The Calvinist Copernicans: The Reception of the New Astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575-1750
by: Rienk Vermij

Hardcover. Amsterdam, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, gray cloth stamped in black and white, 433 pages. When it was published in 1543, Copernicus's new astronomy had an enormous impact on intellectual life in early modern Europe, but the reception of his new ideas differed fundamentally from one country to another. Rienk Vermij discusses how--unlike in Roman Catholic lands--discussion in the heavily Calvinist Dutch Republic was initially dominated by humanist scholars who judged Copernicus's work on its mathematical merits. Yet even in this environment, it could not escape eventual philosophical, religious, and political controversies. This book shows how Copernicus's astronomy changed from an alternative cosmology into an established worldview in the Dutch Republic. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise bright and clean.