Stylometry at the service of history of science: the Renaissance of Copernicus

Abstract A recent study, following a subtle but unusual for history of science argumentation method starting from the premises established by stylometry, discovered a drastic stylistic contrast between Copernicus’s early opus Commentariolus and his mature writings. The finding challenged the long-established view that Copernicus became a humanistically minded scholar early in his life and composed Commentariolus between 1509 and 1514. The present study verifies and extends this investigation by analyzing the whole extant literary oeuvre of Copernicus. The stylometric investigation for the most critical stylistic markers is followed by a detailed linguistic analysis. The results allow for convincing guesses on what motivated Copernicus to abruptly change his Latin style and establish the circumstances under which Copernicus most likely fully embraced Renaissance humanism. In addition, the subsequent historiographical analysis presents a plausible hypothesis on the precise dating of Commentariolus, the “birth certificate” of Copernicus’s geokinetic cosmology. Thus, the utility of stylometry for the history of science is demonstrated.