The
Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae was an influential astronomy book on the
heliocentric system published by
Johannes Kepler in the period 1617 to 1621. It contained in particular the first version in print of his
third law of planetary motion. The work was intended as a textbook, and the first part was written by 1615. Divided into seven books, the
Epitome covers much of Kepler's earlier thinking, as well as his later positions on physics, metaphysics and archetypes. In Book IV he supported the
Copernican cosmology. Book V provided mathematics underpinning Kepler's views. Kepler wrote and published this work in parallel with his
Harmonices Mundi (1619), the last Books V to VII appearing in 1621.