Copernicus and Urbino: remarks on Bernadine Baldi's Vita di Niccolo Copernico

zeen & CHICAGO JOURNALS — Author(s): Paul Lawrence Rose Source: Isis, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Sep., 1974), pp. 387-389 Published by: University of Chicago Press on behalf of History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/228962 Accessed: 10-11-2015 10:49 UTC 7 | bi Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www jstororg/page/ JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to inerease productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor org. History of Science Society and University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis.

Source: Isis, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Sep., 1974), pp. 387-389 Published by: University of Chicago Press on behalf of History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/228962 Accessed: 10-11-2015 10:49 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. History of Science Society and University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis. http://www.jstor.org

VITA DI NICCOLO COPERNICO (1588) The Vita di Niccolo Copernicois one of the two hundred or so Vite de'Matematici which Bernardino Baldi (1553-1617), a noted man of letters and mathematician of Urbino, wrote for the most part in the years 1587-1595.1 Roughly a quarter of these Vite were published during the nineteenth century in the Bullettino di Bibliografia e di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche e Fisiche and elsewhere, but since 1908 the manuscripts containing Baldi's entire autograph text have been unavailable to the scholarly world. In 1972-1973, however, the codices were rediscovered at Rome by Bronislaw Bilinski * Departmentof History, GraduateSchool of Arts and Science, New York University, New York, N.Y. 10003. I am grateful to Professor EdwardRosen for his helpful discussions of the issuesraisedin this paper. 1 For biographicaldetails of Baldi see Guido Zaccagnini, Bernardino Baldi nella Vita e nelle Opere(2nded., Pistoia:Soc. An. Tipo-Litografica Toscana, 1908).Ireneo Aff6, Vitadi Monsignore Bernardinio Baldi da Urbino, primno Abate di Guastalla (Parma:Carmignani, 1783). Pierre Duhem, Etudes stir L6onaardde Vinci, prem. ser. (Paris:Hermann, 1906), pp. 89-156. Stillman Drake, "Bernardino Baldi," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. I (New York: Scribner's, 1970), pp. 419-420. Bronislaw Bilinski, Najstarszy Zyciorys Mikolaja Kopernika z Roku 1588 Piora Bernardina Baldiego (Wroclaw: Ossolineum,Studia Copernicana,IX, 1973). All page referencesare to the revisedItalian version: La Vita di Copernico di BerniardinoBaldi dell'anno 1588 alla lace dei ritrovati manioscritti delle Vite dei Matematici (Rome: Biblioteca dell'Accademia Polacca, Conferenze,LXI, 1973). A list of the lives is in Enrico Narducci, "Vite inedite di MatematiciItalianiscritteda BernardinoBaldi," Bullettino di Bibliografia e di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche e Fisiche, 1886, 19:335-406, 437- 489, 521-640, at 342-346. I have dealt briefly with the main features of Baldi's historiography in a paper read to the Columbia University Renaissance Seminar on Feb. 20, 1973, entitled "Historians of the Renaissanceof Mathematics." and the present author, working quite independently of one another.2 A complete edition is now under consideration. On the eve of their disappearance five of these Vite were published for the first time in Zaccagnini's biography of Baldi. Among these was the Vita di Niccolo Copernico,and this has recently been reprinted from Zaccagnini's text by Bilinski.3 The commentary accompanying the new edition postulates that Baldi had available to him sources of information about Copernicus' years in Italy not accessible to Rheticus and other writers.4 2 In 1972 while givinga lecture on Baldi's Vita di Copernicoin Turin, Professor Bilinski mentioned that the autograph manuscripts of the Vitede'Matematiciwere last known to have been owned by the Roman lawyer Luigi Celli. By chance, a surviving daughter of the avvocato Celli-Signora Wanda Artom-Celli-was in the audienceand at the end of the lecture identified herself to Bilinski. My own method was to examinethe newspapermorguesin Rome, where in 1972 I found a notice of the recent death of Celli's other daughter,the noted actress MariaLetizia Celli. A visit to the family mausoleumin Frascati obtainedfor me the addressof Signora Artom-Celliin Turin. In the course of 1972-1973 Bilinski and I, againindependently,learnedthat the manuscripts had been donated by the Celli family to the library of the Padri Rosminiani (Istituto della Carita)in Rome. I am most grateful to Signora Artom-Celliand Don GiuseppeGaddo, the head of the Rosminiani,for their patience and generous help with my enquiries. For details of the codices see Paul Lawrence Rose, "RediscoveredAutographManuscriptsof the Vitede'Matematiciand MathematicalWorks by BernardinoBaldi (1553-1617),formerlyin the Albani and BoncompagniLibraries,"Rendiconti dell'AccademiaNazionaledeiLincei(in press). Interestingly,Angelo Celli, the noted researcher on malaria,was the brotherof LuigiCelli. 3 Zaccagnini, Baldi, pp. 329-333. Bilinski, Baldi,pp. 20 ff. 4 For the allegedUrbinateand Roman sources availableto Baldi see Bilinski, Baldi, pp. 38, 93, 97, 108.

These constructions appear to have One such source is traced to a special relationship between Copernicus and the very little substance. There is no evidence Dutchman Paul of Middelburg, Bishop that Copernicus ever sent a copy of the of Fossombrone and astrologer to the manuscript of De revolutionibus to court of Urbino. In the dedication to De Schonberg in Rome or that the work was revolutionibusCopernicus recalls having ever seen by Paul III. The entire story been encouraged by Paul of Middelburg seems to have grown out of Baldi's having to investigate the problem of the length of read too much into the prefatory material the solar year. Paul did contact Coperni- to the printed De revolutionibus,which cus and many other astronomers in con- includes a letter of 1536 from Schonberg nection with the reform of the calendar to Copernicus asking for copies of the initiated by the Fifth Lateran Council astronomer's works to be sent to him in (1512-1517), but there is no reason to Rome. Baldi construed from this that suspect any especially close relationship Copernicus had obliged the cardinal.7 between Paul, who was then at Rome, Similarly, from the fact that the book inand Copernicus, who was in Northern cludes a dedication to Paul III, Baldi Europe.5 assumed that De revolutionibushad reBilinski's main interest in establishing a ceived the pope's prior approval. This connection between Copernicus and vari- may well be right, but it does not indicate ous Italian sources is to show that that Baldi had any special knowledge of Bernardino Baldi was able to draw on Copernicus' relations with the papal special information for a number of sur- court. All of Baldi's account of this topic prising statements made in his Vita di seems to be inferred, rightly or mistakenCopernico. Baldi claims, for example, ly, from the introductory matter to De that CardinalNicholas Schonberg, having revolutionibus. received a manuscript copy of De revoluIn his literal acceptance of Baldi's tionibus, showed this to Pope Paul III, remarks, Bilinski has overlooked perhaps who then approved of the work and urged the one person who could have told Baldi its publication. Accepting these remarks about the reception of Copernicus' work of Baldi as true, Bilinski has consequently at Rome: Federico Commandino (1509discerned two versions of the dedication 1575), who was the teacher and close of De revolutionibus.The first is the pre- friend of Baldi during the 1570s at face allegedly sent to Cardinal Schonberg Urbino." In the Vita di Federico Comin 1536-1537, the second the revised pre- mandinoBaldi tells us that Commandino's face dedicated to Paul III which now graces the printed text of De revolutioniought to be receivedwith the greatestcaution. ProfessorBilinskialso arguesthat the phrasein the dedication of De revolutionibus-"Namnon r Bilinski (ibid., pp. 44-46) claims that ita multo ante sub Leone X, cum in Concilio Copernicusknew Paul as earlyas c. 1500in Italy, Lateranensiversabaturquaestio de emendando CalendarioEcclesiastico"-means that Copernibut thereis no real evidencefor this assertion. 6 Ibid., pp. 96-104. Bilinski argues that the cus was writingmanyyearsbefore1543and much mention, in the dedication, of Lysis' letter to nearer the time of Leo X, perhaps in 1516. No Hipparchus means that the dedication was solid argument may be based on such a loose originallywrittenwhena translationof that letter phrase. formed part of the text of De revolutionibus. 7Edward Rosen, Three CopernicanTreatises, Indeed,the manuscriptversionof De revolutioni- 3rd ed., revised with a biographyof Copernicus bus contains (fols. llv-12v) a translationof the (New York:OctagonBooks, 1971), pp. 387-388, Lysis letter which is crossed out and does not doubts whetherCopernicusever sent Schonberg appearin the printededition. However,Coperni- the requestedcopies. 8 On the underratedfigureof Commandinosee cus could have deleted this passage after writing the first-and only-version of the dedicationto Paul Lawrence Rose, "Plusieurs Manuscrits Paul III. Any conjecture built around the fact autographes de Federico Commandino 'a la that CopernicusmentionsLysis in the dedication Biblioth6queNationale de Paris," Revue d'Hisbus.6

BALDI'S COPERNICO own teacher (c. 1530) had been one Giam- suggest that he was not favorably imPietro de'Grassi, who was then staying pressed by the geo-kinetic theory. In his temporarily at UrbinoY9 Now this was the editions of the Arenarius of Archimedes same de'Grassi who, as Bishop of (Venice, 1558) and Aristarchus (Pesaro, Viterbo, later attended the famous meet- 1572) Commandino makes no remark on ing in the Vatican gardens in the summer the movement of the earth, despite the of 1533 when Johann Albrecht Widman- obvious occasions to do so. In contrast, stetter expounded the Copernican system Baldi-a less cautious writer-does give Moreover, Com- an opinion in speaking of Copernicus, to Pope Clement VLL.10 mandino himself was either at that time whom he praises as a fine astronomer but or soon afterward chamberlain to Clem- whose De revolutionibushe criticizes for ent VII, and the two men are said to have following the false hypothesis (quellafalsa frequently and seriously discussed mathe- ipotesi) of Aristarchus. This might well be an intemperate echo of Commandino's matics together." None of this is intended to suggest that own judgment; on the other hand, Commandino was a Copernican. He Guidobaldo dal Monte (1545-1607) offered no opinion of Copernicus in his another pupil of Commandino and friend published writings, and his silence may and teacher of Baldi-could equally well be reflecting Commandino's own opinion when in a letter of 1588 he confessed himtoire des Sciences, 1971, 24:299-307, "Comself attracted to a geo-kinetic view.'2 mandino, John Dee, and the De superficierum In summary: divisionibusof Machometus Bagdedinus," Isis, Baldi's account of the Italian relations 1972, 63:88-93, and "Letters Illustrating the Career of Federico Commandino," Physis (in of De revolutionibuswas drawn, it seems, press). See also EdwardRosen, "FedericoCom- from a reading of the introductory matermandino" in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ial to De revolutionibusrather than from Vol. III (1971),363-365. StillmanDrake and I. E. any special knowledge obtained through Drabkin, Mechanics in Sixteenth Century Italy (Madison:Universityof WisconsinPress, 1969), the Urbino connection with Paul of pp. 41-44. The full and accurate chronology of Middelburg. Commandino'slife has not yet been established. A definite connection exists in the 9 BernardinoBaldi, "Vita di Federico Comof Federico Commandino beperson mandino," Giornale de' Letterati d'Italia, 1714, tween Rome of the 1530s and the 19:140-185, at 144-145. 10For those present at the session of 1533 see Bernardino Baldi. The amount of inforM. Curtze, "IneditaCoppernicana,"Mittheiluni- mation communicated by Commandino gen des Coppernicus-Vereins far Wissenschaft und to Baldi is, however, problematic. Kunst zu Thorn, 1878, 1:4; cf. Rosen, Copernican Treatises, p. 387. For new information on opposition after 1543 to Copernicusat the papal court see Eugenio Garin, "A Proposito di Copernico," Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia, 1971, 26:83-87. The leading opponent there seems to have been Bartolomeo Spina (d. 1546), who was intimate with Paul III and held the position of magister sacri et apostolicipalatii. 11Baldi, "Vitadi FedericoCommandino,"pp. 145-146. 12Biblioteca Comunale, Forli, MS Autografi Piancastelli755(1), letter of Dec. 8, 1588: "ho un capriccio che la terra si muove." It is not clear from the context whether Guidobaldo has in mind merely the diurnalrotation of the earth or somethingmore. Guidobaldowas Galileo'sclose friendand patron.