The First Copernican Astrologer: Andreas Aurifaber's Practica for 1541

The most extensive historical study of practicas is Matthäus Klaus , “Zur Geschichte des Nürnberger Kalenderwesens”, Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens , ix (1969), 965–1396. For the later sixteenth century, a very useful essay is Robin Bruce Barnes, “Hope and despair in sixteenth-century German almanacs”, in The Reformation in Germany and Europe: Interpretations and issues. Die Reformation in Deutschland und Europa: Interpretationen und Debatten, ed. by Guggisberg Hans R. (Gütersloh, 1993), 440–61.

Burmeister Karl Heinz , “‘Mit subtilen Fündlein und sinnreichen Speculierungen …’: Die ‘Practica auff das M.D.XLvj. jar’ des Achilles Pirmin Gasser im Umfeld zeitgenössischer Astrologen”, Montfort: Vierteljahresschrift für Geschichte und Gegenwart Vorarlbergs, lv (2003), 107–20, p. 109: “Und noch etwas sei hervorgehoben: In Gassers ‘Practica auff das M.D.XLvj. jar’ bzw. in dem zugehörigen Widmungsbrief wird erstmals der Name des Nikolaus Kopernikus in einem Buch in deutscher Sprache genannt; bisher wurde er nur in der lateinischen Fachliteratur erwähnt”.

Kremer Richard L. , “Copernicus among the astrologers: A preliminary study”, in Astronomy as a model for the sciences in early modern times, ed. by Folkerts Menso Kühne Andreas (Augsburg, 2006), 225–52, pp. 228, 237.

Danielson Dennis , “Achilles Gasser and the birth of Copernicanism”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxv (2004), 457–74, p. 464; Danielson Dennis , The first Copernican: Georg Joachim Rheticus and the rise of the Copernican revolution (New York, 2006), 118.

The most extensive treatment of Aurifaber remains Eduard David Schnaase, “Andreas Aurifaber und seine Schola Dantiscana: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Schulen in Danzig”, Altpreußische Monatsschrift, n.s., xi (1874), 304–25, 456–80. Schnaase (p. 308) takes note of Aurifaber's practica, but knows of its existence only from the notes of an earlier historian rather than from the work itself. A concise biography of Aurifaber with further literature appears in Bautz Friedrich Wilhelm , “Aurifaber (Goldschmid), Andreas”, Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (Hamm, 1990), i, 302–3.

Danielson , First Copernican (ref. 4), 79, 90.

On Osiander's role in the publication of De revolutionibus, see Danielson , First Copernican (ref. 4), 106–13.

Edited in Birkenmajer Ludwik Antoni , Stromata Copernicana: Studja, poszukiwania i materjaly biograficzne, z jednaa rycina w tekscie (Cracow, 1924), 359: “Commendat se tibi M. Georgius Joachimus Rheticus, mittitque tibi tria folia narrationis suae excusa.” See also Biskup Marian , Regesta copernicana (Wrocław, 1973), 185.

The first three sections correspond to Edward Rosen's English translation of the Narratio prima in Three Copernican treatises , 2nd edn (New York, 1959), 109–40, concluding with the section “The principal reasons why we must abandon the hypotheses of the ancient astronomers” in its entirety and the first few lines of the next section, “Transition to the explanation of the new hypotheses for the whole of astronomy”. The first edition of the Narratio prima has been digitized by the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology and is available online (http://www.lindahall.org/services/digital/ebooks/rheticus/).

“Interrumpo cogitationes tuas….” Translation as in Rosen, Three Copernican treatises (ref. 9), 140.

See Caroti Stefano , “Melanchthon's astrology”, in ‘Astrologi hallucinati’: Stars and the end of the world in Luther's time, ed. by Zambelli Paola (Berlin, 1986), 109–21.

On the fate of Melancthon's library, see Göber Willi , “Aus Melanchtons Bibliothek”, Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, xlv (1928), 297–302.

Kremer , “Copernicus among the astrologers” (ref. 3), 227, cites examples beginning in 1904 of the claim (made without much evidence, as Kremer notes) that Copernicanism was spread via practicas. Aurifaber's practica is G 2563 in the Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (VD 16), searchable online at http://gateway-bayern.bib-bvb.de/aleph-cgi/bvb_suche?sid=VD16. Aurifaber's practica is also listed in the bibliographies of Zinner (Nr. 1737) and Hellmann, which cites a copy in the Königsberg university library whose fate after 1945 is unknown. See Hellmann Gustav , Versuch einer Geschichte der Wettervorhersage im XVI. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1924), 26, and Zinner Ernst , Geschichte und Bibliographie der astronomischen Literatur in Deutschland zur Zeit der Renaissance, 2nd edn (Stuttgart, 1964), 195.

The practica has been digitized and is available online (http://bvbm1.bib-bvb.de/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=172587).

This is substantially identical to another of Aurifaber's notes of ownership, “Sum Andreae Aurifabrj Wratislauiensis D. 1545”. See Deckert Helmut , Katalog der Inkunabeln der sächsischen Landesbibliothek zu Dresden (Leipzig, 1957), 44. On the disposition of Aurifaber's personal library, see Tondel Janusz , Eruditio et Prudentia: Die Schloßbibliothek Herzog Albrechts von Preußen. Bestandskatalog 1540–1548 (Wiesbaden, 1998), 29, fn. 117.

See Barker Peter Goldstein Bernard R. , “Patronage and the production of De revolutionibus”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxiv (2003), 345–68.

Danielson , First Copernican (ref. 4), 69.

Westerman Robert S. , “The Melanchthon circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory,” Isis, lxvi (1975), 165–93.

Kremer , “Copernicus among the astrologers” (ref. 3), 238–9.

Swerdlow Noel M. Neugebauer O. , Mathematical astronomy in Copernicus's De revolutionibus (New York, 1984) i, 17–18; Barker Goldstein , “Patronage and the production of De revolutionibus” (ref. 16), 346; 362, n. 5. For the text of the 1535 letter from Bernhard Wapowski to Sigismund von Herberstein that describes the almanac, first discovered by Eugen Brachvogel in 1935, and further literature, see Kühne Andreas (ed.), Nicolaus Copernicus: Gesamtausgabe, vi/1: Documenta Copernicana: Briefe; Texte und Übersetzungen (Berlin, 1994), 186–8.

Cf. Barker Goldstein , “Patronage and the production of De revolutionibus” (ref. 16), 361: “Simple chronology dictates that the early reception of Copernicanism up to and including Osiander's preface to De revolutionibus should be understood as responses to the Narratio prima and not directly to the work by Copernicus himself”.

Danielson , First Copernican (ref. 4), 212 (translating Gasser's dedicatory epistle to his practica for 1546). On Gasser's use of printed ephemerides in his practicas, see Kremer , “Copernicus among the astrologers” (ref. 3), 233.