In the fifth century, Martianus Capella had argued that Mercury and Venus orbited the sun, which in turn rotated around the Earth. 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. The movement of Mercury and Venus had long perplexed philosophers and astronomers. His ideas were revolutionary, but they built on an existing line of thinking. 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. De Revolutionibus opens with a brief argument for the heliocentric universe and follows with an extensive set of mathematical proofs and astronomical tables.
Copernicus anticipated his ideas would be controversial and waited more than 30 years to publish his book. Igitur eme, lege, fruere.ĭe 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. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas, ex quibus eosdem ad quoduis tempus quàm facillime caculare poteris. 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. Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolvtionibvs orbium cœlestium, libri VI.
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