Copernicus' Secret by Jack Repcheck

Author:Jack Repcheck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster

BEFORE THE EVENTS OF 1538–39, it was difficult to imagine Nicolaus Copernicus reengaging with his manuscript and finding the motivation to finish and prepare it for publication. After all, even the generous letter from Cardinal Schönberg had not motivated Copernicus to do so. Now, given all the tension in Frombork and Warmia, and the level of distraction that Copernicus must have felt, a miracle would be needed if he was ever going to complete it.

10

THE CATALYST

AFEW WEEKS AFTER the August 1538 tour of Warmia, during which Dantiscus had first learned about Copernicus’s mistress and ordered him to break off the relationship, Copernicus was back in Frombork trying to figure out what to do about Anna. One day during this anxious period for Copernicus, another mathematician sat three hundred miles away in the whitewashed, deliberately plain foyer of a spacious new house anticipating an uncomfortable conversation with his superior. This conversation would begin a chain of events that would change Western culture forever.

The other astronomer was Georg Joachim Rheticus. He was only twenty-four years old, yet already a mathematics professor at the University of Wittenberg, one of the premier universities in Europe and the heart of the Lutheran movement. He was waiting to meet with the head of the university, Philipp Melanchthon.

By September 1538, Melanchthon was acknowledged as the second most important individual behind the stunningly successful Lutheran Reformation, second only to the indefatigable Martin Luther himself. In fact, it is arguable that the Reformation would not have taken root if not for Melanchthon because he protected Luther from his most counterproductive impulses. Luther was boorish and incapable of tolerating different points of view, but Melanchthon was refined and understood that compromise was necessary to achieve broad support for their movement. His ability to bring opposing sides to the table had proved critical at several key moments in recent years. In 1530, Philipp drafted the Augsburg Confession, which remains the official creed of Lutheran doctrine. It secured Melanchthon’s unique place in history.

The most famous portrait of Melanchthon, sketched by Albrecht Dürer in 1526, depicts a rather intimidating visage, with the reformer sporting a curly, somewhat unkempt beard and mustache, and a shock of longish hair that was just starting to recede, giving him a long forehead. He had a hawklike nose, high cheekbones, and fiery eyes underneath dark eyebrows (the actor Charlton Heston in the movie Ben-Hur resembles Melanchthon). But Melanchthon was a much softer soul than his appearance reflected. He was also a small man—an indifferent eater, Melanchthon was sickly skinny, almost skeletal. In an early letter, Luther mentioned that “we soon saw past his [Melanchthon’s] shape and his appearance…. The only thing I am afraid of is that his frail constitution might not be able to endure the way of life in our region.” Melanchthon looked very different from his friend and colleague Luther, who had always been heavy, and by 1538 was grossly fat.

Johannes Dantiscus knew and for a time admired both Luther and Melanchthon. In the early 1520s he had visited them in Wittenberg.

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