The Reception of the Copernican Revolution Among Provencal Humanists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Abstract
We discuss the reception of Copernican astronomy by the Provencal humanists of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries, beginning with Michel de Montaigne who was the first to recognize the potential scientific and philosophical revolution represented by heliocentrism. Then we describe how, after Kepler's Astronomia Nova of 1609 and the first telescopic observations by Galileo, it was in the south of France that the New Astronomy found its main promotors with the humanists and "amateurs \'eclair\'es", Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and Pierre Gassendi. The professional astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini, also from Provence, would later elevate the field to new heights in Paris.
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