86
EDWARD ROSEN
Archimedes' Arenarius, the work that contains the most authoritative and
best account of Aristarchus' theory," according to a recent study.4
How could Copernicus become acquainted with Archimedes' SandReckoner? Its Greek text was first published in March 1544, nearly a year
after Copernicus died on 24 May 1543. Consequently, he never saw the
Sand-Reckoner printed in Greek. This first edition of Archimedes' works
in Greek, with the Sand-Reckoner at pages 120-127, was accompanied by
a separately paginated translation of these works into Latin, with the first
printed Latin translation of the Sand-Reckoner at pages 155-163. By the
same token, therefore, Copernicus never saw a Latin version of the SandReckoner in print.
Did he see a manuscript copy of the Sand-Reckoner, either in Greek
or in Latin or in both classical languages? The foremost astronomer of the
fifteenth century, Johannes Regiomontanus (1436-1476), copied with his
own hand the Greek text, as well as a Latin version, of the SandReckoner while he was in Italy. From that country Regiomontanus took
his Archimedes manuscript with him to Nuremberg, where it is still
preserved in the municipal library.5 Did Copernicus see this Regiomontanus manuscript? There is no indication that Copernicus ever set foot in
Nuremberg. If he had, and if he knew about the Aristarchus passage in
the Sand-Reckoner, and if he had heard of the Regiomontanus manuscript, he still would have had no access to it. For after the death of
Regiomontanus, his papers passed to his pupil Bernard Walther (about
1430-1504), "a melancholy and taciturn man, who withheld them from
use and refused to let anyone so much as inspect them. Even after
Walther's death in 1504 the books and instruments... remained for
some time in the hands of the executors."6 Surely Copernicus never saw
the Sand-Reckoner's Aristarchus passage in Regiomontanus' Archimedes
manuscript in Nuremberg.
But what about Italy, where Copernicus was a student from 1496 to
1503? The aforementioned two authors, who asserted "the almost certain
acquaintance of Copernicus with the Sand-Reckoner," also stated that
Copernicus "at least knew of Giorgio Valla, who died in 1499."7 Valla
died on 23 January; the year was 1499 according to the Venetian calendar
4 William Harris Stahl, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (New York
and London 1971) 176.
5 Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Cen V, 15, with the Sand-Reckoner at folios 161-172;
see Ernst Zinner, Leben und Wirken des Johannes Miller von Konigsberg genannt Regiomontanus, 2nd ed. (Osnabriick 1968) 322-323.
6 Hans Rupprich, "Willibald Pirckheimer,"in Pre-Reformation Germany, ed. Gerald
Strauss (London 1972), p. 412.
7 P. 600 of the work cited in note 2, above.
