reformation-their biography is an illustration of one of the most glorious periods of civilization.

The progress of astronomy, in the interval of time above specified, had such an extensive influence upon the progress of human society in general, that the history of the latter can scarcely be understood without a thorough knowledge of that of the former. It was in astronomy first that the discovery was made that all ideas and theories of the masters were not always test-proof, and that nature was a better teacher than parchments. It seems, that in all times celestial phenomena had a greater exciting power upon the human mind than those which belong to our own planet. It seems as if, in inducing the astronomer to open his physical eye, in accustoming him to avoid optical illusions, the brilliant and silent phenomena of the clear night opened also his inner sense of vision, and gave to the intellectual retina a greater sensibility, which enabled him to distinguish the combinations and degradations of imposition, error, and truth, the shade, demi-tint, and daylight of the inner sense. And then those silent hours of the night, when man is left alone in the immensity of space and of time; when all around him has faded away into a shapeless and motionless mass, a mere pedestal upon which he is placed in the immensity, then or never he must fall into deep meditation, into dreams like the astrologer, or into more positive thoughts like the astronomer. After the astrologer had become an astronomer, the alchemist became a natural philosopher. Tycho Brahe introduced exact measures into astronomical observations, and Galileo made use of weights and scales in his investigations of physical phenomena.

From this consideration, the history in general of astronomy, and especially of its birth amongst the western inhabitants of the old world, derives a great interest, even for those to whom this science presents but little attraction; and as this history of the science is nothing else than the exposition of the labors of a few extraordinary men, and the results to which they led, the early history of the science can scarcely be better found than in their biographies.

This seems to have been deeply felt by the distinguished French philosopher, Gassendi, who himself was one of the illustrations of the times of Galileo and Kepler, when he wrote his biographies of Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Regio

montanus, and Purbach, the best biographies of these astronomers ever published, and which have furnished the materials to all authors who wrote since on the same subject. He was a distinguished astronomer and mathematician, and a correspondent of Galileo and Kepler. So all circumstances favored him in the execution of a history of Tycho Brabe, and of Kepler, who is very prominent in the latter part of the life of the former. He wrote the biographies of Copernicus, Regiomontanus, and Purbachius, after the publication of Tycho Brahe's, and so he produced a most valuable history of the progress of astronomy, in which the scientific genealogy of the most distinguished astronomers up to his days is estabished with great clearness. We think that the following sketch of the gradual development of the science in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, will be interesting to our readers.

It is a very remarkable fact in the history of modern astronomy, that all the astronomers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to whom its progress is exclusively to be attributed, were born or educated in Germany; the more so, if we consider that in this country universities were founded more than a century later than in most others of Europe. At the time when it began to be cultivated, the south of Germany was one of the most flourishing, industrious, and commercial parts of Europe, as the invention of typography and numerous works of art, still now in existence, can sufficiently prove. But toward the north it was quite different. The country on the Vistula was inhabited by a brave but uncivilized race of men, amongst whom the Christian religion had not yet found its way in the thirteenth century, and who continued even in idolatry to the beginning of the fifteenth century, at which time their last high priest was baptized. The town of Thorn, on the Vistula, in which Copernicus was born, in the year 1473, had been founded about the year 1240, by the knights of the Teutonic order, who, after their return from the Holy Land, had undertaken a crusade against the uncivilized Prussians.t In reading the history of the long struggle between these experienced and well armed warriors, who had gained their spurs in Palestine, against those half wild inhabitants of

Tychonis Brahei, Equitis Dani, Astronomorum Coryphæi vita, auctore Petro Gassendo, Regio Matheseos Professore. Accessit Nicolai Copernici, Georgii Purbachii, et Joannis Regiomontani, astronomorum celebrium vita. Parisiis: MDCLIV. And also vol. v. of his opera.

+ Weber, Ritterwesen, iii. 56.

1841.] Great Cost of Books before the Art of Printing. 449

Prussia, retiring to their marshy woods, where they could not be followed, we are forcibly reminded of our own wars in Florida.

In the more civilized parts of Germany, and of Southern Europe, the state of things appears to have been very different from what it is now. With regard to the means of instruction, the difference was immense. When Purbachius studied at the university of Vienna, it was impossible to quench the thirst for knowledge, except by visiting the fountains from which it flowed. The art of printing was not yet invented; books were rare, expensive, and not to be found, except in those cities where students gathered. Universities were the only places where knowledge could be acquired, and professors the only mediums through which it could be imparted. Few students would have been able to pay the sums which books cost, especially in the fifteenth century, when they had become as much works of art, as repositories of knowledge. "A Lancelot du Lac was sold for three hundred gold crowns; a Livius, one hundred and twenty; Antonius Beccarellus sold an estate, and bought a Livius with the proceeds. A few books were sometimes given to the daughters of noblemen as dowries, and deeds were written at the sale of manuscripts, as at the sale of lands. The largest library of the time, the one which the great Pope Nicolaus V. collected, contained five thousand volumes. It cost probably more than any of the largest libraries of modern times." At the universities the number of works was very small too. At Bologna, an individual derived his income from twenty volumes, which he lent to the students - from this scarcity of books resulted the necessity of resorting to the universities, and even to visiting most of these institutions, partly in order to hear the most learned men of the day, partly with a view to examine the most celebrated works, then scattered through numerous places. Hence a general custom with students to visit the celebrated universities of Paris, Bologna, and several other places in Italy. The Latin, in common use as a vernacular language, among students, smoothed all the difficulties which now-a-days a young man would have to overcome if he had to pursue the same course. The expression, "respublica artium liberalium," republic of letters, was not a mere figure of rhetoric, but the

* Meiner's Vergleichungen, etc. ii. 388. NO. XVIII.-VOL. IX.

57

† Id. 387.

Any

denomination of a vast association existing in reality. body had a right to attend lectures, or to lecture himself, at least in the beginning. No differences were made with regard to citizens and aliens; the universities of Paris and Bologna were frequented by as many foreigners as Frenchmen or Italians. In returning from a foreign university to his own country the master, or bachelor of arts, would stop sometimes on his way for months or years, and make his début as a professor. It was not a rare thing to see in Italy a German professor, or an Italian teacher in Germany. In Germany, one of the first poets, as were then called the revivers of ancient literature, who taught the Greek language, and explained the admirable books which were then propagated over Europe, was an Englishman returning from Italy. The latter country was then the centre of the intellectual world, or perhaps the focus, toward and from which radiated all learning; it was then for philosophy, what it has since become more especially for fine arts. Purbachius, Regiomontanus, and Copernicus, visited her most flourishing institutions, and brought from them, to their own country, new lights, which grew afterwards into luminaries of the greatest splendor.

This state of things, showing the difficulties which the student had to contend with, is to be borne in mind in the appreciation of the merits of a man who distinguished himself in those days. Modern astronomers find it difficult to discover the reasons of the high reputation which Purbachius and Regiomontanus enjoyed, not only in their own country, and among their contemporaries, but in most parts of Europe, and as late as the seventeenth century. Delambre, in his celebrated history of astronomy, does not give much credit to Purbachius, and closes his investigation of the works of Regiomontanus with the following remarks: "Regiomontanus was, without doubt, the most learned astronomer Europe had as yet produced. But, if we except some observations, and his researches in trigonometry, we may say, that he had scarcely the time to do more than to show his good intentions. As an observer, he does not certainly surpass Albategni ; as a calculator, he did not go as far as Ebn-Jounis, nor as Aboul Wéfa."*

But, if we consider, that in those times there was scarcely

* Delambre Astronomie du Moyen-age, 365.

any thing known about astronomy in Germany, and that since that country produced Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler, the fathers of modern astronomy, the two astronomers above must be considered as having exercised the most beneficial influence upon the progress of the science. Gassendi shows this to be his opinion, when, in his life of these men, he says: "With regard to Purbachius, it is but just to state, that he revived astronomy, which was almost extinct, and that, besides his own labors, he deserves credit for having almost produced the great Regiomontanus, through whom the study of astronomy was raised in Germany to such a height that it attracted the eyes of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe; and we may not merely presume, but almost assert, that had Purbachius not existed, we should have had neither Copernicus nor Tycho Brahe."*

Purbachius was born, in the year 1423, in Austria, on the frontier of Bavaria. From his childhood he showed a great ardor, and the most happy disposition for study. He studied the humanities and mathematics, that is to say, as much as was taught under those names, which appears to have been very little, for, in speaking of the latter, Gassendi says, that he very soon knew it entirely. After having been created (insigni cum laude) a master of arts, at the university of Vienna, he started on his visit to the institutions of learning through Germany, France, and Italy. In the latter country he seems to have increased his knowledge in astronomy. He found there a friend in Bianchini, the most distinguished astronomer of the day, and was induced by him, on account of his great facilities in teaching, to deliver lectures on astronomy at Ferrara, Bologna, and Padua. He returned, however, very soon to Vienna, having left the university of that city only to prepare himself, by a visit to other academies, to do honor to his alma mater. Shortly after his return he was engaged, by all who knew him, to teach mathematics. His reputation as a learned professor was spread, in a few years, over all Germany. There was, at that time, at the university of Leipsic, a young man, or rather a boy, of about fourteen years old, whose family name was Müller, and who became afterwards distinguished as Johannes Regiomontanus. He was born at Konigsberg, in Franconia, in the year 1436, about thirteen years after

* Georgii Purbachii et Joannis Regiomontani, vita, 57.