The ''Prutenic Tables'' ( from ''Prutenia'' meaning "

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

", ), were an

ephemeris In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over tim ...

(astronomical tables) by the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published in 1551 (reprinted in 1562, 1571 & 1585). They are sometimes called the ''Prussian Tables'' after Albert I, Duke of Prussia, who supported Reinhold and financed the printing. Reinhold calculated this new set of astronomical tables based on

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

' ''

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book ...

'', the epochal exposition of

Copernican heliocentrism Copernican heliocentrism is the astronomical scientific modeling, model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. This model positioned the Sun at the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets orbiting arou ...

published in 1543. Throughout his explanatory canons, Reinhold used as his paradigm the position of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

at the birth of the Duke, on 17 May 1490. With these tables, Reinhold intended to replace the Alfonsine Tables; he added redundant tables to his new tables so that compilers of almanacs familiar with the older Alfonsine Tables could perform all the steps in an analogous manner. Several tables based on the Alfonsine Tables were published after the publication of the Prussian Tables. Copernicus's

heliocentric Heliocentrism (also known as the heliocentric model) is a Superseded theories in science#Astronomy and cosmology, superseded astronomical model in which the Earth and Solar System, planets orbit around the Sun at the center of the universe. His ...

claims were slow to be accepted by all European astronomers. Rather, the Prussian Tables became popular in German speaking countries for nationalistic and confessional reasons, and it is through these tables that Copernicus's reputation was established as a skilled mathematician or an astronomer on a par with

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

, and helped to disseminate the Copernicus' methods of calculating the positions of

astronomical object An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are of ...

s throughout the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. They eventually replaced the Alfonsine tables, which

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

s and

astrologer Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

s had used for 300 years. The Alfonsine tables in ''Table of the Stars'' by

Regiomontanus Johannes Müller von Königsberg (6 June 1436 – 6 July 1476), better known as Regiomontanus (), was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrument ...

also were used by sailors and sea explores during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Christopher Clavius Christopher Clavius, (25 March 1538 – 6 February 1612) was a Jesuit German mathematician, head of mathematicians at the , and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius ...

used Reinhold's Prutenic Tables and Copernicus' work as a basis for the calendar reform instituted under

Pope Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake ...

. Decades later, in Prague,

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best know ...

compiled the

Rudolphine Tables The ''Rudolphine Tables'' () consist of a star catalogue and planetary tables published by Johannes Kepler in 1627, using observational data collected by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). The tables are named in memory of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emper ...

, based on

Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe ( ; ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, ; 14 December 154624 October 1601), generally called Tycho for short, was a Danish astronomer of the Renaissance, known for his comprehensive and unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations. He ...

's lifetime of astronomical observations, which were the most extensive and accurate observations until his time. Kepler completed the work in 1625 and managed to publish it in 1627. In 1970

Owen Gingerich Owen Jay Gingerich (; March 24, 1930 – May 28, 2023) was an American astronomer who had been professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Ob ...

discovered Reinhold's heavily annotated copy of Copernicus' ''De revolutionibus''. This inspired him to explore the dissemination and use of ''De revolutionibus'' in the several decades following its publication. Gingerich wrote about his explorations and their results, and the role of Reinhold's ''Prutenic Tables'', in ''The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus'' (2004).

Literature

* Owen Gingerich, "The role of Erasmus Reinhold and the Prutenic Tables in the Dissemination of Copernican Theory", ''Studia Copernicana'', 6 (1973), 43-62. * Owen Gingerich & B. Welther, "The Accuracy of Ephemerides 1500-1800", ''Vistas in Astronomy'', 28 (1985), 339-34

* Owen Gingerich, "The Alphonsine Tables in the Age of Printing", in: M. Comes et al. (eds), ''De astronomia Alphonsi Regis'' (Barcelona, 1987), pp. 89–95. * Owen Gingerich, ''The Book Nobody Read'', (2004, Walker Publishing Company).

External links

''Prutenicae tabulae coelestium motuum'' (1551)
(ETH Bibliothek Zurich) (in Latin)
''Prutenicae tabulae coelestium motuum'' (1562)
(University of Strasbourg) {{in lang, la

(University of Cambridge) 1551 books Astronomical tables Astrological texts 16th-century books in Latin