Biography

Biography

Copernicus was born in 1473. When he was ten years old, his father, a wealthy businessman, copper trader, and respected citizen of Torun', died. Little is known of Copernicus' mother, Barbara Watzenrode, who appears to have predeceased her husband. Copernicus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, a church canon and later Prince-Bishop governor of the Archbishopric of Warmia, reared him and his three siblings after the death of his father. His uncle's position helped Copernicus in the pursuit of a career within the church, enabling him to devote time to his astronomy studies. Copernicus had a brother and two sisters:

• Andreas became a canon at Frombork


• Barbara became a Benedictine nun


• Katharina married Barthel Gertner, a businessman and city councillor

In 1491, Copernicus enrolled at the Cracow Academy (today the Jagiellonian University), where he probably first encountered astronomy, taught by his teacher, Albert Brudzewski. This science soon fascinated him, as shown by his books, which would later be carried off as war booty by the Swedes, during "The Deluge", to the Uppsala University Library. After four years at Cracow, followed by a brief stay back home at Torun', he went to Italy, where he studied law and medicine at the universities of Bologna and Padua. His bishop-uncle financed his education and wished for him to become a bishop as well. However, while studying canon and civil law at Ferrara, Copernicus met the famous astronomer, Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. Copernicus attended Novara's lectures and became his disciple and assistant. The first observations that Copernicus made in 1497, together with Novara, are recorded in Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

In 1497 Copernicus' uncle was ordained Bishop of Warmia, and Copernicus was named a canon at Frombork Cathedral, but he waited in Italy for the great Jubilee of 1500. Copernicus went to Rome, where he observed a lunar eclipse and gave some lectures in astronomy or mathematics.

He would thus have visited Frombork only in 1501. As soon as he arrived, he requested and obtained permission to return to Italy to complete his studies at Padua (with Guarico and Fracastoro) and at Ferrara (with Giovanni Bianchini), where in 1503 he received his doctorate in canon law. It has been surmised that it was in Padua that he encountered passages from Cicero and Plato about opinions of the ancients on the movement of the Earth, and formed the first intuition of his own future theory. It was in 1504 that Copernicus began collecting observations and ideas pertinent to his theory.

Having left Italy at the end of his studies, he came to live and work at Frombork. Some time before his return to Warmia, he had received a position at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross in Wroc?aw, Silesia, which he would resign a few years before his death. Through the rest of his life, he performed astronomical observations and calculations, but only as time permitted and never in a professional capacity.

Copernicus worked for years with the Royal Prussian Diet on monetary reform and published studies on the value of money; as governor of Warmia, he administered taxes and dealt out justice. It was at this time (beginning in 1519, the year of Thomas Gresham's birth) that Copernicus formulated one of the earliest iterations of the theory now known as "Gresham's Law." During these years, he also traveled extensively on government business and as a diplomat, on behalf of the Prince-Bishop of Warmia.

In 1514 he made his Commentariolus (Little Commentary) — a short handwritten text describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis — available to friends. Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work. During the war between the Teutonic Order and the Kingdom of Poland (1519–1524), Copernicus at the head of royal troops successfully defended Olsztyn, besieged by the forces of Albert of Brandenburg.

In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome, outlining Copernicus' theory. These lectures were heard with interest by several Catholic cardinals and Pope Clement VII.

By 1536, Copernicus' work was nearing its definitive form, and rumors about his theory had reached educated people all over Europe. From many parts of the continent, Copernicus was urged to publish.

In a letter dated Rome, 1 November 1536, the Archbishop of Capua Nikolaus Cardinal von Schönberg asked Copernicus to communicate his ideas more widely and requested a copy for himself:

"Therefore, learned man, without wishing to be inopportune, I beg you most emphatically to communicate your discovery to the learned world, and to send me as soon as possible your theories about the Universe, together with tables and whatever else you have pertaining to the subject."

It has been suggested that this letter may have made Copernicus leery of publication^{[citation needed]}, while others have suggested that it indicated that the Church wanted to ensure that his ideas were published^{[citation needed]}.

Despite urgings from many quarters, Copernicus delayed with the publication of his book — probably, in the main, from fear of criticism for his revolutionary work by the establishment. About this, historians of science Lindberg and Numbers say:

"If Copernicus had any genuine fear of publication, it was the reaction of scientists, not clerics, that worried him. Other churchmen before him — Nicole Oresme (a French bishop) in the fourteenth century and Nicolaus Cusanus (a German cardinal) in the fifteenth — had freely discussed the possible motion of the earth, and there was no reason to suppose that the reappearance of this idea in the sixteenth century would cause a religious stir."

Copernicus was still working on De revolutionibus (even if not convinced that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a great mathematician from Wittenberg, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became a pupil of Copernicus', staying with him for two years, during which he wrote a book, Narratio prima (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus' theory. In 1542, Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included in the second book of De revolutionibus). Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give the book to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Che?mno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg (Nürnberg).

Legend has it that the first printed copy of De revolutionibus was placed in Copernicus' hands on the very day he died, allowing him to take farewell of his opus vitae (life's work). He is reputed to have woken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and died peacefully.

Copernicus was buried in Frombork Cathedral. Archeologists had long searched vainly for his remains when, on November 3, 2005, it was announced that in August that year Copernicus' skull had been discovered.

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