Text, Context, and Conflict in Early Modern CosmologyNicholas Jardine;, Alain Philippe Segonds. La guerre des astronomes: La querelle au sujet de l'origine du système géo‐hèliocentrique à la fin du XVIe siècle. (Science and Humanisme.) 2 volumes. xix + 852 pp. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2008. €85 (cloth).

Abstract

This book is a major contribution to the history of science in the late Renaissance. Thematically, it focuses on cosmology, but because of the importance of the sources here researched and their excellent treatment, it is highly recommended to anyone interested in this key period in the history of ideas. Cosmological theories and disputes belong to the core of the history of philosophy and science in the late Renaissance, particularly in the period from the second half of the sixteenth century—Copernicus’s De revolutionibus appeared in 1543—through the first decade of the seventeenth century—which saw the publication of Kepler’s Astronomia nova in 1609 and Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius in 1610. During this period of expansion and deepening of knowledge, astronomy was the scientific discipline that dominated the scene and provided the background for debates, polemics, quarrels, and, yes, intellectual “wars.” It is important to note that during this period not only were particular technical questions under discussion; in fact, the systema mundi itself was under revision. To a great extent, the “guerre” regarding the correct world system was motivated by the emergence of Copernicanism. While Rheticus’s Narratio prima (1540) gave a first (but incomplete) presentation of the new system, the publication of De revolutionibus three years later hardly escaped misunderstanding and polemics; the furor began, of course, with the foreword by Andreas Osiander (then anonymously published), and the so-called Wittenberg interpretation of Copernicus shortly ensued. Combining philosophical issues from both the Platonic and the Aristotelian tradition, Johannes Kepler first succeeded in