The ''Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae'' is an astronomy book on the heliocentric system published by

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 ...

in the period 1618 to 1621. The first volume (books I–III) was printed in 1618, the second (book IV) in 1620, and the third (books V–VII) in 1621.

Content

The book contained in particular the first version in print of his third law of planetary motion. The work was intended as a textbook, and the first part was written by 1615. Divided into seven books, the ''Epitome'' covers much of Kepler's earlier thinking, as well as his later positions on physics, metaphysics and archetypes. In Book IV he supported the Copernican cosmology. Book V provided mathematics underpinning Kepler's views. Kepler wrote and published this work in parallel with his '' Harmonices Mundi'' (1619), the last Books V to VII appearing in 1621. Kepler introduced the idea that the physical laws determining the motion of planets around the Sun were the same governing the motion of moons around planets. He justified this claim in Book IV using the telescope observations of the moons of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

made by Simon Marius in his 1614 book ''Mundus Iovialis''. The period of orbits and relative distances of the four moons satisfied Kepler's third law and he argued the Jovian system was like a mini

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. The term "

inertia Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change. It is one of the fundamental principles in classical physics, and described by Isaac Newto ...

" was first introduced in the ''Epitome''.

Reception

Due to the book's support for heliocentrism, the first volume was put on the Index of Prohibited Books on 28 February 1619.Maurice Finocchiario, Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992, Chapter 1, page 20

Editions

* 1635 reprint
''Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae''
Vols. 1–3, Schönwetterus.

Translations

* 1939: ''Epitome of Copernican astronomy. Books IV and V, The organization of the world and the doctrine ...''; trans. by Charles Glenn Wallis. Annapolis: St John's Bookstore. * 1955: Reissued with Ptolemy's Almagest. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica (1955). * 1995: ''Epitome of Copernican astronomy; & Harmonies of the world''; translated by Charles Glenn Wallis. Amherst: Prometheus Books.

Notes

{{Wikiquote 1610s books 1621 books Astronomy textbooks Works by Johannes Kepler 17th-century books in Latin