” Dedication (Rosen, 4). For Copernicus’s ignorance of the heliocentric model of Aristarchus, see Gingerich, “Did Copernicus Owe … ?”

  p. 181 “Therefore … imagine.” Dedication (Rosen, 5).

  p. 181 “In order … mathematics.” Dedication (Rosen, 5; Wallis, 7).

  p. 181–82 “Perhaps … censure it.” Dedication (Rosen, 5).

  p. 182 “Astronomy is … the work itself.” Dedication (Rosen, 5).

  p. 186 “I was shocked … emergency.” Rosen, Scientific Revolution, 165–66.

  p. 187 “You have … profit.” Rosen, De rev, xix; Gingerich, Book Nobody Read, 20.

  p. 187–88 “There have … enough.” Osiander Preface in Rosen, De rev, xx.

  p. 188 “And if … him” and “Therefore … Farewell.” Osiander Preface in Rosen, De rev, xx.

  CHAPTER 9

  p. 189 “Anyone … produced …” Gingerich, Census, 285.

  p. 189 “so maul … future.” Rosen, Treatises, 405.

  p. 190 “On my return … sorrow.” Rosen, De rev, 339.

  p. 190 “I have written … Preface.” Rosen, De rev, 339.

  p. 192 “I am not … zeal.” Rosen, De rev, 339.

  p. 192 “a man … to appear” and “not … scholars.” De rev, Copernicus Dedication (Rosen, 3).

  p. 192 “I explain … weak.” Rosen, De rev, 339.

  p. 192 “for if … deceased.” Rosen, De rev, 340.

  p. 193 “acerbities” and “omitted and sweetened,” Rosen, De Rev, 340.

  p. 194 “She … to you.” Rosen, Scientific Revolution, 169.

  p. 196 “He has halfway … refused” and “He lay ill … him alone.” Danielson, 217–18.

  p. 197 “stimulated … bodies” and “to … Leipzig.” Danielson, 129.

  p. 198 “whose hand … this world.” Danielson, 139.

  p. 198 “I have not … width.” Danielson, 139.

  p. 198 “What sort … and devotion.” Danielson, 143.

  p. 198 “a sudden … unchristian,” “minor child,” and “plied … sodomy.” Danielson, 143–44.

  p. 199 “I have … stars.” Danielson, 162.

  p. 200 “again … commentary.” Danielson, 172.

  p. 200 “We had … of day.” Westman in Gingerich, Nature of Scientific Discovery; Danielson, 191.

  p. 201 “Twice … drowning.” Danielson, 193.

  p. 201 “I excavated … wonderfully.” Danielson, 199.

  CHAPTER 10

  p. 202 “I deem … contemplate it.” Caspar, 384.

  p. 202–3 “In truth … world.” Ferguson, 47.

  p. 207 “I consider … astronomy.” Astronomia Nova (Donahue, 43; Ferguson, 98–99).

  p. 207 “burning eagerness.” Ferguson, 155.

  p. 208 “Days and nights … wind.” Mysterium (Caspar, 63; Ferguson, 192).

  p. 209 “I build … world.” Epitome (Wallis, 10).

  p. 210 “I was … ridiculous me.” Astronomia nova (Gingerich and Ann Brinkley, quoted in Gingerich, Eye, 320).

  p. 210 “sacred frenzy.” Gingerich, Eye, 407.

  p. 210 “If you … much time.” Gingerich, Eye, 357.

  p. 210 “hesitating … machine.” Mysterium (Giora Han in Kremer and Wlodarczyk, 208).

  p. 211 “It is … Copernicus.” Gingerich, Eye, 300.

  p. 211 “the unexpected … natural causes.” Rudolfine Tables (Ferguson, 346).

  p. 211 “Thee, O Lord … to that.” Harmonies of the World (Wallis, 240).

  CHAPTER 11

  p. 214 “The constitution … the word.” Dedication in Galileo’s Dialogue (Drake, 3–4).

  p. 214 “Would it … effort.” Ferguson, 206.

  p. 217 “Summon men … at all.” Rosen, Scientific Revolution, 189.

  p. 217 “concerning … humanity” and “read the … class.” Astronomia nova (Donahue, 19, 21). Science historian William H. Donahue, who translated the New Astronomy from the Latin, says that Kepler’s arguments on the interpretation of Scripture became the most widely read of his writings, often reprinted in modern languages, and the only work by Kepler to appear in English before the 1870s.

  p. 218 “I believe … completely.” Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Cristina (Drake, Discoveries, 183–84). In addition to the passages quoted here from the Letter to the Grand Duchess Cristina, in dependent scholar Stillman Drake translated all of Galileo’s works, most of which were written and originally published in Italian, not Latin.

  p. 218–19 “To ban … of Heaven.” Letter (Drake, Discoveries, 196.)

  p. 219 “Now let us … teach us astronomy.” Letter (Drake, Discoveries, 211–12.)

  p. 220 “If we … stop too.” Letter (Drake, Discoveries, 212–13.)

  p. 221 “the whole system … sacred text” and “in … heavens.” Letter (Drake, Discoveries, 213–14).

  p. 221 “Grave … retardation” and “if … it resides.” Letter (Drake, Discoveries, 214–15).

  p. 222 “The words … in motion.” Quoted in Drake, Discoveries, 164.

  p. 222 “the quiescence … erroneous in faith.” Consultants’ Report on Copernicanism, Finocchiaro, 146.

  p. 223 “false … Scripture.” Decree of the Index, Finocchiaro, 149.

  CHAPTER 12

  In 1854 Jan Baranawski, a director of the Warsaw Observatory, published Copernicus’s complete works in Latin and Polish—the first full translation into a modern language.

  p. 226 “I have … gave it up.” Gingerich, Census, xxvii. Gingerich gave running commentary on his search for all sixteenth-century copies of Copernicus’s book in academic periodicals, such as American Scholar and the Journal for the History of Astronomy. He also wrote a complete popular account, called The Book Nobody Read (Walker, 2004).

  p. 229 “It is very … passage.” Gingerich, Census, xxii.

  p. 230 “For is … the Sun?” Gingerich, Census, 78.

  p. 230–31 “Does the … irregularity.” Gingerich, Census, 79.

  p. 235 “So vast … Almighty.” De rev I, 10 (Rosen, 22).

  Illustration Credits

  p. iv: Illustration of the Copernicus world system from a 17th century atlas by Gerard Valk and Peter Schenk. Corbis image #PG6097

  pp. xi and xii: Maps copyright © 2011 by Jeffrey L. Ward

  p. 5: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Cod. Lat. #27003, folio 33

  p. 21: Astronomy Library of the Vienna University Observatory

  p. 47: medievalcoins.com

  pp. 50, 191: Uppsala University Copernicus Collection

  p. 54: Courtesy of Owen Gingerich

  p. 61: Nicolaus Copernicus Thorunensis Archives

  p. 62: Princes Czartoryski Museum, Polish National Museum in Krakow

  p. 130: Thomas Suarez Rare Maps, Valley Stream, New York

  p. 165: Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

  p. 181: Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

  p. 185: New York Public Library

  p. 204: Fredriksborg Slot

  p. 209: Pixtal/Glow Images

  p. 233: Captain Dariusz Zajdel, M.A., Central Forensic Laboratory of the Polish Police / AFP-Getty Images

  p. 235: Robert Williams and the Hubble Deep Field Team Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and NASA

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<
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  Footnotes

  1 Medieval scholar Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) compiled this edition from several Arabic translations of the original (lost) Greek text. Gerard is said to have completed the work at Toledo in 1175, but its publication waited half a century after the invention of movable type, to be issued in Venice in 1515.

  2 Copernicus’s realization that bad money drives good money out of circulation often goes by the name Gresham’s Law, in honor of Sir Thomas Gresham (c. 1519–1579), a financial adviser to English royalty who made the same wise observation. The concept was also put forward by medieval philosopher Nicole Oresme and mentioned by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes in his comedy The Frogs.

  3 Against all odds, the entire handwritten, original manuscript of On the Revolutions survives to this day—a bound stack of yellowed paper two hundred sheets thick—in ultrasafe keeping at the Library of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

  4Theodoric of Reden, Copernicus’s fellow canon in Varmia, then served as the chapter’s representative to the papal court at Rome.

  5While working together in Frauenburg, Rheticus and Copernicus observed a comet that they judged to be supralunar, just as Tycho later demonstrated to the world. Rheticus wrote to his friend Paul Eber about their discovery, and Eber in turn reported it to Melanchthon in a surviving letter of April 15, 1541.

  A Note on the Author

  Dava Sobel is the acclaimed author of the New York Times and international bestsellers Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and The Planets, and the coauthor of The Illustrated Longitude. She lives in East Hampton, New York.