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The Renaissance of Astronomy

  • Book
  • Oct 2025
  • Latest edition

Overview

  • First book to provide a systematic, rigorous introduction to the works of five major astronomers
  • Provides a comprehensive account of the origin of astronomy during the European Renaissance
  • Contains a large number of high-quality diagrams

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About this book

The Renaissance of Astronomy provides a comprehensive, technically grounded account of the works of Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler and Galileo. There is nothing comparable to it in scope and detail. It is the fruit of a lifetime of study devoted to the subject.

It is the first book to provide systematic, rigorous introductions to the work of the five great astronomers who replaced the geocentric model of the planetary system with a heliocentric one. It also offers novel analyses on many points of detail---for example, the astrological interests and practices of Regiomontanus, Kepler, and Galileo. Technical expositions are accompanied by a very large number of diagrams of high quality, made by the author, Noel Swerdlow. The section on Tycho Brahe was left incomplete at Swerdlow's death.

Keywords

  • Regiomontanus
  • Copernicus
  • Tycho
  • Kepler
  • Galileo
  • astronomy
  • astrology

Authors and Affiliations

  • Chicago, USA

    Noel Swerdlow

About the author

Noel Swerdlow (1941-2021) was the preeminent expert on Renaissance astronomy. After retiring from the University of Chicago, where he spent his entire career, he was invited to join Caltech as a Visiting Research Schole, where he spent his final years. He was particularly known for his work on Copernicus, about which he co-authored a book with Otto Neugebauer, also published in Sources and Studies. He was a MacArthur fellow, famed for his brilliant scholarship and generous mentorship of early career scholars.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Renaissance of Astronomy

  • Authors: Noel Swerdlow

  • Series Title: Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Mathematics and Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-84759-2Due: 14 November 2025

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-84762-2Due: 14 November 2026

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-84760-8Due: 14 November 2025

  • Series ISSN: 2196-8810

  • Series E-ISSN: 2196-8829

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Illustrations: 176 b/w illustrations

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