sofia rare book
Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus challenged 1,400 years of Ptolemaic cosmology and revolutionized science. Copernicus (About the rotation of the celestial sphereHis manuscript suggested that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the solar system, thereby changing our perspective of the universe and our place within it. The first edition is on sale for $2.5 million.
According to Christian Westergaard of Sophia Rare Books, who is in charge of the auction, the high price tag is a testament not only to the historical importance of the work, but also to the clear provenance and excellent condition of this particular edition. . (He plans to display this edition at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair next month.) In 2008, at auction he sold for $2,200,000, just his two repairs and modern binding. Similar copy with. revolutionary of questionable provenance, falsified bindings, facsimile pages, removal of stamps, or similar devaluing alterations;
Renowned Copernican scholar Owen Zingerich spent 35 years tracking down and examining all surviving copies of the first two editions. revolutionary In the end, 276 first edition copies (out of about 500 originally printed) were found worldwide. Most of them are part of the institution’s collection. Only a handful (perhaps 10 to 15) of Gingerich’s Census editions, including this one, are in the hands of private collectors. “It’s the holy grail for me,” Westergaard told Ars. “I want a good source for a book in this price range. I don’t want it suddenly reported stolen from some library. In my opinion, this copy has it all.”
public domain
Copernicus was raised by his uncle, an Orthodox in Frauenburg Cathedral. He traveled to Italy in his 1496 and received degrees in canon law and medicine, but after witnessing his first lunar eclipse in March 1497, he was drawn to astronomy. Copernicus eventually became the canon of Frauenburg Cathedral itself. He built an astronomical observatory in a turret room in a fortress walled by the city walls, and studied the heavens diligently every night.
In 1514 an anonymous pamphlet began to circulate among several astronomers. It was a personal friend and author of Copernicus. “Little Commentary” (Commentary) developed a new model of the universe centered on the sun, with the earth and other planets orbiting around it. He accurately determined the order of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter, and concluded that changes in the positions of the stars were caused by the rotation of the Earth itself. Finally, he explained that the apparent retrograde motion of the planet is caused by observations from the moving Earth.
