De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
Copernicus' major work, "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" - "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" (first edition 1543 in Nuremberg, second edition 1566 in Basel), was a compendium of six books published during the year of his death, though he had arrived at his theory several decades earlier. The work marks the beginning of the shift away from a geocentric (and anthropocentric) universe with the Earth at its center.