导语
SPRING 1543. Europe was in turmoiL The German princes had taken over the banner of Protestantism from an aging Martin Luther, and Eu rope was poised on the brink ofwar. Nicolaus Copernicus was lying on his deathbed when his fellow clerics at the Frauenburg cathedraI brought him a long-awaited package. From the German printer Johannes Petreius in Nuremberg, hundreds of miles away, a precious sheaf of paper had finally come to this northernmost Catholic diocese in Poland, the opening pages(but the last to be printed) of the greatest scientific book of the sixteenth century. On the first sheet stood the tide: On the Revolu6ons of the Heavenly Spheres. Brother Nicolaus scarcely knew what an epoch-making treasure he held.
……
内容提要
Sometimes detective, sometimes intrepid explorer, always engagingly ebullient enthusiast, Gingerich the scholar is the picaresque hero of his own narrative alongside the book he pursues... [He] brings to life the historian"s tireless quest for understanding of the past with all the pace and thrill of a James Bond movie." Lisa Jardine in The Times 1543 saw the publication of one of the most significant - and one of the boldest - scientific works ever written, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in which Nicolaus Copernicus presented a radically different view of the heavens by placing the sun, and not the earth, at the centre of the universe. According, however, to Arthur Koestler, sixteenth century Europe paid little attention to the groundbreaking, but dense, masterpiece - it was "the book that nobody read". Intrigued by Koestler"s claim, Owen Gingerich embarked on a thirty-year odyssey to examine every one of the hundreds of surviving copies of the original in order to prove him wrong...
Part detective story, part travel book, part chronicle of an obsession, a testament to the power of books, The Book Nobody Read tells Gingerich"s extraordinary story...
An exuberant tale... A detective story, a Renaissance flashback, an expose, a true confession, an altogether engrossing, edifying romp through ideas and movable type." Dava Sobel
[Full of] illuminations... A driven, fascinating book, and a rarity - a history of science by someone who actually knows about science" John Carey in the Sunday Times
目录
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1. A DAY IN COURT
CHAPTER 2. THE CHASE BEGINS
CHAPTER 3. IN THE STEPS OF COPERNICUS
CHAPTER 4. THE LENTEN PRETZEL AND THE EPICYCLES MYTH
CHAPTER 5. "EMBELLISHED BY A DISTINGUISHED MAN"
CHAPTER 6. THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
CHAPTER 7. THE WITTICH CONNECTION
CHAPTER 8. BIGGER BOOKS LINGER LONGER
CHAPTER 9. FORBIDDEN GAMES
CHAPTER 10. THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE
CHAPTER 11. THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE
CHAPTER 12. PLANETARY INFLUENCES
CHAPTER 13. SOPHISTICATED LADIES 202
CHAPTER 14. THE IRON CURTAIN: BEFORE AND AFTER
CHAPTER 15. PUTTING THE CENSUS TO BED
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX 1. FROM EQUANT TO EPICYCLET
APPENDIX 2. LOCATIONS OF DE REVOLUTIONIBUS
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES
INDEX