Johann(es) Petreius (Hans Peterlein, Petrejus, Petri; c. 1497, in Langendorf near Bad Kissingen – 18 March 1550, in Nuremberg) was a German printer in Nuremberg.
He studied at the University of Basel, receiving the Master of Arts in 1517. Two years later, he worked as a proofreader for his relative Adam Petri. He became a citizen of Nuremberg in 1523, where he began working as a printer by at least 1524, though his name is only officially entered into the records in 1526. After his death the company was run by Gabriel Hayn.[1]
About 800 publications by him are known, including works in theology, science, law and the classics. He also printed music, using Pierre Attaingnant's single-impression technique. Though the amount of music was small, it was distinguished by its high quality.[1]
His most famous work is the original edition of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium in 1543, after an initiative of Georg Joachim Rheticus and Tiedemann Giese.
The inclusion of a foreword anonymously written by the Lutheran philosopher Andreas Osiander, stating that the whole work is only a simple hypothesis and intended to facilitate computation, which contradicts the content of Copernicus' work, is a rather controversial feature of the edition by Petreius. Petreius had sent a copy to Hieronymus Schreiber, an astronomer from Nuremberg who died in 1547 in Paris, but left a note in the book about the authorship of Osiander. Via Michael Mästlin, the book came to Johannes Kepler, who uncovered Osiander's deed.[2][3]
