The Book Nobody Read
Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus
Owen Gingerich
"...one
of the most astonishing and obsessive feats of scientific gumshoeing
ever undertaken...an utterly fascinating work...The author could not
have chosen a more enticing subject...bibliophiles or those interested
in the history of science will savor every page."—Chicago
Tribune
"...an adventure book not of the white-knuckle
variety, but with a genteel, satisfying tone all its own. 'A-'
"—Entertainment Weekly
In the
spring of 1543 as the celebrated astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, lay on
his death bed, his fellow clerics brought him a long-awaited package:
the final printed pages of the book he had worked on for many years:
De revolutionibus (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
Though Copernicus would not live to hear of its extraordinary impact,
his book, which first suggested that the Sun, not the Earth, was the
center of the universe, is today recognized as one of the most
influential scientific works of all time—thanks in part to
astrophysicist Owen Gingerich.
Four and a half centuries after its initial publication, Gingerich
embarked on an epic quest to see in person all extant copies of the
first and second editions of De revolutionibus. He was
inspired by two contradictory pieces of information: Arthur Koestler's
claim, in his bookThe Sleepwalkers, that nobody had read
Copernicus's book when it was published; and Gingerich's discovery, in
Edinburgh, of a first edition richly annotated in the margins by the
leading teacher of astronomy in Europe in the 1540s. If one copy had
been so quickly appreciated, Gingerich reasoned, perhaps others were as
well—and perhaps they could throw new light on a hinge point in
the history of astronomy.
After three decades of investigation, and after traveling hundreds of
thousands of miles across the globe—from Melbourne to Moscow,
Boston to Beijing—Gingerich has written an utterly original book
built on his experience and the remarkable insights gleaned from
examining some 600 copies of De revolutionibus. He found the
books owned and annotated by Galileo, Kepler and many other lesser-known
astronomers whom he brings back to life, which illuminate the long,
reluctant process of accepting the Sun-centered cosmos and highlight the
historic tensions between science and the Catholic Church. He traced
the ownership of individual copies through the hands of saints,
heretics, scalawags, and bibliomaniacs. He was called as the expert
witness in the theft of one copy, witnessed the dramatic auction of
another, and proves conclusively that De revolutionibus was as
inspirational as it was revolutionary.
Part biography of a book, part scientific exploration, part
bibliographic detective story, The Book Nobody Read recolors
the history of cosmology and offers new appreciation of the enduring
power of an extraordinary book and its ideas.
