Page:The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe.djvu/39

 The most widely circulated account at this time, however, was the Narratio Prima, a letter from Georg Joachim of Rhaetia (better known as Rheticus), written in October, 1539, from Frauenburg to Johann Schöner at Nürnberg. Rheticus, at twenty-five years of age professor of mathematics at Wittenberg, had gone uninvited to Frauenburg early that summer to visit Copernicus and learn for himself more in detail about this new system. This was rather a daring undertaking, for not only were Luther and Melancthon outspoken in their condemnation of Copernicus, but Rheticus was going from Wittenberg, the headquarters of the Lutheran heresy, into the bishopric of Ermeland where to the Bishop and the King his overlord, the very name of Luther was anathema. Nothing daunted, Rheticus departed for Frauenberg and could not speak too highly of the cordial welcome he received from the old astronomer. He came for a few weeks, and remained two years to return to Wittenberg as an avowed believer in the system and its first teacher and promulgator. Not only did he write the Narratio Prima and an Encomium Borussæ, both extolling Copernicus, but what is more important, he succeeded in persuading him to allow the publication of the De Revolutionibus. Rheticus returned to his post in 1541, to resign it the next year and become Dean of the Faculty of Arts. In all probability the conflict was too intense between his new scientific beliefs and the statements required of him as professor of the old mathematics and astronomy.

His colleague, Erasmus Reinhold, continued to teach astronomy there, though he, too, accepted the Copernican system. He published a series of tables (Tabulæ Prutenicæ, 1551) based on the Copernican calculations to supersede the inaccurate ones by Regiomontanus; and these were in general use throughout Europe for the next seventy-odd years. As he himself declared, the series was based in its principles and fundamentals upon the observations of the famous Nicolaus Copernicus. The almanacs deduced from these calculations probably did more to

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