Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 Copernicus between 1514 and 1616: An Overview -- 2 Astronomy at the Crossroads of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Epistemology -- 3 Beyond Computation: Copernican Ephemerists on Hypotheses, Astrology and Natural Philosophy -- 4 A Finite and Infinite Sphere: Reinventing Cosmological Space -- 5 A Ship-Like Earth: Reconceptualizing Motion -- 6 A priori and a posteriori: Two Approaches to Heliocentrism -- 7 The Bible versus Pythagoras: The End of an Epoch -- 8 Laughing at Phaeton’s Fall: A New Man -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Index of Places.

Available to subscribing member institutions only.

In Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance , Pietro Daniel Omodeo presents a general overview of the reception of Copernicus’s astronomical proposal from the years immediately preceding the publication of De revolutionibus (1543) to the Roman prohibition of heliocentric hypotheses in 1616. Relying on a detailed investigation of early modern sources, the author systematically examines a series of issues ranging from computation to epistemology, natural philosophy, theology and ethics. In addition to offering a pluralistic and interdisciplinary perspective on post-Copernican astronomy, the study goes beyond purely cosmological and geometrical issues and engages in a wide-ranging discussion of how Copernicus’s legacy interacted with European culture and how his image and theories evolved as a result.