The Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs (1548)
Some will say that the ideas I put here are mad, so I dedicate this work to you, Pope Paul III, so that, as a lover of learning, you may protect it from enemies. The universe is clearly a sphere, as that is the most perfect shape. The earth is also a sphere, for we can see its shape shadowed in eclipses or infer it from the way a ship falls below the horizon. Until now it as been accepted that the earth is the centre of the universe. But why, then, do the planets seem to follow such odd paths through the sky, when it is obvious that their motion must the perfection of a circle? We can tell that the universe is very large, because stars seem always to be at the same angle to the earth, no matter where viewed from. The ancients thought the earth must be the centre because all heavy things fall towards centres, an earth is most heavy, and that the earth cannot be in motion for otherwise clouds would drift away as it spun. But if the air of the earth moves too, then clouds will hold their places. I follow ancient Martianus Capella, and think that the beautiful sun is at the centre, followed by the planets on their spheres, in order of the time they take to complete their circuit round it- Mercury, Venus, then the earth with its moon, Mars, Jupiter, saturn and then the fixed sphere of the distant stars. I declare also that the earth varies in the angle of its axis as it goes round the sun, which accounts for the differences of the seasons. There is no clearer way of understanding the apparent motions of the heavenly orbs
meaning that this model had good predictive power.
And again, the primary source of dissent on Copernicus, from the historical record, seems to be based on the "philosophical and logical absurdity of a moving earth" more so than based on the Sun being the center of the solar system.