The Sleepwalkers (53 page)

Nevertheless,
better
and
more
precise
instruments
would
have
been
available
to
the
Canon
–
quadrants
and
astrolabes
and
huge
armillary
spheres
of
shining
copper
and
bronze,
such
as
the
great
Regiomontanus
had
installed
at
his
observatory
in
Nuremberg.
Canon
Koppernigk
had
always
enjoyed
a
comfortable
income,
and
could
well
afford
to
order
these
instruments
from
the
Nuremberg
workshops.
His
own
cross-bow
and
cross-staff
were
crude;
on
an
unguarded
occasion
he
had
remarked
to
young
Rheticus
that
if
he
were
able
to
reduce
observational
errors
to
ten
minutes
arc,
he
would
be
as
happy
as
Pythagoras
was
on
discovering
his
famous
theorem.
⁷
But
an
error
of
ten
minutes
arc
amounts
to
one-third
of
the
apparent
width
of
the
full
moon
in
the
sky;
the
Alexandrian
astronomers
had
done
better
than
that.
Having
made
the
stars
his
main
business
in
life,
why
in
heaven's
name
did
the
prosperous
Canon
never
order
the
instruments
which
would
have
made
him
happier
than
Pythagoras?

Apart
from
his
niggardliness,
which
had
grown
worse
as
the
bitter
years
went
by,
there
existed
a
deeper,
anxious
reason
for
this:
Canon
Koppernigk
was
not
particularly
fond
of
star-gazing.
He
preferred
to
rely
on
the
observations
of
Chaldeans,
Greeks
and
Arabs
–
a
preference
that
led
to
some
embarrassing
results.
The
Book
of
the
Revolutions
contains,
altogether,
only
twenty-seven
observations
made
by
the
Canon
himself;
and
these
were
spread
over
thirty-two
years!
The
first
he
made
as
a
student
in
Bologna,
aged
twenty-four;
the
last
referred
to
in
his
Book,
an
eclipse
of
Venus,
was
made
no
less
than
fourteen
years
before
he
sent
the
manuscript
to
the
printers;
and
though
during
these
fourteen
years
he
continued
to
make
occasional
observations,
he
did
not
bother
to
enter
them
into
his
text.
He
merely
scribbled
them
on
the
margin
of
the
book
he
happened
to
be
reading,
in
between
other
marginal
jottings,
such
as
recipes
against
toothaches
and
kidney
stones,
for
the
dyeing
of
the
hair,
and
for
an
"imperial
pill"
which
"may
be
taken
at
any
time
and
has
a
curative
effect
on
every
disease."
⁸

All
in
all,
Canon
Koppernigk
noted
down
between
sixty
and
seventy
observations
in
a
life-time.
He
regarded
himself
as
a
philosopher
and
mathematicus
of
the
skies,
who
left
the
work
of
actual
stargazing
to
others,
and
relied
on
the
records
of
the
ancients.
Even
the
position
he
assumed
for
his
basic
star,
the
Spica,
which
he
used
as
a
landmark,
was
erroneous
by
about
forty
minutes
arc,
more
than
the
width
of
the
moon.

As
a
result
of
all
this,
Canon
Koppernigk's
life-work
seemed
to
be,
for
all
useful
purposes,
wasted.
From
the
seafarers'
and
stargazers'
point
of
view,
the
Copernican
planetary
tables
were
only
a
slight
improvement
on
the
earlier
Alphonsine
tables,
and
were
soon
abandoned.
And
insofar
as
the
theory
of
the
universe
is
concerned,
the
Copernican
system,
bristling
with
inconsistencies,
anomalies,
and
arbitrary
constructions,
was
equally
unsatisfactory,
most
of
all
to
himself.

In
the
lucid
intervals
between
the
long
periods
of
torpor,
the
dying
Canon
must
have
been
painfully
aware
that
he
had
failed.
Before
sinking
back
into
the
comforting
darkness,
he
probably
saw,
as
dying
men
do,
scenes
of
his
frigid
past
warmed
by
the
merciful
glow
of
memory.
The
vineyards
of
Torun;
the
golden
pomp
of
the
Vatican
gardens
in
the
jubilee
year
1500;
Ferrara
entranced
by
its
lovely
young
duchess,
Lucretia
Borgia;
the
precious
letter
from
the
most
reverend
Cardinal
Schoenberg;
the
miraculous
arrival
of
young
Rheticus.
But
if
memory
could
lend
some
deceptive
warmth
and
colour
to
Canon
Koppernigk's
past,
its
soothing
grace
does
not
extend
to
posterity.
Copernicus
is
perhaps
the
most
colourless
figure
among
those
who,
by
merit
or
circumstance,
shaped
mankind's
destiny.
On
the
luminous
sky
of
the
Renaissance,
he
appears
as
one
of
those
dark
stars
whose
existence
is
only
revealed
by
their
powerful
radiations.

2.
Uncle Lucas