on the revolutions of heavenly spheres by nicolaus copernicus

Among the 276 copies he found, most of them belong to educational institutions. However, the majority of first editions of De Revolutionibus that are on the market are illusory, have fake bindings, facsimile pages, or have been altered in such a way that the value is diminished.Īccording to Owen Gingerich, a leading Copernican scholar who investigated and found 276 copies of De Revolutionibus (of approximately 500 originally printed) around the world over the course of 35 years. An identical copy with a few repairs and a contemporary binding sold in 2008 for $2.2 million. The edition will be displayed at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair next month. As a consequence of his manuscript, our entire view of the Universe and our place within it has been altered.Ĭhristian Westergaard, who is handling the sale for Sophia Rare Books, maintains that the high price tag reflects not only the importance of this work from a historical perspective but also the fact that this particular edition possesses an excellent provenance.

A rare, pristine first edition of his manuscript is now for sale for $2.5 million, suggesting that the Sun is at the center of the Solar System and not the Earth. It was in 1543 that Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the 1,400 year dominance of Ptolemaic cosmology when he published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres).

On the revolutions of heavenly spheres by nicolaus copernicus