Ptolemy, Bianchini, and Copernicus: tables for planetary latitudes
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Ptolemy, Bianchini, and Copernicus: tables for planetary latitudes
zbMATH Open document ID: 1091.01008
author: Bernard R. Goldstein
author: José Chabás
published in: Archive for History of Exact Sciences
publication date: 2004-09-24T00:00:00Z
review text: The paper starts with a brief survey of the history of tables for planetary latitudes in Ptolemaic astronomy, focussing on the latitudes of Venus and Mercury. According to the author, Ptolemy gives a full treatment of planetary latitudes for the inferior planets, for which he refers to three components which are called \textit{declinatio, reflexio} and \textit{deviatio} in the Latin tradition. Ptolemy's tables, however, display only the first two of theses components, whereas Giovanni Bianchini (second half of the 15th century) was one of the very few astronomers who called attention to the third component of latitude for Venus and Mercury, and who produced tables for it. The central topic of the paper is a detailed description of Bianchini's tables. In the last part of the article, the author argues that Copernicus strongly depended on Bianchini's tables which can therefore be considered as an important source for Copernicus's knowledge of astronomy.
reviewed by: Andreas Kleinert
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A40
zbMATH DE Number: 2102839
zbMATH Keywords: Ptolemaic astronomy
zbMATH Keywords: planetary lattitudes
zbMATH Keywords: astronomical tables
zbMATH Keywords: Bianchini
zbMATH Keywords: Copernicus
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: s00407-004-0081-x
OpenAlex ID: W2000371496
DOI: 10.1007/S00407-004-0081-X
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2102839