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When Nicolaus Copernicus wasn't redrawing the celestial map, he held down a day job as a Catholic canon (ecclesiastical administrator). As the Reformation grew rapidly and extended its influence in Poland, Copernicus and his respected friend Tiedemann Giese, later bishop of Varmia, remained open to some of the new ideas.

Copernicus did not leave a written record of his views, but he authorized Giese to quote him in a book supportive of a mediating position he hoped would avoid disruption in the church. He also consorted openly with at least two Lutherans—his first and only disciple, Georg Joachim Rheticus, and the well-known Lutheran clergyman, Andreas Osiander (also recognized for competence in mathematics and astronomy).

This might have sunk the career of most Catholic functionaries, but friends in high places kept Copernicus's job for him.

When, decades later, Galileo was attacked for promoting Copernicus's heliocentric cosmology, he defended himself by reminding his opponents that the Polish astronomer had been "not only a Catholic, but a priest and a canon." Galileo got two out of three right—although Copernicus did serve his church faithfully for 40 years, like many other canons of his day he never pursued ordination.

We often associate the birth of modern science with Galileo Galilei, who sought to prove Copernicus's cosmology empirically with his telescopes. However, the scientific revolution did not begin at the outer frontier of space, but rather at the inner frontier of the human body. The 1543 publication of De Humani Corporis Fabrica by the Flemish scientist and churchman Andreas Vesalius not only created anatomical science as we know it, but was arguably the coming-out party of modern observational science and research.

More, it epitomized Renaissance advances in engraving and printing: The woodcut for the title page of De Fabrica, with its precise lines, fine shadings, and skillful rendering of perspective, is recognized as one of the finest engravings of the sixteenth century. And the plates within the book were likely created in the workshop of the great Venetian painter Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1485-1576), after sketches by Vesalius.

Many of the innovators during the scientific revolution seem to have been—though such things are notoriously difficult to determine—more than nominal Christians. Consider these "fathers" featured in this issue:

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) "Father of modern anatomy"

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) "Father of modern astronomy"

William Harvey (1578-1630) "Father of modern medicine"

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) "Father of modern chemistry"

Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) "Father of microbiology"

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) "Father of modern mechanistic physics" (and, with Leibnitz, of calculus).

In 1616, astronomer Johannes Kepler pursued a longstanding interest in music in an unusual direction. He developed a system of musical notation to represent the variations in the speed of each planet when nearest to and furthest from the sun. The harmonies produced by the planets' notes, he felt, proclaimed the glory of God. He used just two notes to represent the relatively small change in the earth's speed, lamenting, "The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather even from this that Misery and Famine reign on our habitat." He published this research as Harmonies of the World (1618).

Seemingly a quirky diversion, these musical investigations led Kepler to the discovery of the principles of planetary motion, which, 40 years later, would spur Isaac Newton to develop his theory of universal gravitation.

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