The Sleepwalkers (271 page)

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Authors: Arthur Koestler

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2

De
revolutionibus
orbium
coelestium,
Libri
VI
(
Nuremberg,
1543).
In
the
text
the
work
will
be
referred
to
either
as
Book
of
the
Revolutions
,
or
Revolutions
for
short.

3

De
Revolutionibus,
Lib.
V
,
Cap.
30.

4

Ibid.,
Lib. IV, Cap. 7.

5

Wagner's
Staats
Lexikon
(
1862)
Vol.
II,
describes
Frauenburg
"as
a
small
town
on
the
Vistula".

5a

Prowe
I, 2, p. 4 n.

6

There
is
only
one
other
case
known
of
a
similar
geographical
displacement
of
Frauenburg
by
one
of
its
citizens:
Tiedemann
Giese
in
1536
dated
a
letter
to
Erasmus
of
Rotterdam
"From
the
shores
of
the
Vistula"

and
Canon
Giese
was
Canon
Koppernigk's
closest
friend.
Cf.
Prowe
I,
2,
p.
4.

7

Rheticus,
Ephemerides
novae
(
Leipzig,
1550),
p.
6,
quoted
by
Prowe
I,
2,
p.
58.

8

Prowe
I, 2, p. 314.

9

Prowe
I, 1, p. 111.

10

Thus,
for
instance,
in
1943,
the
"Copernicus
Quatercentenary
Celebration
Committee,
London"
published
a
monograph
Nicolas
Copernicus
(Mikolaj
Kopernik)
by
Dr.
Jozef
Rudnicki,
which,
in
describing
Copernicus'
studies
in
Italy,
omits
the
fact
that
he
appears
on
the
register
of
the
German
natio
in
Bologna
and
then
says
about
Copernicus'
next
university,
Padua:
"...
the
Polish
'nation'
was
one
of
the
largest
in
the
university.
There,
according
to
the
historian
of
Padua,
N.
C.
Papadopoli,
'
Copernicus
devoted
himself
to
the
study
of
philosophy
and
medicine
for
four
years,
as
is
known
from
the
entries
in
the
register
of
Polish
students.'"

Now
Copernicus
would
have
been
quite
capable
of
joining
the
German
natio
in
Bologna
and
the
Polish
natio
in
Padua,
but
the
fact
is
that
documentary
evidence
exists
for
the
former,
but
none
for
the
latter,
and
that
the
Papadopoli
quoted
as
a
source
has
been
exposed
as
a
fraud
by
his
Italian
compatriots
who
had
no
stake
in
the
PolishGerman
dispute.
(Cf.
Prowe
I,
1,
p.
297.)
The
feud
is
also
waged
in
the
field
of
spelling;
thus
Rudnicki
turns
the
Tyrolean
Georg
Joachim
yon
Lauchen
into
a
Slav,
by
translating
his
Latin
nom
de
plume
Rheticus
into
Retyk
(p.
9).
It
must
be
noted,
though,
that
the
booklet
was
written
during
the
war.
See
also
notes
28
and
89.

11

Carlo
Malagola,
Della
Vita
e
delle
Opere
di
Antonio
Urceo
detto
Codro
(
Bologna,
1878).

12

Rheticus,
Narratio
Prima
,
transl.
Edward
Rosen,
Three
Copernican
Treatises
(
Columbia,
1939),
p.
111.

13

Prowe
I, 1, p. 266.

14

Prowe
I, 1, p. 89.

15

Zach
Monatliche
Korrespondenz
,
Vol.
II,
p.
285,
quoted
by
Prowe
loc.
cit.

16

ProweI,
2, p. 313.

17

Prowe
I, 1, p. 359

18

See
note 33.

19

Ency.
Brit.
XX
-696d.

20

Bernhardy,
Grundriss
der
Griechischen
Litteratur,
I
,
p.
583,
quoted
by
Prowe
I,
1,
p.
393.

21

Prowe
II, pp. 124-7, which also contain the Greek original.

22

Prowe
II, p. 51.

23

Ency.
Brit.
IX
-732b,
13th
edition,
1926.
(All
other
references
are
to
the
1955
edition.)

24

Quoted
by Prowe I, 1, p. 402.

25

H.
R.
Trevor-Roper,
Desiderius
Erasmus
(Encounter,
London,
May
1955).

26

See
below note 20 to ch. II.

27

Known
as
the
Letter
against
Werner
.
See
p.
200.

28

The
treatise
was
originally
written
in
German
and
submitred
to
the
Prussian
Diet
of
1522,
then
rewritten
in
Latin
for
the
Landtag
of
1528.
Its
aim
was
to
remedy
the
debasement
of
the
Prussian
coinage
(which
had
been
aggravated
by
the
war),
by
means
of
state
monopolies
in
the
minting
of
coins,
the
control
of
the
amount
of
coins
in
circulation
and
of
the
quantity
of
base
metal
in
the
alloy.
It
is
sometimes
claimed
that
Copernicus
anticipated
Gresham's
Law
that
"bad
money
drives
out
good";
in
fact
the
principle
seems
to
have
been
first
enunciated
two
centuries
earlier
by
Nicolas
of
Oresme,
whose
economic
teachings
formed
the
basis
of
the
monetary
reform
of
Charles
V.

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