Copernicus Missing from
Russian Academy of Sciences
Librarians at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg discovered February 3 that 23 rare books were missing from the stacks—including two original 1543 editions of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestrium (On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres). There are only 107 known copies in existence.
According to Deputy Director Irina Belyaeva, the insurance value of the two Copernicus books is estimated at $200,000. The other missing books were published in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are also considered extremely rare.
Library Director Valery Leonov stated at a press conference that the disappearance was noted “only after library employees heard the book was about to be sold by auction in the United States.” It is unclear when the theft occurred, since the last time any of them were requested by a reader was in November 1998. The February 4 St. Petersburg Times reported that local police believe the incident is connected to the thefts of other Copernicus volumes from libraries in Kiev, Ukraine, and Krakow, Poland, in 1998. They are also investigating the 10 library employees who have access to the special collections stacks.
Posted February 14, 2000.
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