Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Preface xiii Introduction 1 PART 1: THE MYSTERIUM COSMOGRAPHICUM 11 CHAPTER ONE: The Copernican Context 13 CHAPTER TWO: The Development of the Mysterium cosmographicum 26 CHAPTER THREE: The Mysterium cosmographicum 46 CHAPTER FOUR: Responses to the Mysterium cosmographicum 60 PART 2: THE ASTRONOMIA NOVA 93 CHAPTER FIVE: Kepler and Tycho 97 CHAPTER SIX: Kepler's Work after Tycho's Death 130 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Tychonics 142 CHAPTER EIGHT: David Fabricius 170 CHAPTER NINE: The Rhetorical Character of the Astronomia nova 211 CONCLUSION 247 Notes 255 Bibliograpby 295 Index 301 Index of Correspondence 307

Promotional Information

James Voelkel achieves his purpose clearly and forcefully. His scholarship is careful and sound. He has 'done his homework,' followed where his research led him, and written a fine book. Anyone who wants to get to the bottom of Kepler's processes needs to work his way through this book, making it his own. -- Curtis Wilson, St. John's College This book is not merely a significant contribution to our understanding of Kepler; it is arguably the most important contribution since the pioneering work of C. Wilson and E. J. Aiton in the 1960s. The technical problems in studying the highest levels of early modern astronomy have until now distracted historians from looking at the reasons Kepler wrote his most important book, the Astronomia nova, as he did. Voelkel has finally done this, and it's about time somebody did. -- Bruce Stephenson, Adler Planetarium, author of "Kepler's Physical Astronomy" (Princeton)

About the Author

James R. Voelkel is capabilities manager of the History of Recent Science and Technology web project located at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has taught astronomy and history of science at Harvard University, Williams College, and The Johns Hopkins University, and is the author of Johannes Kepler and the New Astronomy.

Reviews

"Voelkel ... offers great reading for the Johannes Kepler aficionado."--Choice "An exceptional and important contribution to history of science studies"--Rhonda Martens, Renaissance Quarterly