1826.] Calileo, and the Copernican System. 607 



wish of the Cardinal, but the latter having died in the following year, 1537, it 

 appears that he could not make up his mind to submit his new opinions to the 

 public. We know from Copernic himself that he frequently refused the 

 solicitations made to him for that purpose. Thus, in a letter of dedication, of 

 which more will be said hiM-eafter, he declares that, besides the Cardinal of 

 Schoenberg there was another prelate, Tidemann Giese, or Gisius, bishop of 

 Culm, by whom he wa^ continually urged to publish his book. " My friends 

 have at length," he says, " after mucli opposition and with great difficulty, 

 overcome my resolution. Among these the first was Cardinal Nicholas Schdn- 

 berg, bishop of C^|>'ia» » '"an eminent in every branch of learning ; and next to 

 him, my most beloved Tidemannus Gisius, bishop of Cuhi), a person most pro- 

 foundly acquainted with the sacred i^criptures and with literature in general, 

 who frequently in his letters and sometimes even with reproaches, has exhorted 

 and urged me to publish this book." Copernicus then at last determined on 

 the publication of it. He had great patronage to hope for his work from the 

 bishop and so many other learned men, by whom he was induced to lay it before 

 the world ; but he wished for a patron of higher authority, and selected the 

 most exalted member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Pope Paul III. The letter 

 of dedication by which it was ofllered to him, turns entirely on the novelty and 

 difficulties of the argument and on the reasons which had led the author to 

 conceive this new system. He does not run so mucii at length into the praises 

 of the Supreme Pontiff as it is now the fushion to do in similar conijiositions, 

 but gives a short 3et luminous eulogy ; saying, that even in the remote corner of 

 the world where he resided, it was known that Paul III. was pre-eminent not 

 only by his sublime dignity, but also by his love for the sciences, the mathe- 

 matics more especially. History informs us that Paul III., although a perfidious 

 politician, a compound of dissimulation, ambition, and fraud, and not more 

 distinguished for his high literary attainments than for his despotism and into- 

 lerance, charges from which even the ingenuity of Cardinal Qiiirini is unable to 

 clear him, was one of the most erudite men that ever filled the chair of Saint 

 Peter: the picture which Ariosto {Orlando Furioso, c. 46, sec. 13) has drawn 

 of him when cardinal, representing him as surrounded with all the most learned 

 men of the age, may suffice to prove this. 



Ecco Alessandro, il mio Signer, Famese : 



O dotta compagnia, che seco mena ! 

 Fedro, Capella, Porzio, il Bolognese 



Filippo, il Volterrano, il Madalena, 

 Blosio, Pierio, il Vida Cremonese 



D'alta facondia inessicabil vena, 

 E Lascari, e IMiisiu'o, e Navagero, 



E Andrea Maronc, e'l Monaco Severo. 



Celio Calcagnini, who will be mentioned presently, in a Latin letter which 

 on his return to Ferrara from the court of Rome he addressed to this pontiff^ 

 highly praises the grave and serious studies with which he is occupied, and his 

 frequent disputations both in the Greek and Latin langufiges on the most 

 abstruse questions of philosophy. {Epist. 1. xvi. p. 216.) But in astronomy this 

 po[)e took singular delight; and on this head, beside the testimony which 

 Copernicus himself affords, there is that of the great Hieronimus Fracastorius, 

 of Verona; who having conceived another astronomical system, which is 

 explained in his treatise " Homocentricorum, sive de Stellis," also offered it to 

 the same pope, he dedicated to him when cardinal his book " De Sympathia et 

 Antipathia," with a letter, in which he states that, after religion there was 

 nothing in which he took such great interest as philosophy — astronomy more 

 particularly. And from hence perhaps arose the accusation which is some- 

 times brought against him, that he attended even to judicial astrology. It is 

 impossible to know on what foundation this statement rests : but were it sup- 

 ported by credible proofs it should not be a matter of astonishment if, in an 

 age when professors of astrology were maintained in the Italian universities, 

 and most of the great men had not sufficient courage to oppose the vulgar 



