On the 19th of February 1473, a child named Nicolaus was born in the city of Torun, a place embroiled in the Thirteen Years War between the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Order. His father, a merchant who dealt in copper, had moved from Krakow to Torun around 1458, and his mother, Barbara Watzenrode, came from a wealthy patrician family that had settled in the region after 1360. The political landscape was volatile, with the Teutonic Order challenging the traditional independence of Hanseatic cities like Torun and Danzig. Nicolaus's father actively supported Poland and the cities against the Teutonic Order, mediating negotiations and fighting in battles at Lessen and Marienburg. When Nicolaus was ten years old, his father died, leaving the family in a precarious position. His maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, a powerful bishop and statesman, took the boy under his wing. Watzenrode was a bitter opponent of the Teutonic Order, once called the devil incarnate by its Grand Master, and he used his influence to secure Nicolaus's education and future career. This early connection to the highest levels of political and ecclesiastical power set the stage for a life that would span the worlds of war, diplomacy, and science.
The Italian Journey
In the winter semester of 1491, Nicolaus matriculated at the University of Krakow, where he studied the Department of Arts and acquired a thorough grounding in mathematical astronomy. He learned from professors like Albert Brudzewski and Bernard of Biskupie, and his studies included arithmetic, geometry, and the philosophical writings of Aristotle. By 1495, he left Krakow for Italy, arriving in Bologna in the fall. There, he studied canon law but devoted more time to the humanities and astronomy. He met the famous astronomer Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara, becoming his disciple and assistant. On the 9th of March 1497, Copernicus conducted a memorable observation of the occultation of Aldebaran by the Moon, verifying observations from Ptolemy's theory. He spent the jubilee year of 1500 in Rome, delivering public lectures on astronomy and observing a lunar eclipse on the night of the 5th to the 6th of November. His studies continued at the University of Padua, where he studied medicine under leading professors like Bartolomeo da Montagnana and Girolamo Fracastoro. He also familiarized himself with Greek language and culture, expanding his studies of antiquity. By the 31st of May 1503, he had received his doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara, completing his extensive education in Italy before returning to Warmia.
The Canon And The Administrator
Returning to Warmia in 1503, Copernicus lived out the remaining 40 years of his life, serving as his uncle's secretary and physician. He resided in the Bishop's castle at Lidzbark, where he began work on his heliocentric theory. His official duties included participating in nearly all of his uncle's political, ecclesiastic, and administrative-economic tasks. He accompanied Watzenrode to sessions of the Royal Prussian diet held at Malbork and Elblag, and participated in the complex diplomatic game between the Teutonic Order and the Polish Crown. In 1512, he moved to Frombork, a town on the Vistula Lagoon, where he would reside to the end of his life. He conducted astronomical observations from 1513 to 1516, and from 1522 to 1543, using primitive instruments like the quadrant and triquetrum. He also took on administrative duties, including the role of magister pistoriae, administering the chapter's economic enterprises. During the Polish-Teutonic War of 1519 to 1521, he directed the defense of Olsztyn and Warmia by Royal Polish forces. He also represented the Polish side in the ensuing peace negotiations. His administrative and economic duties did not distract him from his observational activity, and he conducted over half of his more than 60 registered astronomical observations from Frombork.
While known for his astronomical work, Copernicus was also a significant figure in economics. For years, he advised the Royal Prussian sejmik on monetary reform, particularly in the 1520s when that was a major question in regional Prussian politics. In 1526, he wrote a study on the value of money, Monetae cudendae ratio. In it, he formulated an early iteration of the theory called Gresham's law, stating that bad coinage drives good coinage out of circulation, several decades before Thomas Gresham. He also, in 1517, set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in modern economics. His recommendations on monetary reform were widely read by leaders of both Prussia and Poland in their attempts to stabilize currency. He also wrote a manuscript, Locationes mansorum desertorum, with a view to populating deserted fiefs with industrious farmers and so bolstering the economy of Warmia. His work in economics was as rigorous and innovative as his work in astronomy, demonstrating his polymathic nature and his commitment to improving the practical affairs of his homeland.
The Silent Revolution
Before 1514, Copernicus wrote an initial outline of his heliocentric theory known as the Commentariolus, a succinct theoretical description of the world's heliocentric mechanism. It was not intended for printed distribution, and he made only a few manuscript copies available to his closest acquaintances. He continued gathering data for a more detailed work, and by 1532, he had basically completed his work on the manuscript of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing to risk the scorn to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses. In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter explained Copernicus's heliocentric system to Pope Clement VII and two cardinals, who were so pleased that they gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift. In 1535, Bernard Wapowski wrote a letter to a gentleman in Vienna, urging him to publish an almanac written by Copernicus, but nothing came of it because Wapowski died a couple of weeks later. The theory remained a secret among a small circle of scholars until the arrival of Georg Joachim Rheticus in 1539.
The Book And The Preacher
In 1539, Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork and became Copernicus's pupil, staying with him for two years. Rheticus wrote a book, Narratio prima, outlining the essence of Copernicus's theory. Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give De revolutionibus to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander. Osiander added an unauthorized and unsigned preface, defending Copernicus's work against those who might be offended by its novel hypotheses. He argued that different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion, and the astronomer will take as his first choice that hypothesis which is the easiest to grasp. The book was published in 1543, the year of Copernicus's death, and it contained six books detailing the heliocentric theory, including the general vision of the theory, the principles of spherical astronomy, and the motions of the planets.
The Death And The Discovery
Toward the close of 1542, Copernicus was seized with apoplexy and paralysis, and he died at age 70 on the 24th of May 1543. Legend has it that he was presented with the final printed pages of De revolutionibus on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work. He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and then died peacefully. He was buried in Frombork Cathedral, where a 1580 epitaph stood until being defaced. For over two centuries, archaeologists searched the cathedral in vain for Copernicus's remains. In 2004, a team led by Jerzy Gassowski began a new search, guided by the research of historian Jerzy Sikorski. In August 2005, they discovered what they believed to be Copernicus's remains. The discovery was announced on the 3rd of November 2008. Forensic expert Capt. Dariusz Zajdel used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features on a Copernicus self-portrait. The DNA from the bones found in the grave matched hair samples taken from a book owned by Copernicus which was kept at the library of the University of Uppsala in Sweden. On the 22nd of May 2010, Copernicus was given a second funeral in a Mass led by Jozef Kowalczyk, and his remains were reburied in the same spot in Frombork Cathedral.
The Theological War
The immediate result of the 1543 publication of Copernicus's book was only mild controversy. It was not until six decades after the publication that the Catholic Church took any official action against it, even the efforts of Tolosani going unhearing. The first notable to move against Copernicanism was the Magister of the Holy Palace, Dominican Bartolomeo Spina, who expressed a desire to stamp out the Copernican doctrine. But with Spina's death in 1546, his cause fell to his friend, the well-known theologian-astronomer, the Dominican Giovanni Maria Tolosani. Tolosani had written a treatise on reforming the calendar and had attended the Fifth Lateran Council. He had obtained a copy of De Revolutionibus in 1544, and his denunciation of Copernicanism was written a year later, in 1545. He argued that Copernicus had assumed the motion of the Earth but offered no physical theory whereby one would deduce this motion. He charged that Copernicus's thought process was backwards, and that he had come up with his idea and then sought phenomena that would support it. Martin Luther once made a remark about Copernicus, calling him that fool who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Philipp Melanchthon also took issue with Copernicanism, writing to Mithobius on the 16th of October 1541 condemning the theory and calling for it to be repressed by governmental force. The theological opposition continued for centuries, with the Roman Inquisition prohibiting Copernicus's work one year after Francesco Ingoli wrote a January 1616 essay to Galileo presenting more than twenty arguments against the Copernican theory.