Książka, której nikt nie przeczytał

by Owen Gingerich, Jarosław Włodarczyk (Translator)

Z przyjemnością informuje, ze mylą się ci, którzy utrzymują, ze O obrotach
sfer niebieskich Mikołaja Kopernika to książka, której nikt nie przeczytał.
Na uzyskanie pewności w tej sprawie potrzebowałem blisko dziesięć lat,
trzydzieści lat zajęło mi staranne udokumentowanie wpływu tego dzieła.

Koniec końców miałem do czynienia z egzemplarzami, których właścicielami
byli: święci, heretycy, nicponie, muzycy, gwiazdy filmowe, lekarze i maniakalni
bibliofile. Jednak najbardziej interesujące są te kopie należące
niegdyś do astronomów i pokryte ich notatkami. Ukazują one długotrwały
proces akceptowania heliocentrycznego kosmosu jako fizycznie realnego opisu
świata. Są świadectwem fascynujących bitew, prowadzonych przez astronomów
miedzy sobą, jak również działań Kościoła, próbującego pogodzić się
z nowa rzeczywistością.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Astronomy, History Of Science, Books About Books, Biography

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Professor Owen Gingerich was a US astronomer. He served at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and as Professor of Astronomy and History of Science at Harvard University. He held memberships with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Academy of the History of Science. Gingerich published over 500 technical or educational articles and reviews, along with writing more popularly on astronomy and the history of astronomy in books, encyclopedias, and journals.

Gingerich taught at Harvard University until his retirement in 2000. He continues to be a widely recognized authority on the Renaisannce astronomers Johannes Kepler and Nicolaus Copernicus, and on the French astronomer Charles Messier.

Asteroid 2658: Gingerich, discovered on February 13, 1980, at the Harvard College Observatory, was named in his honor.

Reviews

[Poo1987 Roykaew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a triumph of hard work. A vivid, hilarious, elaborated, considerably jargon-free and, above all, humourous book accessible to everyone. The author shows a great deal of his care in details and his effort as an investigator to investigate and reveal the hidden facts of little-known life of one of the greatest astronomors of all time, and of the prominent book recognized as the one that changes the world forever, but once seen as the book nobody read. From USA to Russia, Italy to Scotland, the author's journey would lead him to discover the amazing almost-around-the-world travelling of the copies almost of the leading scientists and astronomers in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries never lost their chances to read and to possess, and also the twofold features of our intellectual route, whether it was a bright or dark side, or under the pleasant or horrifying condition, that frame and give the characteristic of our intellectual activities today.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird book to categorize: it's half exploration of the early impact of Copernicus's groundbreaking but extremely complex De revolutionibus and half academic memoir. Gingerich recounts his globetrotting adventures to track down all first and second editions of Copernicus's illustrious work, which takes him from North America to Europe to Asia, armed with a travel budget most scholars only dream of.

It's a fun story, overall. The parts about Copernicus were the most interesting from my end, and Gingerich does a nice job disproving his own title. People absolutely did read Copernicus's work, and commented on it rather profusely. When Gingerich takes a look at what people said about it, and what aspects drew their interest, the book is probably at its best.

What you think about the rest of it is going to depend pretty heavily on how intrigued or put off you are by academic and academic culture. There are quite a few fun little manuscript treasure hunts throughout that should be tons of fun for bibliophiles out there. But there is also quite a bit on academic conferences, academic rivalries, and a tone that constantly threatens to tip over from charming to smug. It usually doesn't though. And when it does, hey - if this guy trekked around the world and looked at enough copies of Copernicus to get called in as a star witness in international book theft trials, then maybe he's earned it.

[T.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us modern folks who think we've read De Revolutionibus (in translation) haven't really read the work at all. We've only read the opening theory and not the dense calculations and tables that make up the bulk of the book, which require a specialist's knowledge and in any case are 500 years out of date. Arthur Koestler made the claim that nobody probably read the book back when it was published, either.

This notion piqued Astronomy professor Owen Gingrich's interest, and so Gingrich embarked on a multi-decade, world-hopping journey to survey every known copy he could of the 1st and 2nd editions of Copernicus's work. Working scientists often annotate and leave marginal notes. His theory was that anyone who bothered to seriously read the work would write in it. His tour of volumes and their marginalia is a fascinating look into the world of working Renaissance scientists, philosophers, students, and wealthy dilettantes.

Along the way we learn about church censorship, Renaissance publishing procedures, snippets of biographies of once famous but now obscure people, bits of Copernican, Galilean and Keplerian theory, and the world of rare books with all of its greed, graft, forgery and intrigue.

It's dense reading, but if you're interested in the History of Astronomy or are a lover of old books, I highly recommend it. Trigger warning: I did cry when I learned that the Pulkovo Observatory library lost many Renaissance books to deliberate arson. :(

[Mal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Book Nobody Read tells the story of a famous Polish astronomer Nikolai Copernicus, the impact that his work had on the entire field of astronomy in (and beyond) the 16th century, and Owen Gingerich being a giant fucking nerd. In that order, from least to most pronounced.

Every Polish person above a certain age knows three things about Copernicus: he stopped the Sun, he moved the Earth, and, of course, he was a woman. We don't actually learn much about him beyond the former two from Gingerich's book (with regards to the latter, I'm guessing the author never saw the classic socialist era Polish movie that made that joke despite his numerous visits to this country; I'm not sure if that's a loss) - mostly due to the fact that almost no accounts of his life have survived to the modern era. With a teensy bit of shame I have to admit that I didn't know that - somehow, I always assumed that Copernicus must have been pretty active in academia because, well, duh. Meanwhile it turns out that he was just some guy who led a mostly normal life doing accounting/law/whatever for the Church but also casually came up with one of THE most revolutionary and impactful scientific theories of all time, in what I'm going to assume was his spare time. Amazing, groundbreaking, etc.

While little is known about Copernicus himself, though, his work (published a little bit by chance!) has been studied (more or less diligently) for centuries. His theory was argued with or elaborated on by the greatest minds of their times, inspiring them and thus indirectly leading to further breakthroughs in astronomy, physics, and other areas. Gingerich talks about that impact, taking us on a long journey through (primarily) Europe and the US, following Copernicus's most famous book, De revolutionibus.

That journey, more than anything else, is the focus of the book. Gingerich's work is an unabashed account of one man's special interest so special that he spent, like, 30 years traveling the world and visiting the most architecturally beautiful libraries (among other places) to stare at copies of the same 500-year old book in the hopes of finding someone's interesting notes scribbled on the margins. That wasn't entirely what I expected, which is probably why it took me a while to really start enjoying the content; until then, I'd found it dry and at times pointless. Once my brain recalibrated itself, though? While The Book Nobody Read is unlikely to end up in my top 10 this year (the writing still didn't sweep me off my feet), I think it's fascinating, especially if read within the broader context of how and why it came to be.

The glimpses into the past were an amazing chance to reflect on how many things we take for granted, especially technology. There was no internet in Copernicus's time, no fast travel, no printers - all of which affected the flow of information and new ideas in ways that I don't think people born and raised in most modern countries can fully grasp. And that's only Earth - imagine contemplating cosmos in those circumstances! I hope that the sheer amount of (more or less correct) observations people were able to make about our solar system without modern inventions will never cease to amaze me. The universe is so big, and we are so very small, and yet curiosity continues to drive us forward.

Indeed, if I had to summarize this book in one short sentence, I'd say it is an ode to that very curiosity; the kind that often exists for little more than its own sake. Gingerich spent decades chasing down copies of De revolutionibus - and it's definitely worth noting that for the majority of that time, he didn't have access to modern internet either - and some might ask, for what? That's such a narrow field of interest with so few practical applications, and I love that, because fuck practical applications, let's normalize going down 30+ years long rabbit holes just because it brings us joy. He traveled the world, met a lot of amazing people - both in person and through time, and learned a ton of stuff for the sake of learning, which is the best kind of learning, IMO. Reading about his experiences made me want to get a copy of his census of the first and second editions of De revolutionibus - not because I'm into that book now, but because of Gingerich's unparalleled enthusiasm for it. That is what makes The Book Nobody Read, well, readable - it's a little like listening to someone talk about their special interest for hours on end: you may not care much about the subject itself, but what grabs your attention is the dedication with which it's being described to you.

On the last and lighter note, I found it very amusing how much this book confirmed what little I know about the petty side of academia, and how little it has changed over the years... from that one guy who responded to accusations of plagiarism with a Renaissance version of "yeah, well, and you're ugly AND your wife's a whore!" (we'll leave the talk about manchildren masquerading as scholars for another time) to Gingerich's own, admittedly more subtle patting himself on the back in nearly every chapter while never failing to point out a rival's mistakes. Petty drama truly is something that transcends time and space.

[Voijarisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the early portion of this book, an interesting question is asked: How many people actually finished Copernicus' book? The method by which the author attempts to address this question is by examining marginalia, written notes in the margins of the text, to examine how deeply writers penetrated as well as to gauge their understanding and thought processes.

However, this question is largely abandoned in the book, although it pops back up a few times as Gingerich notes which portions of the book were annotated. Instead, the book takes a notable turn and instead investigates the historical lineages of copies and their annotations, for example investigating how notes were written by one person and then copied by the individual students. It also investigates the marginalia to determine who previous owners of the books were, without addressing how thoroughly they digested it.

A third thread is that Gingerich's investigation to complete a census of De Revolutionibus has and the uniqueness of the annotations has led to a number of cases of theft and deception being uncovered.

Ultimately, the writing is engaging and well organized. One of the biggest faults I find is that Gingerich spent virtually no time explaining the organization of the book itself. Thus, when he later refers to particular folios, readers have no context in which to ground this discussion. The historical figures that feature in this book are given much more detail, although the book could have benefited with a diagram of some sort depicting the various lineages.

[Dincay Akcoren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book consist of mostly the authors memories on how he reached and investigated certain De Revolutionibus editions. There are also some information about old books and how to analyze them. This is very little astronomy in this book.

[Allison Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

So some dude says “yo this book is rough to read I bet nobody has read it” and then the author of THIS book is like BET, and spends decades going around the world looking at 1st and 2nd edition copies of De Revolutionibus (Copernicus’s book introducing the sun as the center of the universe).

Basically it feels like a overly detailed Tolkien style of a guy peeping margins of books to check for notes of potential readers. (Usually other scholars). Mostly a dry read but I found the info about old printing presses and binding interesting. Even more interesting was the world of rare book forgeries and book thefts. I was only mildly interested the entire book and it felt really repetitive but I personally respect authors drive to do this.

I would recommend this book to almost no one. But like…. look at this cover 🤩 LOOK AT IT.

Also there was a cool illustration of a silverfish in the books

[rixx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenured professors are just built different or something. The object of the book is Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres", which Prof. Gingerich set out to see all extant versions of (first and second editions, that is), and to compile a list of them including who they belonged to over the ages, and of their respective annotations.

Some parts of the book were genuinely interesting, and a lot of it was bragging about travelling all over the world and meeting interesting people. I like anecdotes, but this was a bit much even for me. Like, there were *several* instances of "and here's how my list helped convict art thieves". There's also a lot of in-group point scoring that I naturally didn't care a lot for.

But some stuff was very interesting! Tracing book ownership by similar annotations (e.g. students copying their teacher's annotations for future reference), and the widespread habit of annotating books directly, which is pretty cool and probably culturally related to the way medieval books were laid out. It was neat to see perspectives on Lutheran Wittenberg (particularly on Melanchthon, whom I always love to see plop up as more influential than people assume). I also always enjoy reading about 1500s Europe in general, and habits of travel, changing names (Offusius was also known as Offhuysen, Geldrensis after his home village and Vesalius after the closest significant town), writing letters, pandering to your (potential) patrons in your scientific publications, and backstabbing your opponents viciously through snide remarks that spread like wildfire in the intellectual community.

Apart from relatively well-known people like Melanchthon and Erasmus, the book also features people who I had vaguely heard of, but didn't know more about. Rheticus and Andreas Osiander, Tycho Brahe (hilarious, I need to read more about him!), Christopher Clavius (need to read more about him, too! His chapel, his calendar reform), Paul Wittich, Petreius.

On Copernicus, the book doesn't contain too much information, because we know surprisingly little. Only 17 letters of his survive, 15 of which deal with administrative cathedral business, one with currenc reform, and only one with astronomy (but not cosmology).

There's a fair bit on the migration of books over the centuries: a lot went to Sweden with Gustav Adolf's incursion during the 30 years war, others went to the SU after 1945 and were suddenly available for one or two years after 1990 before access was restricted again, and so on. Scotland has an extraordinary number of copies (6 in Edinburgh alone), and London off the charts. The first copies made it to China in 1618 by way of Jesuit missionaries. More surprisingly,the entire Oxford University Library was sold for scrap in the mid 1500s (?!?!), and the same happened with many other libraries. Some books (like the early Frankfurt book fair cagalogues) were hard to find simply because they were so complicated to catalog that nobody dared to do it, so they sat forgotten in library stacks.

Some stuff about early book printing and preservation was informative, and I'd love to see more about that: speculations on how many reams of paper an early print shop could produce (and things that influenced that – paper needed to be damp to be printed, so could you print both sides in one go without smudging? and so on). Preservation-wise, water is the absoute worst enemy of books (even worse, in numbers, than fire, though fire often leads to extreme water damage). Next up are book worms and rats, who can absolutely demolish books. Insight into the (then-)current bookselling market was also an interesting insight into a completely foreign world. Checking books to see if all or some of them are forged seems like a cool activity, though: Checking if holes or stains continue throughout, checking paper weight and markings for authenticity, and so on.

Even more interesting, there's a bit about censorship! The book was on the Catholic Index, and ten sections had to be censored for it to be allowed reading. (They did want the accurate observations, so they didn't ban the book entirely) But it turns out, in many cases, the book wasn't censored at all outside Italy, even in very Catholic areas like France. (Or censored in such a way that reading the original passage was trivially possible).

Odd other knowledge I never knew I lacked: Jeremy Bentham, who died in 1832, had his remains be disected and put together again to be preserved (padded out with hay and complete with his clothes on), and is on constant display in the University College of London. And: Galileo learned about a Dutch spyglass that was sold as a new toy in major European cities, he figured out how it worked, and improved it onto a scientific instrument with which he discovered the craters on the Moon. **And**: Even early printers (or at least Petreius) already used paper with proportions of √2 to 1, just like current DIN formats, to make sure folding the paper got you the same proportions again.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book Nobody Read is an interesting specimen. It was written by Owen Gingerich, a man that devoted a good portion of his life to tracking down all the extant copies of the first and second editions of De Revolutionibus. Obviously, the first thing that leaps out at you is the title itself. It is quite provocative in its implicit statement. At first, I thought it had something to do with Catholic Censorship and the List of Forbidden Books, but I realized that I was conflating Galileo’s works with Copernicus’s works. However, I digress.

As we all know, Copernicus is most famous for his Heliocentric Model of the Solar System. Before Copernicus came along, most people believed the Earth to be stationary and for the Sun to move around the Earth. Copernicus argued that it made the math simpler if you place the Sun at the center and have the Earth move around it. That is what Copernicus is famous for now. However, when his final work came out, most astronomers were more appreciative of another thing he did; Copernicus eliminated the need for Epicycles in working out Astronomy Tables and so on.

This book opens with a preface that explains the title and why this man is doing this. Apparently, a novelist from the 1950s, Arthur Koestler, wrote a book called The Sleepwalkers. This book lionized Johannes Kepler at the expense of Galileo and Copernicus. In The Sleepwalkers, Copernicus has his famous book referred to as The Book Nobody Read due to its legendary levels of technicality. However, Gingerich had connections in scholarly circles and was able to observe one of these copies first hand. What he saw astounded him. The margins were filled with annotations and notes on the text. If that was the case, then how many others had similar markings? Was the book really something that no one read at all?

This question led Gingerich on a whirlwind tour of adventure and looking at old books. He learned to match handwriting, he looked at a lot of microfilms, and he became a master at finding the little idiosyncrasies of each copy. When he started his project, he refers to it as the census, it was the 1970s. The Cold War was still in full swing, and Copernicus’s birthplace was behind that Iron Curtain. Over time, Gingerich would take account of around 600 copies of this work, becoming an expert witness in a trial.

This book was surprisingly good considering my mistaking the subject matter for something else. Although the subject is slightly dry, Gingerich’s passion shines through and makes this book really interesting.

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was stupid. I was hoping to read more about Copernicus and his work. I was excited because I knew some original manuscript copies were included. Of course you can't see these copies well and the author doesn't tell you the text provided by all these famous men who read this work either. I think this book could have been good if he had made a historical study of it all and provided the original text and the works notes as a final product. Perhaps others are not interested in this information but I think it would be fascinating especially if the author could have provided commentary and walked you through it. But all you get is a story about the authors chasing first and second editions around the world. It wasn't even written well (a good example of how this could have been done better would be "The billionaires vinegar") On top of that the small fragments that were about Copernicus (granted there is not much out there to draw from) were poorly presented. I think I would have rather read De revolutionibus itself. I would not have understood a good deal of it but I gather it would have been not only a better read from an intellectual standpoint but I wonder if it also would not have been better from an authorship standpoint as well. That's how very underwhelming I felt this book was especially given the topic.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gingerich relates his 30 year hunt for all of the copies of Copernicus famous book that Arthur Koestler had said nobody read. Gingerich is not interested in simply finding the books but in reading the annotations in them that give clues to the reception of De revolutionibus. If you enjoy literary sleuthing you will enjoy this book. It is very engagingly written and mixes lively stories about both those who annotated the book and those who studied or collected it. Eventually I got worn out by all the detail, but it was fun to read.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a survey taken by the author of all known copies of Copernicus' book DE REVOLUTIONIBUS. The concept in interesting but the authors ends up bogged down in minutiae. Perhaps the nature of such a survey requires this. I found some of it interesting and some of it tedious.

[Peter Reczek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very dense but fascinating book about the attempts of a historian to catalogue all the existing copies of Copernicus' great De Revolutionibus. Reads like a detective story with very interesting bits about the travels and travails accompanying this quest.

[Jen]

After two renewals at the library, I still never got around to reading this book. All I can say is that the title could not be more appropriate.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful essays..... especially the title essay for book lovers. Some others a bit harder to read unless you are very interested. However, he is a delightful author.

[Don]

Read like a detective novel. Excellent dig!

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had an ARC (Advanced Reader copy) of this title on my bookshelf for decades but never had time to read it, or when I had time, didn’t remember the book. I finally took it down this summer and started reading it. Basically, the whole idea for this book was to dispel a myth that, because the Vatican had put Copernicus’s book “De Revolutionibus” on its “prohibited” list, no one had actually read it! This book is the proof that that myth is false. How can you tell for sure a book has been read? If there is marginalia written in the book, then someone has read the book enough to write comments. What the author found out was that Copernicus’s great title had actually been read by many of the leading astronomers of the time. While many copies did follow Vatican orders and suppress specific parts of the book, the book in either the first or second editions, was nevertheless, widely read!

This book covers the 3 decades or so that the author spent trying to chase down virtually every single copy of the first 2 editions to see what the marginalia would tell him about the interest in the revolutionary concept that the earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. The Church (which means the Catholic Church) had a serious stake in this since they had decided that the earth just had to be the center of the cosmos, or else it would show that God didn’t consider humanity worth His special attention. Among other adventures, the FBI visited him to get his detailed information on a stolen copy! I found this really interesting! I realize this might not appeal to most people but it did to me. Gingerich even managed to trace additional bits of information such as who had been in touch with whom when reading the marginalia. The fact that most catalogs have been computerized and much of this information could be collated relatively quickly doesn’t change the value of the search. Mathematicians (which is the professorship most astronomers of the time had) were very anxious to read and discuss the concepts and it was fascinating to them. A number of them knew of the increasingly difficult corrections to the route the visible planets would take if they circled the earth, and weren’t all that surprised that the mathematics would be much simpler if the planets including earth, circled the sun. But they still had to deal with the intellectual upset of the change! Of course they made comments!

I did enjoy this, a lot. I rather wish I had been along on this 3 decade journey! Recommended to those who love studying the history of science! Everyone else can likely skip.

[Klaas Bisschop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het verhaal van een ‘boekensnoeper’, een professionele.
Met een hoofdrol voor het 16e-eeuwse boek van de astronoom Copernicus ‘De revolutionibus’. Opgespoord en beschreven, alle exemplaren ter wereld (ongeveer 600) door een emeritus hoogleraar astronomie en wetenschapsgeschiedenis van Harvard.

Het leest deels als een detective verhaal, zal de speurder het raadsel oplossen? Meestal wel.
Deels als een autobiografie, een tikje oubollig maar met wel aardige persoonlijke anekdotes en interessanter schilderingen van hoe zaken in de jaren 1970 en de decennia daarna nu eenmaal waren, niet in de laatste plaats de invloed van de Koude oorlog.

Gingerich schets de wetenschappelijke wereld van de 16e-eeuw, hoe die toen werkte en daarmee hoe verrassend internationaal zij was.
Daarnaast geeft hij een lesje 16e-eeuwse astronomie (inclusief equant en epicykles), met alle boeiende juiste en boeiende verkeerde conclusies. Hij beschrijft de onderlinge relaties van de gestudeerde mannen (Brahe, Copernicus, Galilei, Kepler, Maestlin, Osiander, Petreius, Reinholt, Rheticus, Wittich), de leraar leerling relaties, maar ook de rivaliteit en de nijd en achterdocht die daar bij te pas kwam. Veel weet hij af te leiden uit de handgeschreven annotaties in de diverse boeken, waarbij sommige exemplaren (complex!) wel door drie verschillende lezers zijn geannoteerd. Wanneer en door wie vormt de kern van zijn speurtocht.

Vervolgens geeft de auteur inzicht in de toenmalige wereld van het boek: auteur/manuscript, boekhandel/boekenbeurs, uitgever/zetter/drukker/binder. Met name de uitleg over de techniek in de drukkerij sprak mij aan. Ook besefte ik in ene hoe traag het drukproces toen verliep. En dat het gebruikelijk was de boeken als een stapel gedrukte vellen te verkopen waarna de afnemer het zelf kon laten inbinden.
Als het boek dan eenmaal zijn weg naar de lezer gevonden had bestond er nog de kans dat de kerk het verbood of censureerde. Fraai is het om te zien of, wie en in welke mate deze censuur werd toegepast in exemplaren die al in omloop waren.

Facsimile edities, uit verschillende exemplaren samengestelde oude drukken, vervalsingen en tot slot diefstal passeren de revue.

Als uitsmijter een anekdote over de astronomie professor Caspar Peucer, die op verdenking van calvinisme vanaf 1574 twaalf jaar gevangen zat en om te kunnen schrijven gebruik maakte van .. zijn eigen bloed.

Geen saai boek, helemaal geen saai boek.

[Tweedledum · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating deep dive into the arcane world of tracking sources… in this case the original printed copies of Copernicus’s revolutionary work :De Revolutionibus. I doubt Gingrich anticipated a visit from the FBI was in his future when he started on his quest to personally track down examine every existing copy of the first edition of De Revolutionibus in Europe and the USA or the surprising history it would expose but it was certainly turned into a quest almost comparable to searching for the Holy Grail! Today we take the heliocentricism of our planetary system so much for granted it is hard to wrap our minds around how extraordinary a book De Revolutionibus was and how threatening to the long established view of the world. Even more astonishing is the fact that Copernicus came to his conclusions without the aid of a telescope. Without Copernicus would we have had a Galileo or a Kepler?

Shocking too to realise that there are individuals committed to stealing such manuscripts or ordering such thefts for reasons that defy any reasonable explanation though greed is obviously one powerful motive… Gingerich’s meticulous and detailed work means that attempts to sell stolen copies of this book at least are highly likely to be thwarted.

Gingerich helpfully provides a map showing 1620 European locations of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions which gives some idea of the enormity of the challenge he set himself. Truly dedication to the cause of science history that is deserving of wider recognition.

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, but it probably won't be as exciting for most other people.

In his book "The Sleepwalkers", Arthur Koestler made a claim that Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus" was a book that nobody read. It is certainly surprising for example, that Galileo owned a copy of the book but that there is evidence that he didn't read it.

Gingerich spent an incredible amount of time and effort cataloguing all the known copies of "De Revolutionibus" and therefore proving that the book actually sold well, was well read, and often was heavily annotated.

As an aside, Gingerich takes us on a tour of early modern astronomy and presents us with some surprising findings that were made in the margin annotations of the books, which were often read and annotated by top scientists and mathematicians of the era.

[Joseph Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though slow to pull me into the author's decades-long search for and investigations of all extant 1st editions of Nicolaus Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, he won my curiosity before I tired and put the book down. I was rewarded with fascinating stories and backgrounds of many famous names that either influenced, touched, or expanded on Copernicus' tome of celestial insight. I had hoped the author would have given some credit to Aristarchus of Samos for being among the earliest proponents of heliocentrism (3rd century BCE). I realize that would have been a tangent from the Copernican focus, but there's not much to say about the Greek astronomer, so the short-lived tangent would have fallen back into natural orbit. I think it would have been proper context to say that Copernicus possibly encountered the idea in his deep studies of Greek astronomy.

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enthralling peep into the life of bibliophiles and collectors of rare books, and of course, into the life of the book nobody read; an exciting account of a 30-some-year long effort to track down all the extant copies of the book, and, more difficult for the layman to read, some rather technical descriptions of Copernicus’ theory of a heliocentric universe, how books were written, printed, bound and distributed in the 16th-century and the difficulties inherent in rare book preservation and restoration.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF

I can't review this book fairly since I didn't finish. I knew going in that it was a little different from my normal reads but I like to try new things.

I remain blown away by people like Copernicus who figured out the Sun was the center of the earth and how the other planets moved. To figure that out is impressive but to figure it out hundreds of years ago with limited tools at his disposal makes it even more incredible.

I actually found the first 75 pages interesting I just didn't feel like reading another 175 pages about the topic. I was ready for something new.

[Hadis Uma · Rating 3 out of 5]

ในศตวรรษที่ 16 นิโคลัส โคเปอร์นิคัสได้ค้นพบว่าดวงอาทิตย์เป็นศูนย์กลางของระบบสุริยะ
ซึ่งคนสมัยก่อนคิดว่าโลกเป็นศูนย์กลาง อยู่นิ่ง ๆ แล้วดาวดวงอื่นหมุนรอบ
ทำให้หนังสือของโคเปอร์นิคัสถูกเซ็นเซอร์และถูกทำลายเป็นจำนวนมาก

ผู้เขียนเป็นคนที่หมกมุ่นในหนังสือของโคเปอร์นิคัสมาก ๆ
คอยสืบเสาะว่าหนังสือเล่มนี้ใครเป็นเจ้าของบ้าง ผ่านมือใครบ้าง
โดยในแต่ละบทถ่ายทอดออกมาได้น่าติดตาม

ถึงแม้จะอ่านยากไปหน่อย เพราะมีชื่อตัวละครเยอะมาก
แต่ก็ถือว่าเป็นหนังสือที่ดีอีกเล่มหนึ่ง

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in parts. I enjoyed the historical bits about Copernicus and other 16th century astronomers, but after a while the anecdotes of Gingerich's travels to various libraries to see yet more editions of De Revolutionibus got a bit tedious - and I like reading about historical detective work as much as the next person! This book would have been better if it was 50 to 100 pages shorter in my humble opinion.

[Vance J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This effort on tracking down all the copies of Copericus' "On the Revolutions of Heavenly Sphere's" was clearly a labor of love for the author, and I image quite a grand adventure. Clearly, he enjoys his work, and his labor has paid off in helping thwart book thieves.

It can be a slog at times, and it could use a grand conclusion - which is only inferred - that moniker of "the book nobody read" in a 1959 science history turns out to have been quite widely studied in its day.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book for everyone! A rare bookseller friend of mine told me about this book and then gifted me a copy. The book was part memoir, part historical science, part history of old books and book processes, and part mystery as to where old copies may have disappeared to.
It was not a speed read for me but I very much appreciated reading it and enjoyed journeying through history with the book.

[Vincent Hernot · Rating 3 out of 5]

It could have been slightly shorter I think, but overall it is interesting, a gives us a good idea not only of the diffusion of Copernicus' theories and their acceptability (much wider than usually said, at least within the scientific community), as well as an idea of the spread of books and editions throughout Europe at that time.
Very nice, but overdone at times.

[Tbuck Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book rather interesting. Admittedly it has sat on my bookshelf, unread for quite some time, but I'm glad I picked it up. The piecing together of historical events through research of the paths taken by Copernicus' book was a fun journey to go on. Gingerich's detective work was thorough and very informative.

[隻眼簽到 · Rating 4 out of 5]

由於匈牙利作家柯斯勒說哥白尼的《天體運行論》過於艱深沉悶，所以是一本“沒人讀的書”。作者對此甚感不安，故立意尋訪真相，最後並寫成《哥白尼運行論研究與評注(初版與二版)》一書。過程中，1543年及1566年兩個版本的《運行論》，他看過一百本以上。依他研究，柯斯勒的說法“大錯特錯”。這本書不只購買者夥，而且“天文學家收藏和注釋過的版本，充分展現了科學界接受‘日心說’是物理世界真實面貌的漫長過程。”
但過程中他也揭破一個流行久遠，攻擊托勒密地心說系統的傳言。這個傳言說，托勒密系統的預測與實際觀察的出入越來越大，以致只好在本輪之上再加小本輪以符合觀察，使得系統愈趨繁瑣笨重。作者發現這個說法完全子虛烏有。托勒密系統和哥白尼系統在預測的準度上是相當的。
我對這種研究版本，追索批注、收藏者的事興趣不大。但這種工作所展現的縝密仔細、執著揭密的精神卻也有其獨特魅力，始終對我形成一定的吸引。