Nicolaus Copernicus
"...what is there more beautiful than the heavens,
which after all, encompass everything that is beautiful?"
In 1439 Mikolaj Kopernik a ropemaker moved from Kleparz (a part of
Cracow)
to Lwow. He was a wealthy merchant with extensive trade
relations. In 1456
he left Cracow to settle in Torun as a full
fledged citizen of the town.
Some 172 Torun merchants were engaged
in overseas trading by the 14th
century. In the 15th century Torun
had some 10,000 inhabitants within its
walls and a somewhat larger
number beyond the town walls.
Sometime between 1458 and 1463 Mikolaj Kopernik senior married
Barbara
Watzenrode, daughter of Lukasz Watzenrode (a wealthy
Torunian patrician
and alderman) and his wife Katarzyna Modlibóg.
Like the Kopernik's, the
Watzenrode family originated from Silesia,
from the Swidnica region.
Mikolaj Kopernik and his wife lived in the house at 17 St. Anna
Street
(today known as Copernicus Street). This is where Nicolaus
was born as the
youngest child. He had an elder brother Andrzej and
two sisters Barbara and
Katarzyna. Mikolaj was born on February 19,
1473.
In 1480 his father sold the house on St. Anna Street and moved to
No. 36 on
the Market Square of the Old Town because his father had
become an alderman
and more appropriate lodgings had to be found.
His father died in 1483. In
subsequent years his mother received
financial assistance from her brother
Lukasz Watzenrode, who had
been Bishop of Warmia since 1489 and this
assistance made it
possible for both her sons to go away to study in Cracow
and in
Italy.
Copernicus received his first instruction in the parish school at
St.
John's Church in Torun and he later studied in a cathedral
school.
In 1482 Wojciech of Brudzew (Brudzewski) wrote a commentary of "New
Theories of Planets" by George Feuerbach which made a very deep
impression
on Copernicus. Wojciech of Brudzew had his own
observatory on Grodzka
Street.
Copernicus left Torun in the autumn of 1491 and went to study at
Cracow University which was founded on May 12,1364.
Cracow
University was a centre around which the
greatest Polish minds congregated. In the years 1470-1520 14,326 students
were enrolled. Copernicus studied law and philosophy, medicine, astronomy
and
mathematics.
In 1410 the burgher Jan Stobner founded the department of astronomy
and
mathematics at Cracow University. The tasks of a professor in
this
department included teaching arithmetic, Euclidean geometry,
geometrical
optics or perspective, music, theory of planets and the
Alphonsine tables,
theory of eclipses and preparing astronomical
calendars with forecasts.
Copernicus may have attended the following lectures:
1491 winter term Wojciech of Pniewy De Sphaera
1492 winter term Bartlomiej of Lipnica The Geometry of Euclid
1493 summer term Szymon of Sierpiec Planetary Theories
1493 summer term Bernard of Biskopiec Tables of Eclipses
1493 summer term Wojciech of Szamotuly Astrology
1493 winter term Michal of Wroclaw Tabulae Resolutae
1494-95 winter term Wojciech of Szamotuly The Tetrabiblion of
Ptolemy.
Jan of Glogow was also a Professor.
The school year lasted from October to September. The winter term
from
October 18th and the summer term from April 25th. Lectures
began at
8:00 a.m. and lasted until noon. The professor stood on a
platform and
delivered the lecture with students sitting around him on
benches and when
there were not enough benches to seat all the
students sat on the
straw-covered floor. In the afternoon the
lecture material was reviewed
under the guidance of teachers with
master's degrees.
After two years of study students graduated with a Bachelor's
degree, after
four years a master's. Then doctor of medicine,
decrees or of theology.
Then dozent and professor.
Education was based on lectures since books were few and rather
costly.
Copernicus had a few books of his own such as the "Elements
of Geometry"
by Euclid (published in 1482), Tabulae Directionum by
Regiomontanus (1490)
and Tabulae Astronomiae Alfonsi Regis (1492).
A fire in 1492 claimed many
of the books in the library. In 1494
Marcin Bylica bequeathed to Cracow
University his astronomical
instruments and his library.
Celestial observations were made on the roof of a one-storey house
with
the roof sloping towards the Collegium Maius. To get to the
roof one went
upstairs from the library and passed through the
living quarters above the
Common Room.
Copernicus studied at Cracow University for four years. He
graduated in the
autumn of 1495.
Copernicus left Cracow and travelled to Warmia since his uncle,
Bishop
Lukasz Watzenrode had called for him (wanted Copernicus to
be canon of
Frombork). In 1496 he sent Copernicus to Italy for
further studies.
Copernicus went to Bologna to study law. He spent
four years in
Bologna.
Copernicus and Professor Domenico Maria Novara-Anovaria (1454-1504)
observed the skies at the observatory of the Professor and they
made their
observations together. On March 9, 1497 they observed
the occultation of
Aldebaran. This was the first recorded
scientific observation of the skies
made by Copernicus.
Copernicus read the books he purchased in Bologna: "An Epitome of
Almagest"
(Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei) by George Feuerbach and
Johann Muller
Regiomontanus. Copernicus had come to study law but
instead he devoted
himself to astronomy and to the study of
Greek.
In 1500 Copernicus travelled to Rome. He observed the lunar eclipse
on
November 6, 1500. In May 1501 the Copernicus brothers Andrzej
and Nicolaus
left Rome and set north to Poland to Warmia and asked
permission to
continue his studies.
In the autumn of 1501 Copernicus started three years of medical
studies in
Padua. Copernicus must have taken his books on
astronomy
to the lectures on medicine for on the title page of the
Alphonsine
Tables he noted: "Very large worms appear immediately after
mild
rain".
Copernicus decided to present his doctor's thesis in nearby
Ferrara. He arrived in Ferrara towards the end
of May, 1503. The conferment of the doctoral
degree took place on May 31, 1503.
Copernicus then travelled back to Warmia where he became secretary
and
physician to his uncle Lukasz Watzenrode and at the same time
an
independent scholar and student of the stars.
Copernicus assisted his uncle
in all his work and accompanied him
on all his journeys.
Copernicus received the Warmia canonry on October 20, 1497 while he
was
still studying in Bologna and became the canon of Frombork.
Warmia is
situated in the northernmost part of Poland and is the
coldest lowlying
region in the country. The winters are long, the
summers short and rather
mild. The cold, northern blue of the
heavens is quite extraordinary, and
the skies assume a crystallike, fathomless depth. Each celestial body
glitters like a silver
nail hammered into the shimmering black velvet of
the night.
In 1507 he wrote his "Commentary on the Hypothesis of the Movement of
Celestial Orbs" which was the first outline of the heliocentric
theory in
theoretical terms without all the mathematics. He based
his deliberations
on the assumption that the Earth was in motion.
"The Earth... undergoes a
revolution over a period of 24 hours in
its unchangeable poles, and the
firmament, together with the
heavens, remains motionless". Also asserted
that there does not
exist any common centre for all the celestial circles
or spheres;
the centre of the Earth is not the centre of the universe,
but only
the centre of gravity and the centre of the Moon's path; all
the
planets revolve around the Sun, which is the centre of the
universe;
the ratio of the distance between the sun and the Earth
to the distance of
the firmament is less than the radius of the
Earth to the distance of the
Sun, so that it becomes insignificant
in the vastness of the heavens; the
Sun is motionless and
everything that appears to be the motion of the Sun
is in reality
due to the motion of the Earth and of our sphere, together
with
which we turn around the Sun; the apparent retrograde and direct
motion of the planets is due to the motion of the Earth.
The solutions were subsequently presented in the work "De
Revolutionibus".
The Commentariolus, which was a kind of preliminary sketch of a
planned
work, had not been intended for print by the author. The
text was known
only in manuscript copies which Copernicus most
likely made available to
friends. The Commentariolus did not appear
in an unabridged version until
1878.
Copernicus probably became interested in cartography about 1510.
The first
map of Warmia and the western borders of Royal Prussia is
attributed to him
. Also, in collaboration with Bernard Wapowski in
1526 made a map of the
Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania. In 1529 Copernicus
made a map that was a description of
the Prussian territories.
Throughout this period Copernicus continued his astronomical
observations.
On April 2, 1509 he observed an eclipse of the Moon.
This enabled
Copernicus to establish the correct value of the
average motion of the
Moon.
On October 1511 observed total eclipse of the Moon. In January of
the
following year he began his observations of the planets
starting with
Mars.
His uncle died on march 29, 1512 at the age of 65. After the death
of his
uncle Copernicus left Lidzbark and settled
permanently in Frombork.
At Frombork, Copernicus made astronomical
observations on the hill where the Cathedral
stood. At Frombork he wrote "De Revolutionibus". Overlooking Warmia is
a hill on which stands St. Mary's Cathedral. Local tradition has it that
Copernicus worked in this very tower when he made
his observations of the heavens and it was also Copernicus' living quarters
and where he had his laboratory. Or Copernicus' observatory could have
been a special place called the paviementum which was situated on the
ground, most probably in a flower or vegetable garden, next to
Copernicus' home outside the walls of the
Frombork stronghold.
Copernicus may have had a second observation point in the octagonal
turret in the southwest corner of the walls, for its flat roof may have
made it possible for astronomical instruments to be set up on it.
Sometime between 1512 and 1515 Copernicus built on his pavimentum a
wooden solar quadrant for his calculations and
observations.
Copernicus was in Olsztyn during the war with
the Order of Teutonic Knights. He returned from Olsztyn to Frombork in
1521.
In 1513 Copernicus was asked to take part in the work on the
calendar
reform and his observations carried out during those years
were connected
with his work on the reform of the Julian
calendar.
In his 1528 treatise "On the Method of Minting
Money" Copernicus
was the first to formulate the law stating that good
coins are driven out of circulation by baser ones, i.e. those with a
lower precious metal content. This law which was formulated by Copernicus,
is known by the name of Gresham's law, after the British financier who,
in the 16th century, after Copernicus, also formulated the principle
that bad money drives out good.
Copernicus began writing De Revolutionibus in
1515 in Frombork and
prepared the final version of Volume One around 1519.
In the
introduction, Copernicus included a eulogy of astronomy:
"Among the numerous and varied arts and sciences that arouse our
enthusiasm
and provide nourishment for the human intellect, one
should, on my opinion,
devote oneself to and zealously practise
above all those which revolve in
the circle of the most beautiful
and most worth knowing, and such are the
sciences which concern
themselves with the wonderful revolutions in the
Universe and the
motions of the stars, their dimensions and their distances,
their
rising and setting, and with the causes of all the other phenomena
in the heavens and which in the end elucidate the entire structure
of the
world. And what is more beautiful than the heavens which,
after all,
encompass everything that is beautiful? This is attested
by the very names
coelum (heaven) and mundus (world), of which the
former signifies
purity and grace and the latter, the opus of the
sculptor. And precisely
because of this exceptional beauty of the
heavens, many philosophers have
called them simply visible
divinity. Thus, if we are to assess the dignity
of the sciences
according to their object, the most notable of these would
then be
the one that some call astronomy, others astrology, and many
others
from older times called the pinnacle of mathematics. And this is
not surprising since this very science, which is at the head of the
liberal arts and is most worthy of a nobleminded person, is based
on
virtually all the branches of mathematics: arithmetic, geometry,
optics,
geodesy, mechanics and whatever others there may be yet,
all these combine
to make up this field. And inasmuch as the aim of
all noble sciences is
to draw man away from evil and to guide their
minds towards greater
perfection, then this of all the sciences
can, in addition to
unimaginable mental bliss, effect this in
fuller measure than the others."
Copernicus began the first volume of De
Revolutionibus with a deliberation on the shape of the world, stating
that "the Earth is,
without doubt, also spherical" although "the motion
of the celestial bodies is uniform and circular, unceasing, or is made
up of circular motion", nonetheless it appears to us as a nonuniform
motion "either owing to the different positions of the poles of those
circles, or because the Earth is not located at the very centre of the
circles on which the other planet revolve".
Further on Copernicus presented a hypothesis of universal
gravitation
and discussed the motions of the Earth and the changes
in the seasons
linked with its annual rotation. "In the centre of
all the stars and
planets the Sun has its abode." Further on he
wrote "it is clear then,
how these two motions, that is, the motion
of the centre of the Earth
and the motion of its inclination,
mutually intercepting one another,
force the Earth's axis to remain
constantly in the same direction and
in the same position and cause
everything to give the impression that
it is the Sun that is
rotating."
Even before Copernicus began writing De Revolutionibus he had
determined
the geographical latitude of Frombork. He had also
observed Spica and
noted the movement of the vernal equinox.
Establishing the precession
and the associated length of the
sidereal year enabled Copernicus to set
up a theory about the
apparent motion of the Sun. Copernicus also observed
the location
of the Sun at the moment of the autumnal equinox at the
centre of
Taurus and Leo. Copernicus also discovered that Frombork is
with
Cracow equally distant from the West and that it is situated on the
same meridian.
At Olsztyn Copernicus built an experimental table
in 1517 and
placed it on the wall of the gallery. The diagram on the
plaster of the wall was based on the principle
of a reflective sundial. On the inner wall of the gallery Copernicus
covered a large area with fresh plaster which he then carefully smoothed
out. On an area of 140 by 705 centimetres he first sketched out several
hyperbolic lines in graphite and then traced them out in paints. The hour
lines run together at the bottom of the chart, that is, opposite to the
way the would be on an ordinary, nonreflective sundial. Copernicus made
use of this table by the principle of reflecting solar rays from a mirror
mounted in the opening of a wooden frame on the windowsill.
On his letters Copernicus put a seal bearing a coatofarms. The
seal
depicts Apollo (god of the Sun and of Light and guardian of
the Muses)
playing on a lyre with a cloak thrown across his
shoulder.
The second volume of De Revolutionibus was dedicated to the
mathematical
theorems and calculations and volume three with its
outline of spherical
astronomy and catalogue of the fixed stars.
The further volumes were
devoted to a detailed theory of the
apparent and real motions of the Sun,
the Earth, the Moon, and the
Planets.
Copernicus proves that the orbits of the planets "are not perfect
circles
as the ancient mathematicians would have it", but that they
are
ovalshaped, though the difference is minimal.
Copernicus elucidated three kinds of astronomical phenomena which
required
that the Earth rotates, revolves around the Sun and the
precession of
the Earth's axis.
Copernicus most likely completed De Revolutionibus in 1530. The
pages of
the manuscript were dotted here and there with droplets of
wax from the
candle which provided Copernicus with flickering light
on those long
assiduous evenings. Sometimes an inkspot, indicating
that the hand of the
writer did not always shake excess ink off his pen before applying it to
paper.
News of the Copernican theories reached the Papal Court as early as
1533.
Publication was not to take place until 1543. The final years
of
Copernicus' life were darkened by the shadows of criticism cast
on his
views.
A fragment of Copernicus' work entitled "On the Sides and Angles of
Triangles" a work devoted to plane and spherical trigonometry was
published by George Joachim Rheticus in Wittenberg in 1542. The printing
of the entire work was transferred from Wittenberg to Nuremberg. It
appeared in print on or about March 21, 1543.
On May 24, 1543 Copernicus died in Frombork at the age of 70. He
died
from a blood haemorrhage and the consequent paralysis on his
right side,
having long before lost all memory and awareness of
mind, and he did not
see the completed work as a whole until the
very day of his death, as he
breathed his last.
Copernicus spent the last 30 years of his life at Frombork and he
was
interred within the walls of Frombork Cathedral. His ashes came to rest
beneath the floor of Frombork Cathedral.
In 1578-1580 Professor Walenty Fontanus using an instrument called
an
astrolabium acrum gave lectures explaining Copernicus' theory.
This was
the first time that the heliocentric system was introduced
into a
university department.
Copernicus stopped the Sun and moved the Earth.
The Nicolaus Copernicus monument in Warsaw
Copyright © 1997-2001 KLIWI Communications. All Rights
Reserved.
Sign My Guestbook
View My Guestbook
You are visitor number 
since
06/20/2000.