The persistence of myths in history challenges the supposed benefits of education. We prefer simple stories to the messiness of complex events, and the contributors to this volume have selected influential examples of oversimplification, investigating methodological transformations and rejections (part 1), textual and graphic transformations of Copernican doctrine (part 2), and biographical transformations of the historical Copernicus (part 3). I will turn to part 1 later (the topics closest to my own research interests), and begin with brief mention of the other stimulating contributions.

In the second part, Jonathan Schüz, Steffen Schneider, Thomas Rahn, and Lucía Ayala expose the dilemmas that Copernicus’s arguments posed for his readers. Copernicus’s reliance on mathematical structure for persuasion subverted the liberal arts by subordinating causal understanding to mathematical coherence, precisely the objection raised by Jean Bodin (Schüz). Giordano Bruno reacted against mathematical technicalities, recognizing the gap between the motions of Earth and ordinary sense experience, motivating him to bridge the gap by means of a comprehensive philosophical vision (Schneider). In the only German essay in the volume, Rahn explores the ways in which various stories of space travel provoked Earth dwellers into understanding relativity of motion. Ayala leads us expertly through the complex transformations from Louis XIV’s appropriation of the central sun in support of his authoritarianism to the effects of decentralization of the sun resulting from images and literature that envisioned a plurality of worlds.

In the third part, Sergius Kodera explains how Bruno’s mistakes about Copernicus fit into his comprehensive Nolan philosophy. Claus Zittel provides a superb summary of Gassendi’s biography of Copernicus, showing how Gassendi’s appraisal of Copernicus’s reformation fits with the most recent accounts of Copernicus’s achievement. Wolfgang Neuber traces Copernicus’s transformation into a modern bourgeois hero, and Jörg Jungmayr’s inspiring essay on Max Brod reveals the significance of Tycho Brahe’s decision to let Kepler follow his own path.

In the first part, Stefan Kirschner and Andreas Kühne ask why Wittenberg astronomers and natural philosophers ignored Copernicus’s physical theses. Copernicus expounded on an account of natural elemental motion that was completely incompatible with Aristotle’s account. Even some of Copernicus’s supporters did not seize on these differences, and Wittenberg interpreters ignored them completely. The reason, according to the authors, was the decline of medieval disputation culture, where such physical questions were discussed routinely and thoroughly. The culture of disputation would have survived but for the rise of humanism and the more practical orientation of university education in the sixteenth century. As the authors themselves suggest, however, the evidence for the decline of medieval disputation can be traced to earlier centuries, reflecting major socioeconomic and political shifts in the fourteenth century. Copernicus’s own humanistic inclinations supported his reliance on other ancient authors to reject Aristotle’s account of elemental motion. Additionally, Copernicus diluted his own anti-Aristotelianism by retaining celestial spheres as the movers of the planets. While the authors illuminate a relevant feature of university culture, they tend to downplay the most important challenges that the Copernican theory posed for acceptance of his vision — the violation of commonsense perception and the absence of a coherent physical alternative. The very notion of a natural elemental motion is the crux of the problem. Is it likely that university scholars by means of disputation would have jettisoned a fundamental principle of their conception of nature? This stimulating essay, however, deserves close reading and reflection.

Gereon Wolters explains the delay in the condemnation of Copernicanism persuasively (with some minor errors of fact). Dana Jalobeanu discusses Francis Bacon’s proposal for a natural history of the heavens including a mathematical theory of approximation and measurement that he hoped would move astronomy beyond Ptolemy and Copernicus; Tamás Demeter explains how David Hume shifted emphasis from discussion of models of the universe to the methodological significance of Copernicanism.

Experts on the reception of Copernicanism will benefit the most from these excellent essays, and they can be grateful for the efforts made to render them, for the most part, into readable English.