Nicolas Copernicus / Mikołaj Kopernik (1473–1543)

Nicolas Copernicus (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik), astronomer, mathematician, lawyer, economist, strategist, physician, astrologist, translator of Italian poetry, Chancellor of the Chapter House of Warmia from 1511, a canon of Warmia, a scholasticist of Wrocław, and Catholic cleric. Born in Toruń, he first studied at Kraków Academy (1491–1495), and later in Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara, where in 1503 he was conferred a doctorate in canon law. Having returned to Poland, he became a resident of Lidzbark Warmiński as a physician and secretary to his uncle, Łukasz Watzenrode, the Prince–Bishop of Warmia. Kopernik developed the heliocentric model of the solar system, one of the most significant scientific revolutions since ancient times, frequently referred to as the Copernican Revolution. His most memorable work is De revolutionibus orbium coelestium – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, a copy of whose first print is kept in the Jagiellonian Library. Kraków’s monument to Mikołaj Kopernik stands in front of Collegium Witkowskiego of the Jagiellonian University.



Mikołaj Kopernik by Jan Matejko, painting from the collection of Jagiellonian University Museum in Kraków