Georg Von Peurbach
Georg
Von Peurbach was born on May 30th, 1423 in a town in upper
Austria called Peuerbach, about
forty kilometers west of Linz. Unfortunately almost nothing is known
about his early life, except his father's name, Ulrich, and where he
was born. His recorded activity began when he started studying at the
University
of Vienna, and graduated in 1446. Soon after he received his masters
degree, he spent the year of 1453-1454 traveling through Germany,
France, and Italy lecturing in the field of astronomy. During this
time it is said that he met Giovanni Bianchini who, at the time, was
the most noted Italian astronomer, and had attempted to persuade
Peurbach to accept a job at university in Italy. By the end of 1454,
he had become the court astronomer for King Ladislas of Hungary, as
well as professor of astronomy at Vienna university. Peurbach’s
work at court was completed because of his knowledge in the field of
astronomy, but his occupation at the university was mostly concerned
with humanistic studies. Such studies include a lecture on the Aeneid
in
1454, on Juvenal in 1456, and on the Rhetorica
ad Herennium and
Horacein 1458, though these last two are more speculation. Peurbach's
protege, Johannes Müller von Königsberg, or better known as
Regiomontanus,
enrolled
in the Vienna university in 1450 at the age of 13. Regiomontanus
learned much from Peurbach, referring to him as “my teacher”,
and both observed together what could become to be called Haley's
Comet in June 1456. Peurbach mentioned the comet to Nihil, a fellow
astronomer of the time period, as well as writing an astronomical
report about it, however this report was not discovered or published
until the twentieth century. A year later Peurbach and his assistant
observed another comet, as well as a lunar eclipse. This eclipse, as
documented by Peurbach, was eight minutes earlier than was predicted
by the Alphonsine Tables, and this discovery is what let him to
create his own calendar of astronomical events, Eclipse
Tables,
which were most likely completed in 1459.
In
1460 they discovered two more lunar eclipses, one on July 3rd
and the other on December 28th,
but this time they compared their observations to Peurbach’s
tables, and found them to be accurate. Around this time there was a
bit of a dispute going on in the royal family of Vienna. This led to
the archbishop of Nicaea, Johannes Bessarion, a cardinal since 1439,
to arrive in Vienna to intervene in the persisting dispute between
Frederick III and his brother Albert VI of Styria. While in Vienna,
he happened to meet Peurbach and Regiomontanus. Bessarion wished to
translate important intellectual texts from Greek to Italian, some
of which included the exact sciences. One such manuscript to which he
wished to convert was the Almagest,
which
would replace
Gerard of Cremona’s version that was in Arabic. He also wished to
create an abridgment of the Almagest
so he could use it as a textbook. Although Peurbach was not familiar
with the Greek language, he had, according to Regiomontanus,
memorized the Almagest
and
would have no problem translating as well as condensing it.
Peurbach
took the job of the abridgment, and soon further plans were
established for Peurbach and Regiomontanus to accompany Bessarion to
Italy and work for him. Unfortunately, Peurbach died before he was
able to make the journey on April 8, 1461, with only the first six
books of the abridgment completed; he was not yet thirty-eight years
old. The early death of the astronomer, as well as the equally early
death of Regiomontanus in 1476, left the development of the field of
mathematical astronomy disadvantaged of real improvement until Tycho
Brahe's generation.
