Regiomontanus
Johannes Mller von Knigsberg , known by his
Latin pseudonym Regiomontanus, was an important
German mathematician,
astronomer and astrologer. He was born in the
Franconian village of Unfinden near Knigsberg, Bavaria .
He is also called Johannes Mller, der Knigsberger . His full
Latin name was
Joannes de Regio monte, which abbreviated to
Regiomontanus .
Encyclopedia
Johannes Müller von Königsberg , known by his
Latin pseudonym
Regiomontanus, was an important
German mathematician,
astronomer and astrologer. He was born in the
Franconian village of Unfinden near Königsberg, Bavaria .
He is also called
Johannes Müller, der Königsberger . His full
Latin name was
Joannes de Regio monte, which abbreviated to
Regiomontanus .
Biography
At eleven years of age, he became a student at the university in
Leipzig,
Saxony. Three years later he continued his studies at
Alma Mater Rudolfina, the university in
Vienna,
Austria. There he became a pupil and friend of Georg von Peurbach. In 1457 he graduated with a degree of "magister artium" and held
lectures in
optics and ancient literature. He built
astrolabes for
Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and
Cardinal Bessarion, and in 1465 a portable
sundial for
Pope Paul II. His work with Peurbach brought him to the writings of
Nicholas of Cusa , who held a
heliocentric view. Regiomontanus, however, remained a geocentrist after
Ptolemy. Following Peurbach's death, he continued the translation of Ptolemy's
Almagest which Peurbach had begun at the initiative of
Johannes Bessarion. From 1461 to 1465 Regiomontanus lived and worked at Cardinal Bessarion's house in
Rome. He wrote
De Triangulis omnimodus and
Epytoma in almagesti Ptolemei.
De Triangulis was one of the first textbooks presenting the current state of
trigonometry and included lists of questions for review of individual chapters. In it he wrote:
- "You who wish to study great and wonderful things, who wonder about the movement of the stars, must read these theorems about triangles. Knowing these ideas will open the door to all of astronomy and to certain geometric problems."
In the
Epytoma he critiqued the translation, pointing out inaccuracies. Later
Nicolaus Copernicus would refer to this book as an influence on his own work. In 1467 Regiomontanus left Rome to work at the court of
Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. There he calculated extensive astronomical tables and built astronomical instruments.
In 1471 he moved to the Free City of
Nuremberg, in
Franconia, then one of the Empire's important seats of learning, publication, commerce and art. He associated with the humanist and merchant Bernard Walther who sponsored the observatory and the printing press. Regiomontanus remains famous for having built at Nuremberg the first astronomical observatory in Germany, perhaps in Europe. In 1472 he published the first printed astronomical textbook, the "Theoricae novae Planetarum" of his teacher Georg von Peurbach.
In 1475 he went to Rome to work with
Pope Sixtus IV on
calendar reform. On the way he could publish his "Ephemeris" in Venice. Regiomontanus died mysteriously in Rome, July 61476, a month after his fortieth
birthday. Some say he died of
plague, others by
assassination.
Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara, the teacher of Nicolaus Copernicus, referred to Regiomontanus as having been his own teacher.
A prolific author, Regiomontanus was internationally famous already in his lifetime. Despite having completed only a quarter of what he had intended to write, he left a substantial body of work.
It is not true that he came to be called posthumously after the place of his birth, Königsberg . In Regiomontanus' day it was common for scholars to Latinize their names when publishing. Copernicus did likewise, which is why we do not know him today by his actual name, Nikolai Kopernik.
Regiomontanus and Astrology
One biographer has claimed to have detected a decline in Regiomontanus' interest in
astrology over his life, and came close to asserting that Regiomontanus had rejected it altogether. But more recent commentators have suggested that the occasional expression of skepticism about
astrological prognostication reflected a disquiet about the procedural rigour of the art, not about its underlying principles. It seems plausible that, like some other
astronomers, Regiomontanus concentrated his efforts on
mathematical astronomy because he felt that
astrology could not be placed on a sound footing until the celestial motions had been modeled accurately.
In his youth, Regiomontanus had cast
horoscopes for famous patrons. His
Tabulae directionum, completed in
Hungary, were designed for
astrological use and contained a discussion of different ways of determining
astrological houses. The calendars for 1475-1531 which he printed at
Nuremberg contained only limited astrological information—a method of finding times for
bloodletting according to the position of the
moon; subsequent editors added material.
But perhaps the works most indicative of Regiomontanus' hopes for an empirically sound astrology were his
almanacs or ephemerides, produced first in
Vienna for his own benefit, and printed in
Nuremberg for the years 1475-1506.
Weather predictions and observations were juxtaposed by Regiomontanus in his manuscript almanacs, and the form of the printed text enabled scholars to enter their own weather observations in order to likewise check
astrological predictions; extant copies reveal that several did so. Regiomontanus'
Ephemeris would be used in 1504, by a
Christopher Columbus stranded on
Jamaica, to intimidate the natives into continuing to provision him and his crew from their scanty food stocks, when he successfully predicted a
lunar eclipse for February 29, 1504.
Regiomontanus did not live to produce the special commentary to the ephemerides that he had promised would reveal the advantages the almanacs held for the multifarious activities of
physicians, for human
births and the telling of the
future, for
weather forecasting, for the inauguration of
employment, and for a host of other activities, although this lack was again made good by subsequent editors. Nevertheless Regiomontanus' promise suggests that he either was as convinced of the validity and utility of
astrology as his contemporaries, or was willing to set aside his misgivings for the sake of commercial success.
Regiomontanus crater, on the
Moon, is named after him.
External links
- Adam Mosley, , web site at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Cambridge .
