Communicated by C. WILSON
Nicholas Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in Six Books (Basel Edition) with Annotations Written by the Hand of Tycho Brahe i was published in facsimile (Prague, 1971), as volume XVI, Editio cimelia Bohemica (cited hereafter as "Cimelia"). On Cimelia's title page an unidentified hand wrote: "Property of the Imperial College of the Society of Jesus in Prague, in the year 1642o ''z The same hand added, just below: "From the Library and Scrutiny of Tycho? '3 On the flyleaf preceding the title page a different hand pointed out: "'Observe: There are present marginal notes written by Tyeho Brahe's own hand. ''4 At the top of this flyleaf a third hand wrote some entries, which were ignored by Cimelia, although they throw valuable light on the history of this copy and will be considered later on.
In a brochure accompanying the facsimile, Cimetia conceded that the Jesuit attribution of its marginal notes to BgAnE was "not entirely free of possible doubt. ''s Nevertheless, it came down on the affirmative side, maintaining that Tycho Brahe is really the author of these notes ... [W]e have the possibility of judging the handwriting ... [E]ssentially it is like the writing in well-known and undoubted relics of Tycho's manuscripts. 6 But Cimelia did not document this asserted essential similarity by presenting samples of the handwriting of TYcno and the annotator side by side. Yet this very presentation had already been made (inadvertently) by Astronomy in Czecho- I Nicolai Copernici De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri sex (editio Basileensis) cum commentariis manu scriptis Tychonis Brahe, ed. ZDEN[K HORSK~.