Between Copernicus and Galileo : Christoph Clavius and the collapse of Ptolemaic cosmology /

This account of the scientific contributions of Clavius emphasizes his role in defending Ptolemaic astronomy against the many competitive cosmological models extant during the late 1500s. Relatively unknown today, Jesuit astronomer Clavius was the strong influence in astronomy during the decades before Galileo's 1610 discoveries with the telescope. He argued that the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus conflicted with the natural philosophy of Aristotle and with Scripture. In 1611, when he immediately adopted Galileo's observations of the four moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, he hoped that a modification of the Ptolemaic scheme would save this traditional world view without introducing cosmological absurdities. Clavius died in 1612 when the fifteen-hundred-year reign of Ptolemaic cosmology had already ended. A marvelous historical work that blends veracity with the limitations of interpretation. Historians of science will appreciate the ideological conflicts. Extensive notes, with some drawings and pictures to clarify the astronomy. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty.