Itinerarium Wittichi ex \textit{Calendarium Sculteti}: new biographical evidence on the Breslau mathematician Paul Wittich (ca. 1546--ca. 1587) (Q6604574)

In this paper, it is noted that Paul Wittich is ``one of the most mysterious characters in European astronomy from the second half of the 16th century''. An example of the use of a scientist's diary in biographical research, which illustrates ``the value of such sources in the area of history of science, and the history of astronomy in particular'', was applied to substantially complement information about Paul Wittich's life.\N\NOne can note author's abstract:\N\N``In the present paper, I present and discuss some new information about the life of Paul Wittich from Wrocław, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany), an elusive mathematician and astronomer of the late 16th century. Wittich seems to have played a significant role in the emergence of two important, though short-lived, developments of late 16th-century science: the so-called prosthaphaeresis calculating method, and the geoheliocentric model of the universe usually attributed to Tycho Brahe. His role in both achievements, however, has not been sufficiently explained so far, and it is my belief that one of the main obstacles to that endeavor has been our scarce knowledge about the details of Wittich's life. Thus, I attempt to reconstruct his life with aim of being able to evaluate, eventually, his involvement in the development of mathematics and astronomy towards the end of the 16th century, primarily with the use of whatever scant sources can be found concerning Wittich. The source that I present here --- a notebook of Bartholomäus Scultetus, an astronomer from Görlitz --- is known and has already been used, but only to a limited extent by the community of historians of science, or by those of astronomy and mathematics. By presenting the information about Wittich from Scultetus's notebook, I aim to bring this source to the attention of those communities, clarify some hitherto unclear details from Wittich's life, and set out new paths for further investigation into his biography.''\N\NThis paper contains the following sections:\N\N-- {Scultetus's calendar -- the source}.\N\N-- {Wittich's itinerary -- the excerpts}.\N\N-- {Wittich's itinerary -- comments}.