Quod Caelum stet, Terra moveatur by Celio Calcagnini: Scientific Context and Translation

This paper offers an introduction to the Renaissance defence of terrestrial motion by the Ferrara humanist Celio Calcagnini, Quod caelum stet, terra moveatur (ca. 1518). It presents its main argument and reconstructs its intellectual context. It also comprises the first translation in English. This treatise is an early document of the circulation of geokinetic conceptions. It was written in the very years when the revolutionary ideas of Copernicus started to circulate and De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was taking shape. Calcagnini’s defence of terrestrial motion especially drew on natural and epistemological conceptions stemming from humanistic eclecticism, influenced by scepticism and Platonism. The paper also offers an interpretation of celestial motions that Calcagnini attributed to the Earth, although he did not expound on the mathematical details.