It was his book 'De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium' (or On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) which proved not only that he was terrible at book titles but also that the Earth orbited the Sun but he was canny about it all because he knew that if i had just come out and said: 'Hey what if the Earth is not the center of the Universe and actually goes around the Sun', the Church would have replied: 'Hey, what if we set you on fire and piss on you to put it out' so he delayed the publication until he was literally on his death bed, the book was printed on the day that he died.
Although he gets all the glory, the idea was first put forward by Aristarchus in about 300BC when he said the middle contained a great fire which the planets circled around but he was up against Aristotle and Ptolemy who said we were the middle and was ignored but he did get a moon crater named after him as well as an element, Copernicium.
Such was his concern that the Religious folk would batter him that he tried to get around it by dedicating his masterpiece to Pope Paul III but it didn't stop them criticizing him, to be honest i don't think they quite got the jist of it.
The main criticism was the theory wasn't compatible with the Bible because in Genesis 1:14, 'God places lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night' and the central location of the Sun was not compatible with it being described as one of the lights placed in the firmament.
Kinda missed the whole point really but then the Bible thumpers really did think that the whole Universe revolved around them.
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