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Wednesday, March 06, 2002

Marie (sometimes spelled Maria) Cunitz was born in 1610 in Silesia, now a province of Poland. At the time, Silesia was a war-torn state populated by Poles, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and others. In spite of this environment, Cunitz's father, a German doctor, provided her with an outstanding education. She was taught seven foreign languages, mathematics, medicine, astrology and astronomy.

Cunitz married a doctor from Silesia, Elias von Loven. Like her father, he recognized her abilities and encouraged her. Cunitz continued her scientific investigations but also added many other subjects to her studies, such as history, poetry, music and painting.

Her love for astronomy continued to grow and led her to work on translating and simplifying the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler's tables of planetary motion for wider distribution. However, before she had a chance to publish the translation, the Thirty Years War forced her and her husband to take shelter in a religious cloister for two years. In 1648, two years after the fighting had ceased, Cunitz finally published her translation.

With the publication of her work, Cunitz's fame as an intellectual grew. She was commended for correcting many of Kepler's errors. (Unfortunately, she had inadvertently added a few of her own.) Her translations gained such renown that she was called "Urania Propitia," meaning "she who is closest to the muse of astronomy." It was by her translations that many scholars gained access to Kepler's works, and for centuries, her translations were the only ones available.

Cunitz ultimately was honored by having a crater on the planet Venus named for her.

-- By Jennifer Cramer, intern, Henry Buhl, Jr. Planetarium & Observatory