Editing Georg Joachim Rheticus (section)

==Patrons==
After Georg Iserin's death, [[Achilles Gasser]] took over his medical practice, helping Rheticus to continue his studies and supporting him, eventually going so far as to furnish him with a letter of introduction to [[Philipp Melanchthon]], a [[Theology|theologian]] and educator who would become a major patron, having reorganized the whole educational system of the Lutheran Protestant parts of Germany, reforming and founding several new universities during the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]]. This relationship in particular would soon serve him well as Melanchton possibly chose him specifically for the University of Wittenberg. Rheticus studied at Feldkirch, [[Zürich]] and Wittenberg where he received his M.A. in 1536, after which Melanchthon appointed Rheticus as professor of the lower mathematics, arithmetic and astronomy, at the Wittenberg University.

Two years later, Melanchthon arranged a two-year leave for Rheticus to study with noted astronomers. Leaving Wittenberg in October 1538, he first went to [[Nuremberg]] to visit the professor of mathematics at the Eigidien Oberschule, [[Johannes Schöner]]. In Nuremberg he also made the acquaintance of other mathematicians such as [[Georg Hartmann]] and Thomas Venatorius as well as the printer-publisher [[Johannes Petreius]]. During his journey, probably in Nuremberg, Rheticus heard of Copernicus and decided to seek him out. It is unknown whether he had access to Copernicus' [[Commentariolus]], an unsigned, unpublished outline of Copernicus' revolutionary [[Copernican heliocentrism|heliocentric theory]] that Copernicus distributed to friends and colleagues three decades before he published ''[[De revolutionibus]]'', prior to this or perhaps on consulting Schöner who is believed to have persuaded him. From Johannes Petreius Rheticus was given works by [[Regiomontanus]] and others, intended as presents for Copernicus. He went on to [[Peter Apian]] at the [[University of Ingolstadt]] and [[Joachim Camerarius]] at the [[University of Tübingen]], then to his hometown when Rheticus would present Gasser with an edition of Sacrobosco. From Feldkirch he set out on his journey to visit Copernicus in [[Frombork]].