Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), born Niklas Koppernigk in the Hanseatic city of Thorn, spoke German and Polish and learnt Greek, Latin and Italian. He was a canon of the Prussian prince-bishopric of Warmia (Warmia in Polish), which was under Polish patronage, as well as a doctor and astronomer. After the death of his father, his mother's brother, Lucas Watzenrode, Prince-Bishop of Warmia, provided for his support and education. From 1491 to 1494, Copernicus studied the seven liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) at the University of Krakow; in 1496, he began studying both laws at the University of Bologna. In 1501, he transferred to the University of Padua to study medicine, graduated with a doctorate in canon law in 1503 and became secretary and personal physician to his uncle in the bishop's residence at Heilsberg Castle. He was given a position in the cathedral chapter of Frauenburg (Frombork), of which he was chancellor from 1510. There he set up an observatory in a tower of the cathedral fortress in 1514. As administrator, he organised government affairs from 1516 to 1519 and developed a pioneering monetary theory in the negotiations on the reform of Prussian coinage. Copernicus lived at Olsztyn Castle during this time. An astronomical table painted on the plaster of the castle's cloister to calculate the equinoxes has been preserved to this day. After the destruction of Frauenburg in the so-called War of the Horsemen, Copernicus moved his residence to Olsztyn in 1520 and organised the defence of the city against the Knights of the Order. For his astronomical observations, he used the quadrant, trireme and armillary sphere. In 1542, ten years after completing his Latin manuscript, Copernicus gave his consent to the printing of his findings "On the Orbits of the Celestial Spheres" and, according to legend, it was only on the day of his death in 1543 that the last pages of his printed life's work were presented to him. Also known today as the Copernican world view, it describes the sun as the stationary centre of the universe around which the planets, including the earth, move. |
