Inside the Rare 400-Year-Old Books That Rewrote History: Galileo, Newton & Copernicus

The most important books ever printed? Science Historian Nick Wilding takes us inside the first editions that upended our understanding of the universe.

Gathered in one collection: Copernicus, Galileo and Newton – the books that moved Earth from the center of everything and revealed a cosmos far stranger than anyone imagined. From Galileo’s first glimpses of a mountainous Moon and Jupiter’s moons to Newton’s law of universal gravitation, Wilding traces a revolution that was never settled, but continually contested and redefined – a revolution that still shapes how we see the universe today.

Explore Reason and Revolution: Extraordinary Works from a Distinguished Private Collection, Part One – featuring landmark works by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, including a rare manuscript in Newton’s own hand. Several works have not appeared on the market in more than 30 years. The auction will be held at the Breuer building in New York on 20 October.