The Sleepwalkers (87 page)

The
sky walks not around the earth
Though so the Doctors
concluded;
Each man is sure to meet his worm
Copernicus
included.

In
the
Frankonian
local
dialect,
"
koepperneksch
"
still
means
a
far-fetched,
cockeyed
proposition.

16.
The Death of Rheticus

Rheticus
survived
his
teacher
by
more
than
thirty
years.
He
led
a
restless,
colourful,
hectic
life,
but
the
purpose
had
gone
out
of
it,
the
mainspring
was
broken,
and
his
activities
became
increasingly
more
crankish
and
fantastic.
He
held
his
new
post
at
the
University
of
Leipzig
for
less
than
three
years;
in
1545,
he
left
for
Italy,
and
in
spite
of
two
demands
from
the
University,
refused
to
return
on
the
grounds
of
ill-health.
He
seems
to
have
studied
medicine
in
Switzerland
for
a
while,
but
nobody
knew
what
had
become
of
him;
thus
a
Wittenberg
scholar
named
Gauricus
wrote
under
Rheticus'
horoscope:
"Returned
from
Italy,
became
insane
and
died
in
April
'47"
–
^95a
which
reminds
one
of
Kepler's
description
of
Rheticus
going
off
his
head
in
Loebau
Castle.

In
'48,
however,
he
returned
to
Leipzig
and
tried
to
turn
over
a
new
leaf.
Within
the
next
three
years
two
works
of
his
were
published,
an
astronomical
yearbook
for
1550,
and
a
work
on
trigonometry
with
extensive
tables.
He
referred
in
them
to
Copernicus
as
his
teacher,
mentioned
that
he
had
supervized
the
publication
of
his
work,
and
said
that
"nothing
should
be
altered
in
it".
⁹⁶
This
was
probably
said
in
self-defence,
because
Rheticus
was
pressed
from
all
sides
to
correct
the
errors
of
calculation
in
the
Revolutions
and
to
continue
expounding
his
teacher's
doctrine.
He
did
nothing
of
the
sort.
Instead,
his
Preface
to
the
work
on
trigonometry
contains
the
astonishing
suggestion
that
the
Commentaries
of
Proclus
on
the
Ptolemaic
system
should
be
taught
at
the
German
universities!
About
the
teaching
of
the
Copernican
system
there
is
not
a
word.
Nor
does
the
ambitious
list
of
future
publications,
which
he
announced
in
the
same
Preface,
contain
any
mention
of
his
biography
of
Copernicus,
which
he
had
completed
in
manuscript.
⁹⁷

Two
years
after
his
return
to
Leipzig,
Rheticus
had
to
leave
again,
this
time
under
more
dramatic
circumstances.
An
inscription
in
a
book
by
one
Jakob
Kroeger
provides
the
explanation:
"He
[
Rheticus]
was
a
prominent
mathematician,
who
for
a
while
lived
and
taught
in
Leipzig,
but
flew
from
this
town
about
1550
because
of
sexual
delicts
(sodomy
and
the
Italian
perversion);
I
knew
the
man."
⁹⁸
It
was
a
repetition
of
the
incidents
which,
eight
years
earlier,
had
caused
his
migration
from
Wittenberg
to
Leipzig,
and
which
put
Osiander
in
control
of
the
printing
of
the
Revolutions
.

For
the
next
seven
years,
Rheticus'
movements
are
obscure.
He
seems
to
have
left
Germany
for
fear
of
being
arrested.
In
1557,
he
turned
up
in
Cracow.
His
conscience
was
nagging
him,
for
he
announced
that,
in
compliance
with
the
wishes
of
his
late
Teacher,
who
had
insisted
on
more
and
better
observations
of
the
stars,
he,
Rheticus,
had
erected
an
obelisk
forty-five
feet
high:
"for
no
device
can
be
compared
in
excellence
to
the
obelisk;
armillaries,
Jacob's
staffs,
astrolabes
and
quadrants
are
human
inventions,
but
the
obelisk,
erected
on
God's
advice,
surpasses
them
all."
He
had
chosen
Cracow
for
his
observations,
"because
it
lies
on
the
same
meridian
as
Frauenburg."
⁹⁹

But
the
enterprise
seems
to
have
come
to
nothing.
Six
years
later
he
was
again
pressed
by
various
scholars
to
continue,
and
to
expound
the
work
of
Copernicus.
He
toyed
with
the
idea,
asked
a
colleague
for
his
assistance;
then
dropped
the
matter
again.

In
1567,
he
wrote
to
a
friend
that
he
loved
astronomy
and
chemistry,
but
made
his
living
as
a
physician,
¹⁰⁰
and
that
he
inclined
toward
the
teachings
of
Paracelsus.
A
year
later,
he
wrote
about
his
plans
to
Pierre
Ramus,
the
great
French
mathematician,
explaining
that
the
wobbly
theory
of
Ptolemy
must
be
replaced
by
a
true
system
based
on
observation,
and
more
specially
on
the
use
the
Egyptians
had
made
of
the
obelisk.
Thus
he
would
create
"a
German
astronomy
for
my
Germans".
¹⁰¹
He
also
mentioned
numerous
other
projects:
the
completion
of
his
monumental
work
on
trigonometry
on
which
he
had
spent
twelve
years;
a
work
on
astronomy
in
nine
books,
several
books
on
astrology,
and
seven
books
on
chemistry,
which
he
had
already
drafted.