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Copernicus's sixteenth century formulation of a heliocentric cosmos, elaborated during the next one hundred and fifty years through the work of Bruno, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, has been considered a turning point not only in astronomy but in the growth of scientific knowledge and in the history of ideas. The shift from belief in the well-ordered cosmos in which the earth occupies the central position to notions of an expanded universe in which man and his familiar world are relegated to an insignificant corner played a paramount role in the process whereby, as Alexandre Koyré put it, "human or at least European minds underwent a deep revolution which changed the very framework and patterns of our thinking."¹ Even while it was still a subject of debate within astronomic coteries, poets such as Donne and Milton intuited the broader social and religious implications of the altered conceptions of the planetary arrangements.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-1458-7_8

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