“Item sexternus Theorice asserentis terram moveri, Solem vero quiescere.” Cf. BirkenmajerL. A., Stromata Copernicana (Cracow, 1924), 201; BiskupM., Regesta Copernicana (Studia Copernicana, viii; Wroclaw, 1973), no. 91.
2.
Cf. RosenE., Nicolaus Copernicus Minor works (Warsaw, 1985), 75–80.
3.
DobrzyckiJ., “The Aberdeen copy of the Commentariolus”, Journal for the history of astronomy, iv (1973), 123–7.
4.
Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata (Prague, 1603), 479–80, in Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera omnia, ed. by DreyerJ. L. E. (Copenhagen, 1913–29), ii, 428. Tadeaš Hajek's uncle, Simon Hajek, might have been instrumental in transmitting another treatise by Copernicus, the Letter against Werner, around 1530.
5.
Cf. CostilPierre, André Dudith humaniste hongrois (Paris, 1935). The correspondence of A. Dudith, comprising eight volumes, ed. by SzczuckiL. and SzepessyT., is being published by the Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Akadémiai Kiadó). Vol. i covering the period 1554–67 is in press and will be released in 1990, and vol. ii (for the years 1568–72) is to be published in 1992.
6.
Cf. SzczuckiL., “Gli interessi matematico-astronomici di Andrea Dudith”, Rinascimento (Florence) (in press).
7.
Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi Könyvtár (Archiepiscopal Library), Cat. V. Tit. 4d, p. 82: “Habeo epitomen Copernici ab ipso auctore inscriptam; nescio an earn videris.”
8.
Ibid., p. 97: “Epitomen Copernici ab ipso auctore scriptam fuisse dicebat Wittichius, acceperat eam ab avunculo suo, medico et mathematico huius urbis [Wroclaw] eximio, D. Balthasare, cuius non paucas ad Rheticum epistolas videre apud ipsum Rheticum potuisti. Illud miror Rheticum non ostendisse nobis hanc epitomen, quam verisimile est hunc doctorem ab illo accepisse; non est unquam impressus liber, manu Wittichii scriptus, est in 4°, habet folia 14 qualia unus arcus ut vocant conficit 4. Descriptum tibi mittam. …”.
9.
Although the family name in the Dudith letter is wanting, there is no other Balthasar except Sartorius to fit the picture. See also BirkenmajerL. A., Mikolaj Kopernik (Cracow, 1900), 600–1, with excerpts from two letters by Sartorius to Joachim Camerarius the elder (6 December 1555) and to K. Peucer (20 April 1556), testifying to his acquaintance with Rheticus and to his active interest in astronomy. The letter to J. Camerarius is signed “Baldasar Sartorius Vratislaviensis”. It is noteworthy that Paul Wittich, who stayed with Tycho in the summer and autumn of 1580, had left, as Tycho wrote to B. Scultetus on 12 October 1581: “sub pretextu, quod avunculus eius mortuus esset, haereditatem sibi deberi professus, hinc domum reversus est …” (Tychonis Brahe Opera, ed. by Dreyer, vii, 62). 10. Cf., e.g., GingerichOwen and WestmanRobert S., “The Wittich connection: Priority and conflict in late-sixteenth-century cosmology”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, lxxviii (1988), no. 7.
