Johannes Müller von Königsberg, better known as Regiomontanus, was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrumental in the development of Copernican heliocentrism in the decades following his death.
18th-century portrait (Iohannes de Regio Monte dictus alias Müllerus)
Plaque at Regiomontanus' birthplace
Regiomontanus
Comet of 1472
Copernican heliocentrism is the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. This model positioned the Sun at the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets orbiting around it in circular paths, modified by epicycles, and at uniform speeds. The Copernican model displaced the geocentric model of Ptolemy that had prevailed for centuries, which had placed Earth at the center of the Universe.
Heliocentric model from Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres)
Nicolai Copernicito Torinensis De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, Libri VI (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in six books) (title page of 2nd edition, Basel, 1566)
Statue of Copernicus next to Cracow University's Collegium Novum
Andreas Cellarius's illustration of the Copernican system, from the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660)
