Crawford Lecture: Two God-Fearing Astronomers from Wittenberg or How Copernicanism Began in 1540

THE CRAWFORD LECTURE
Two God-Fearing Astronomers from Wittenberg or How Copernicanism Began in 1540

For more than a century art historians and historians of the Reformation have studied the case of the "three godless artists from Nuremberg." In 1525, the Nuremberg Council banned three young artists for blasphemy and criticism of the civil authorities. The newly Lutheran minister, Andreas Osiander, led the charge against the artists. In 1540, two young Wittenberg graduates published in Danzig the first Copernican treatises; Copernicus's major word, De revolutionibus, appeared three years later in Nuremberg. The key player in these publications was also Osiander.

This lecture will deal with faith and scepticism, obedience and freedom, orthodoxy and heterodoxy in astronomy as well as in religion during the early decades of the Protestant Reformation. It will also examine the labels "godless" and "god-fearing" in these controversies.

This event has been generously sponsored by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, the School of Social and Political Science and the Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies, the University of Edinburgh.

If you have any concerns about the accessiblity of the venue, email: crawford.project [at] ed.ac.uk