Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes
Yet the widespread planetary theories, advanced by Ptolemy and most other astronomers, although consistent with the numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain equalizing circles, which made the planet appear to move at all times with uniform velocity neither on its deferent sphere nor about its own epicycle's center.
Copernicus, Nicolaus. Three Copernican Treatises. Translated by Edward Rosen, 2nd ed., Dover Publications, 1959, p. 57.
Note that Da Vinci predated Galileo. One big difference was that Da Vinci did not publish his heretical views, but wrote them in his private notebook. The church authorities likely did not know about his heresy.
The Roman Catholic Church had stultified scientific thinking for over a thousand years where differing with accepted church doctrine was not only discouraged but was dangerous. Even though Hicletas—see {590328}—realized that the earth rotated around its own axis three centuries before Christ, and his view was in the literature to which learned people had access, even in 1543 Copernicus had to tread lightly with the church. He enlisted the aid of the Pope to “response block” the opposition of other church authorities. Galileo later did not play politics and had a more narrow minded Pope and Vatican to contend with, and as the world knows, came into unfortunate conflict with the Church.
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.
