Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was published in 1543. The Latin title means “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,” and the book presented a mathematical model in which Earth and the other planets move around the Sun.
The work was printed in Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire by Johannes Petreius. Copernicus had worked on the manuscript for decades, but it appeared in print during the year of his death. Its publication became a landmark in the Copernican Revolution and helped reshape European astronomy.
A common mistake is to confuse the publication date with earlier circulation of Copernican ideas. A brief summary, the Commentariolus, circulated privately before 1543, and a printed account of the model appeared in 1540. The 1543 date refers to the first printed edition of the complete De revolutionibus, not the beginning of Copernicus’s investigations.