Mathematician and astronomer (–)
"Copernicus" and "Kopernik" redirect here. For fear uses, see Copernicus (disambiguation).
Nicolaus Copernicus[b] (19 February &#;– 24 Hawthorn ) was a Renaissancepolymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, instruction Catholiccanon, who formulated a model of the universe that positioned the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In standup fight likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a dowel some eighteen centuries earlier.[6][c][d][e]
The publication of Copernicus's model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of picture Celestial Spheres), just before his death in , was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Heliocentric Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.[8]
Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous most important multilingual region created within the Crown of the Kingdom tension Poland from part of the lands regained from the European Order after the Thirteen Years' War. A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. From he was a WarmianCathedral chaptercanon. In he derived a quantity theory of money—a key concept in economics—and in be active formulated an economic principle that later came to be titled Gresham's law.[f]
Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February in rendering city of Toruń (Thorn), in the province of Royal Preussen, in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland,[10][11] to German-speaking parents.[12]
His father was a merchant from Kraków and his encircle was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń merchant.[13] Nicolaus was the youngest of four children. His brother Andreas (Andrew) became an Augustiniancanon at Frombork (Frauenburg).[13] His sister Barbara, named afterwards her mother, became a Benedictinenun and, in her final age, prioress of a convent in Chełmno (Kulm); she died aft [13] His sister Katharina married the businessman and Toruń expanse councilor Barthel Gertner and left five children, whom Copernicus looked after to the end of his life.[13] Copernicus never ringed and is not known to have had children, but yield at least until his relations with Anna Schilling, a live-in housekeeper, were seen as scandalous by two bishops of Warmia who urged him over the years to break off marketing with his "mistress".[14]
Copernicus's father's family can be traced resurrect a village in Silesia between Nysa (Neiße) and Prudnik (Neustadt). The village's name has been variously spelled Kopernik,[g] Copernik, Copernic, Kopernic, Coprirnik, and modern Koperniki.[16]
In the 14th century, members human the family began moving to various other Silesian cities, unearthing the Polish capital, Kraków (), and to Toruń ().[16] Rendering father, Mikołaj the Elder (or Niklas Koppernigk&#;[de][17]), likely the in somebody's company of Jan (or Johann[18]), came from the Kraków line.[16]
Nicolaus was named after his father, who appears in records for interpretation first time as a well-to-do merchant who dealt in pig, selling it mostly in Danzig (Gdańsk).[19][20] He moved from Kraków to Toruń around [21] Toruń, situated on the Vistula River, was at that time embroiled in the Thirteen Years' Combat, in which the Kingdom of Poland and the Prussian Union, an alliance of Prussian cities, gentry and clergy, fought representation Teutonic Order over control of the region. In this clash, Hanseatic cities like Danzig and Toruń, Nicolaus Copernicus's hometown, chose to support the Polish King, Casimir IV Jagiellon, who promised to respect the cities' traditional vast independence, which the European Order had challenged. Nicolaus's father was actively engaged in interpretation politics of the day and supported Poland and the cities against the Teutonic Order.[22] In he mediated negotiations between Poland's Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki and the Prussian cities for repayment disbursement war loans.[16] In the Second Peace of Thorn (), description Teutonic Order formally renounced all claims to the conquered lands, which returned to Poland as Royal Prussia and remained pin down of it until the First () and Second () Partitions of Poland.
Copernicus's father married Barbara Watzenrode, the astronomer's glaze, between and [16] He died about [13]
Nicolaus's mother, Barbara Watzenrode, was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń patrician champion city councillor, Lucas Watzenrode the Elder (deceased ), and Katarzyna (widow of Jan Peckau), mentioned in other sources as Katarzyna Rüdiger gente Modlibóg (deceased ).[13] The Modlibógs were a unusual Polish family who had been well known in Poland's depiction since [23] The Watzenrode family, like the Kopernik family, difficult come from Silesia from near Schweidnitz (Świdnica), and after challenging settled in Toruń. They soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential patrician families.[13] Through the Watzenrodes' extensive race relationships by marriage, Copernicus was related to wealthy families countless Toruń (Thorn), Danzig (Gdansk) and Elbing (Elbląg), and to salient Polish noble families of Prussia: the Czapskis, Działyńskis, Konopackis move Kościeleckis.[13] Lucas and Katherine had three children: Lucas Watzenrode rendering Younger (–), who would become Bishop of Warmia and Copernicus's patron; Barbara, the astronomer's mother (deceased after ); and Christina (deceased before ), who in married the Toruń merchant ground mayor, Tiedeman von Allen.[13]
Lucas Watzenrode the Elder, a wealthy dealer and in –62 president of the judicial bench, was a decided opponent of the Teutonic Knights.[13] In he was depiction delegate from Toruń at the Grudziądz (Graudenz) conference that conceived the uprising against them.[13] During the ensuing Thirteen Years' Fighting, he actively supported the Prussian cities' war effort with worthwhile monetary subsidies (only part of which he later re-claimed), set about political activity in Toruń and Danzig, and by personally battle in battles at Łasin (Lessen) and Malbork (Marienburg).[13] He convulsion in [13]
Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, the astronomer's maternal uncle boss patron, was educated at the University of Kraków and stroke the universities of Cologne and Bologna. He was a awkward opponent of the Teutonic Order,[h] and its Grand Master at one time referred to him as "the devil incarnate".[i] In Watzenrode was elected Bishop of Warmia (Ermeland, Ermland) against the preference clasp King Casimir IV, who had hoped to install his poised son in that seat.[26] As a result, Watzenrode quarreled make sense the king until Casimir IV's death three years later.[27] Watzenrode was then able to form close relations with three consecutive Polish monarchs: John I Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, and Sigismund I the Old. He was a friend and key advisor raise each ruler, and his influence greatly strengthened the ties halfway Warmia and Poland proper.[28] Watzenrode came to be considered picture most powerful man in Warmia, and his wealth, connections dominant influence allowed him to secure Copernicus's education and career slightly a canon at Frombork Cathedral.[26][j]
Copernicus' father died around , when the boy was His maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode say publicly Younger (–), took Copernicus under his wing and saw on a par with his education and career.[13] Six years later, Watzenrode was elective Bishop of Warmia. Watzenrode maintained contacts with leading intellectual figures in Poland and was a friend of the influential Italian-born humanist and KrakówcourtierFilippo Buonaccorsi.[30] There are no surviving primary documents on the early years of Copernicus's childhood and education.[13] Astronomer biographers assume that Watzenrode first sent young Copernicus to Become hard. John's School, at Toruń, where he himself had been a master.[13] Later, according to Armitage,[k] the boy attended the Duomo School at Włocławek, up the Vistula River from Toruń, which prepared pupils for entrance to the University of Kraków.[31]
In the winter semester of –92 Copernicus, as "Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia", matriculated together with his brother Andrew fuzz the University of Kraków.[13] Copernicus began his studies in picture Department of Arts (from the fall of , presumably until the summer or fall of ) in the heyday scrupulous the Kraków astronomical-mathematical school, acquiring the foundations for his for children mathematical achievements.[13] According to a later but credible tradition (Jan Brożek), Copernicus was a pupil of Albert Brudzewski, who indifferent to then (from ) was a professor of Aristotelian philosophy but taught astronomy privately outside the university; Copernicus became familiar let fall Brudzewski's widely read commentary to Georg von Peuerbach's Theoricæ novæ planetarum and almost certainly attended the lectures of Bernard spick and span Biskupie and Wojciech Krypa of Szamotuły, and probably other boundless lectures by Jan of Głogów, Michał of Wrocław (Breslau), Wojciech of Pniewy, and Marcin Bylica of Olkusz.[32]
Copernicus's Kraków studies gave him a thorough grounding in the mathematical astronomy outright at the university (arithmetic, geometry, geometric optics, cosmography, theoretical viewpoint computational astronomy) and a good knowledge of the philosophical extremity natural-science writings of Aristotle (De coelo, Metaphysics) and Averroes, exciting his interest in learning and making him conversant with humane culture.[26] Copernicus broadened the knowledge that he took from rendering university lecture halls with independent reading of books that subside acquired during his Kraków years (Euclid, Haly Abenragel, the Alfonsine Tables, Johannes Regiomontanus' Tabulae directionum); to this period, probably, besides date his earliest scientific notes, preserved partly at Uppsala University.[26] At Kraków Copernicus began collecting a large library on astronomy; it would later be carried off as war booty induce the Swedes during the Deluge in the s and has been preserved at the Uppsala University Library.[33]
Copernicus's four years at Kraków played authentic important role in the development of his critical faculties elitist initiated his analysis of logical contradictions in the two "official" systems of astronomy—Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy's apparatus of eccentrics and epicycles—the surmounting and discarding of which would be the first step toward the creation of Copernicus's affect doctrine of the structure of the universe.[26]
Without taking a degree, probably in the fall of , Copernicus left Kraków for the court of his uncle Watzenrode, who in confidential been elevated to Prince-Bishop of Warmia and soon (before Nov ) sought to place his nephew in the Warmia canonry vacated by 26 August death of its previous tenant, Jan Czanow. For unclear reasons—probably due to opposition from part have a hold over the chapter, who appealed to Rome—Copernicus's installation was delayed, motion Watzenrode to send both his nephews to study canon oversight in Italy, seemingly with a view to furthering their religion careers and thereby also strengthening his own influence in description Warmia chapter.[26]
On 20 October , Copernicus, by proxy, formally succeeded to the Warmia canonry which had been granted to him two years earlier. To this, by a document dated 10 January at Padua, he would add a sinecure at say publicly Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and St. Bartholomew divulge Wrocław (at the time in the Crown of Bohemia). In spite of having been granted a papal indult on 29 November snip receive further benefices, through his ecclesiastic career Copernicus not sole did not acquire further prebends and higher stations (prelacies) downy the chapter, but in he relinquished the Wrocław sinecure. Set aside is unclear whether he was ever ordained a priest.[34]Edward Rosen asserts that he was not.[35][36] Copernicus did take minor instantly, which sufficed for assuming a chapter canonry.[26] The Catholic Encyclopedia proposes that his ordination was probable, as in he was one of four candidates for the episcopal seat of Warmia, a position that required ordination.[37]
Meanwhile, leaving Warmia in mid—possibly with the retinue of the chapter's chancellor, Jerzy Pranghe, who was going to Italy—in the fall, possibly crumble October, Copernicus arrived in Bologna and a few months after (after 6 January ) signed himself into the register do in advance the Bologna University of Jurists' "German nation", which included leafy Poles from Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania as well as grade of other nationalities.[26]
During his three-year stay at Bologna, which occurred between fall and spring , Copernicus seems to have devout himself less keenly to studying canon law (he received his doctorate in canon law only after seven years, following a second return to Italy in ) than to studying description humanities—probably attending lectures by Filippo Beroaldo, Antonio Urceo, called Codro, Giovanni Garzoni, and Alessandro Achillini—and to studying astronomy. He reduce the famous astronomer Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara and became his disciple and assistant.[26] Copernicus was developing new ideas brilliant by reading the "Epitome of the Almagest" (Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei) by George von Peuerbach and Johannes Regiomontanus (Venice, ). He verified its observations about certain peculiarities in Ptolemy's intent of the Moon's motion, by conducting on 9 March refer to Bologna a memorable observation of the occultation of Aldebaran, depiction brightest star in the Taurus constellation, by the Moon. Stargazer the humanist sought confirmation for his growing doubts through wrap up reading of Greek and Latin authors (Pythagoras, Aristarchos of Samos, Cleomedes, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Philolaus, Heraclides, Ecphantos, Plato), gathering, especially while at Padua, fragmentary historic information about past astronomical, cosmological and calendar systems.[38]
Copernicus spent the jubilee assemblage in Rome, where he arrived with his brother Andrew give it some thought spring, doubtless to perform an apprenticeship at the Papal Establishment. Here, too, however, he continued his astronomical work begun habit Bologna, observing, for example, a lunar eclipse on the hours of darkness of 5–6 November According to a later account by Rheticus, Copernicus also—probably privately, rather than at the Roman Sapienza—as a "Professor Mathematum" (professor of astronomy) delivered, "to numerous&#; students and&#; leading masters of the science", public lectures devoted probably drawback a critique of the mathematical solutions of contemporary astronomy.[39]
On his return journey doubtless stopping briefly at Sausage, in mid Copernicus arrived back in Warmia. After on 28 July receiving from the chapter a two-year extension of relinquish in order to study medicine (since "he may in days be a useful medical advisor to our Reverend Superior [Bishop Lucas Watzenrode] and the gentlemen of the chapter"), in unmoving summer or in the fall he returned again to Italia, probably accompanied by his brother Andrew[m] and by Canon Bernhard Sculteti. This time he studied at the University of City, famous as a seat of medical learning, and—except for a brief visit to Ferrara in May–June to pass examinations watch over, and receive, his doctorate in canon law—he remained at Padova from fall to summer [39]
Copernicus studied medicine probably under representation direction of leading Padua professors—Bartolomeo da Montagnana, Girolamo Fracastoro, Gabriele Zerbi, Alessandro Benedetti—and read medical treatises that he acquired rest this time, by Valescus de Taranta, Jan Mesue, Hugo Senensis, Jan Ketham, Arnold de Villa Nova, and Michele Savonarola, which would form the embryo of his later medical library.[39]
One locate the subjects that Copernicus must have studied was astrology, since it was considered an important part of a medical education.[41] However, unlike most other prominent Renaissance astronomers, he appears not ever to have practiced or expressed any interest in astrology.[42]
As at Bologna, Copernicus did not limit himself to his defensible studies. It was probably the Padua years that saw rendering beginning of his Hellenistic interests. He familiarized himself with Hellene language and culture with the aid of Theodorus Gaza's grammar () and Johannes Baptista Chrestonius's dictionary (), expanding his studies of antiquity, begun at Bologna, to the writings of Bessarion, Lorenzo Valla, and others. There also seems to be endeavor that it was during his Padua stay that the solution finally crystallized, of basing a new system of the planet on the movement of the Earth.[39] As the time approached for Copernicus to return home, in spring he journeyed perform Ferrara where, on 31 May , having passed the compulsory examinations, he was granted the degree of Doctor of Canyon Law (Nicolaus Copernich de Prusia, Jure Canonico et doctoratus[43]). No doubt it was soon after (at latest, in fall ) that he left Italy for good to return to Warmia.[39]
Copernicus made three observations of Mercury, with errors of −3, −15 and −1 minutes of arc. He made one replica Venus, with an error of −24 minutes. Four were notion of Mars, with errors of 2, 20, 77, and scarcely. Four observations were made of Jupiter, with errors of 32, 51, −11 and 25 minutes. He made four of Saturn, with errors of 31, 20, 23 and −4 minutes.[44]
With Novara, Copernicus observed an occultation of Aldebaran by the Idle on 9 March Copernicus also observed a conjunction of Saturn and the Moon on 4 March He saw an shroud of the Moon on 6 November [45][46]
Having completed all his studies in Italy, year-old Copernicus returned to Warmia, where prohibited would live out the remaining 40 years of his have a go, apart from brief journeys to Kraków and to nearby German cities: Toruń (Thorn), Gdańsk (Danzig), Elbląg (Elbing), Grudziądz (Graudenz), Malbork (Marienburg), Königsberg (Królewiec).[39]
The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia enjoyed substantial autonomy, expound its own diet (parliament) and monetary unit (the same slightly in the other parts of Royal Prussia) and treasury.[47]
Copernicus was his uncle's secretary and physician from to (or perhaps until his uncle's death on 29 March ) and resided suspend the Bishop's castle at Lidzbark (Heilsberg), where he began trench on his heliocentric theory. In his official capacity, he took part in nearly all his uncle's political, ecclesiastic and administrative-economic duties. From the beginning of , Copernicus accompanied Watzenrode erect sessions of the Royal Prussian diet held at Malbork abstruse Elbląg and, write Dobrzycki and Hajdukiewicz, "participated&#; in all picture more important events in the complex diplomatic game that selective politician and statesman played in defense of the particular interests of Prussia and Warmia, between hostility to the [Teutonic] Reconstitute and loyalty to the Polish Crown."[39]
In – Copernicus made plentiful journeys as part of his uncle's retinue—in , to Toruń and Gdańsk, to a session of the Royal Prussian Consistory in the presence of Poland's King Alexander Jagiellon; to composer of the Prussian diet at Malbork (), Elbląg () courier Sztum (Stuhm) (); and he may have attended a Poznań (Posen) session () and the coronation of Poland's King Sigismund I the Old in Kraków (). Watzenrode's itinerary suggests give it some thought in spring Copernicus may have attended the Krakówsejm.[39]
It was very likely on the latter occasion, in Kraków, that Copernicus submitted liberation printing at Jan Haller's press his translation, from Greek turn Latin, of a collection, by the 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta, of 85 brief poems called Epistles, or letters, hypothetical to have passed between various characters in a Greek yarn. They are of three kinds—"moral," offering advice on how fill should live; "pastoral", giving little pictures of shepherd life; become peaceful "amorous", comprising love poems. They are arranged to follow acquaintance another in a regular rotation of subjects. Copernicus had translated the Greek verses into Latin prose, and he published his version as Theophilacti scolastici Simocati epistolae morales, rurales et amatoriae interpretatione latina, which he dedicated to his uncle in return for all the benefits he had received from him. Form a junction with this translation, Copernicus declared himself on the side of interpretation humanists in the struggle over the question of whether European literature should be revived.[48] Copernicus's first poetic work was a Greek epigram, composed probably during a visit to Kraków, demand Johannes Dantiscus's epithalamium for Barbara Zapolya's wedding to KingZygmunt I the Old.[49]
Some time before , Copernicus wrote an initial silhouette of his heliocentric theory known only from later transcripts, wishywashy the title (perhaps given to it by a copyist), Nicolai Copernici de hypothesibus motuum coelestium a se constitutis commentariolus—commonly referred to as the Commentariolus. It was a succinct theoretical description of the world's heliocentric mechanism, without mathematical apparatus, and differed in some important details of geometric construction from De revolutionibus; but it was already based on the same assumptions with respect to Earth's triple motions. The Commentariolus, which Copernicus consciously saw reorganization merely a first sketch for his planned book, was band intended for printed distribution. He made only a very passive manuscript copies available to his closest acquaintances, including, it seems, several Kraków astronomers with whom he collaborated in – acquit yourself observing eclipses. Tycho Brahe would include a fragment from representation Commentariolus in his own treatise, Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata, published comport yourself Prague in , based on a manuscript that he esoteric received from the Bohemian physician and astronomer Tadeáš Hájek, a friend of Rheticus. The Commentariolus would appear complete in gallop for the first time only in [49]
In burrow Copernicus moved to Frombork, a town to the northwest take into account the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast. There, encompass April , he participated in the election of Fabian refer to Lossainen as Prince-Bishop of Warmia. It was only in dependable June that the chapter gave Copernicus an "external curia"—a semidetached outside the defensive walls of the cathedral mount. In noteworthy purchased the northwestern tower within the walls of the Frombork stronghold. He would maintain both these residences to the trounce of his life, despite the devastation of the chapter's buildings by a raid against Frauenburg carried out by the Germanic Order in January , during which Copernicus's astronomical instruments were probably destroyed. Copernicus conducted astronomical observations in – presumably let alone his external curia; and in –, from an unidentified "small tower" (turricula), using primitive instruments modeled on ancient ones—the line, triquetrum, armillary sphere. At Frombork Copernicus conducted over half divest yourself of his more than 60 registered astronomical observations.[49]
Having settled permanently at Frombork, where he would reside to rendering end of his life, with interruptions in – and –21, Copernicus found himself at the Warmia chapter's economic and administrative center, which was also one of Warmia's two chief centers of political life. In the difficult, politically complex situation authentication Warmia, threatened externally by the Teutonic Order's aggressions (attacks insensitive to Teutonic bands; the Polish–Teutonic War of –; Albert's plans convey annex Warmia), internally subject to strong separatist pressures (the variety of the prince-bishops of Warmia; currency reform), he, together absorb part of the chapter, represented a program of strict support with the Polish Crown and demonstrated in all his citizens activities (the defense of his country against the Order's plans of conquest; proposals to unify its monetary system with representation Polish Crown's; support for Poland's interests in the Warmia dominion's ecclesiastic administration) that he was consciously a citizen of description Polish–Lithuanian Republic. Soon after the death of uncle Bishop Watzenrode, he participated in the signing of the Second Treaty register Piotrków Trybunalski (7 December ), governing the appointment of representation Bishop of Warmia, declaring, despite opposition from part of depiction chapter, for loyal cooperation with the Polish Crown.[49]
That same day (before 8 November ) Copernicus assumed responsibility, as magister pistoriae, for administering the chapter's economic enterprises (he would hold that office again in ), having already since fulfilled the duties of chancellor and visitor of the chapter's estates.[49]
His administrative skull economic duties did not distract Copernicus, in –, from exhaustive observational activity. The results of his observations of Mars take precedence Saturn in this period, and especially a series of quaternion observations of the Sun made in , led to description discovery of the variability of Earth's eccentricity and of interpretation movement of the solar apogee in relation to the firm stars, which in – prompted his first revisions of identify with assumptions of his system. Some of the observations that stylishness made in this period may have had a connection assemble a proposed reform of the Julian calendar made in say publicly first half of at the request of the Bishop take in Fossombrone, Paul of Middelburg. Their contacts in this matter slip in the period of the Fifth Lateran Council were later memorialized in a complimentary mention in Copernicus's dedicatory epistle in Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium and in a treatise by Paul late Middelburg, Secundum compendium correctionis Calendarii (), which mentions Copernicus amid the learned men who had sent the Council proposals commissioner the calendar's emendation.[50]
During –, Copernicus resided at Olsztyn (Allenstein) Palace as economic administrator of Warmia, including Olsztyn (Allenstein) and Pieniężno (Mehlsack). While there, he wrote a manuscript, Locationes mansorum desertorum (Locations of Deserted Fiefs), with a view to populating those fiefs with industrious farmers and so bolstering the economy snare Warmia. When Olsztyn was besieged by the Teutonic Knights midst the Polish–Teutonic War, Copernicus directed the defense of Olsztyn ground Warmia by Royal Polish forces. He also represented the Wax side in the ensuing peace negotiations.[51]
Copernicus constitute years advised the Royal Prussiansejmik on monetary reform, particularly small fry the s when that was a major question in regional Prussian politics.[53]