Copernicus
...This was in 1531, or twelve years before his death. From this on the doctrine of the heliocentric system began to spread. In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII on the Copernican solar system. His reward consisted in a Greek codex which is preserved in the State library of Munich. Three years later Copernicus was urged by Cardinal Schonberg, then Archbishop of Capua, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November, 1536, to publish his discovery, or at least to have a copy made at the cardinal's expense. But all the urging of friends was in vain, until a younger man was providentially sent to his side.
It was George Joachim Rheticus who quitted his chair of mathematics in Wittenberg in order to spend two years at the feet of the new master (1539-41). Hardly ten weeks after his arrival in Frauenburg he sent a "First Narration" of the new solar system to his scientific friend Schöner in Nuremberg, in the form of a letter of sixty-six pages, which was soon after printed in Danzig (1540) and Basle (1541). Rheticus next obtained for publication the manuscript of a preliminary chapter of the great work on plane and spherical trigonometry. Finally Copernicus, feeling the weight of his sixty-eight years, yielded, as he writes to Paul III, to the entreaties of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of other learned men to surrender his manuscripts for publication. Bishop Giese charged Rheticus, as the ablest disciple of the great master, with the task of editing the work. The intention of the latter was to take the manuscript to Wittenberg and have it published at the university but owing to the hostility prevailing there against the Copernican system, only the chapter on trigonometry was printed (1542). The two copies of the "First Narration" and of the treatise on trigonometry, which Rheticus presented to his friend Dr. Gasser, then practising medicine in Feldkirch, may be seen in the Vatican Library (Palat. IV, 585) Rheticus then turned to Schöner in Nuremberg, who, together with Osiander, accepted the charge and engaged the printing-house of Petreius in the same city. In the meanwhile Rheticus tried to resume his chair in Wittenberg, but on account of his Copernican views had to resign (1542) and turned to Leipzig (1543). He was thus prevented from giving his personal attention to the edition, nor was the author himself able to superintend it. Copernicus became paralyzed on the right side and weakened in memory and mind many days before his death. The first copy of the "Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits" was handed to him the very day he died. Fortunately for him, he could not see what Osiander had done. This reformer, knowing the attitude of Luther and Melanchthon against the heliocentric system, introduced the word "Hypothesis" on the title page, and without adding his own name, replaced the preface of Copernicus by another strongly contrasting in spirit with that of Copernicus. The preface of Osiander warns the reader not to expect anything certain from astronomy, nor to accept its hypothesis as true, ne stultior ab hac disciplinâ discedat, quam accesserit. The dedication to Pope Paul III was, however, retained, and the text of the work remained intact, as was ascertained later when access was had to the original manuscript, now in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.
Opposition was first raised against the Copernican system by Protestant theologians for Biblical reasons and strange to say it has continued, at least sporadically, to our own days. A list of many of their Pamphlets is enumerated by Beckmann. On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo. On 5 March, 1616, the work of Copernicus was forbidden by the Congregation of the Index "until corrected", and in 1620 these corrections were indicated. Nine sentences, by which the heliocentric system was represented as certain, had to be either omitted or changed. This done, the reading of the book was allowed. In 1758 the book of Copernicus disappeared from the revised Index of Benedict XIV. New editions were issued in Basle (1566) by Rheticus; in Amsterdam (1617) by Müller of Göttingen, in Warsaw (1854) an edition de luxe with Polish translation and the real preface of Copernicus; and the latest (5th) in Torun (1873) by the Copernicus Society, on the four hundredth anniversary of the author's birthday, with all the corrections of the text, made by Copernicus, given as foot-notes. A monument by Thorwaldsen was erected to Copernicus in Warsaw (1830), and another by Tieck at Torun (1853). Rheticus, Clavius, and others called Copernicus the second Ptolemy, and his book the second "Almagest." His genius appears in the fact that he grasped the truth centuries before it could be proved. If he had precursors they are to be compared to those of Columbus. What is most significant in the character of Copernicus is this, that while he did not shrink from demolishing a scientific system consecrated by a thousand years' universal acceptance, he set his face against the reformers of religion. For supplementary information see the article GALILEO.
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