Regiomontanus, called to Rome to work with…

Regiomontanus, called to Rome to work with Pope Sixtus IV on calendar reform, dies of unknown causes in Rome on July 6, 1476, a month after his fortieth birthday.

According to a rumor repeated by Gassendi in his Regiomontanus biography, he was assassinated by relatives of George of Trebizond whom he had criticized in his writings.

More likely he died in an epidemic raging in Rome at the time.

A prolific author, Regiomontanus was internationally famous in his lifetime.

Despite having completed only a quarter of what he had intended to write, he leaves a substantial body of work.

Nicolaus Copernicus' teacher, Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara, refers to Regiomontanus as having been his own teacher.

There is speculation that Regiomontanus had arrived at a theory of heliocentrism before he died; a manuscript shows particular attention to the heliocentric theory of the Pythagorean Aristarchus, mention was also given to the motion of the earth in a letter to a friend.