For millennia, humankind has pondered its place on Earth and in the Universe. The earliest descriptions of the world are found in rituals rooted in beliefs and customs, which gradually evolved into religious dogma. 

One of the first to attempt a scientific explanation of the world was the eminent Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who was active in Egyptian Alexandria. According to his conception, the Earth occupied the center of the universe, with all celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—constantly revolving around it in perfect circles. To explain discrepancies between predicted and observed planetary positions arising from the ellipticity of their orbits, the ancients introduced additional, smaller imaginary circles. These epicycles, “attached” to the larger main orbits (deferents), traced the paths of the planets, Moon, and Sun. 

At that time, the true nature of the stars and other distant celestial objects was unknown. According to ancient belief, these stars were constantly held in place by mysterious or divine forces, such as angels. It was also assumed that the “sphere of fixed stars” was finite, and that beyond it lay the Kingdom of Heaven. More philosophical or literary descriptions of the nocturnal, starry sky spoke of an eternal, divine radiance, a divine brightness that pierces through small openings in the celestial sphere. 

During the Middle Ages, this concept of the cosmos was adopted by the Church as the primary model for describing the world, relegating alternative theories to the realm of heresy. This worldview endured for nearly 1,500 years and was precisely this vision of the universe that greeted Nicolaus Copernicus at his birth in Toruń in 1473. 

The great reformer of world astronomy was born on February 19, 1473, in Toruń, into a wealthy merchant family. His father, also named Nicholas, a native of Silesia, engaged in trade between Kraków, Toruń, and Gdańsk, and supported Poland in its war against the State of the Teutonic Order. His mother, Barbara Watzenrode, was the sister of Łukasz, who would later become Bishop of Warmia. 

Copernicus had three siblings: two older sisters—Barbara, who joined the Benedictine monastery in Chełmno, and Catherine, who married a Toruń merchant—and a brother, Andrew (most scholars believe Andrew was Nicolaus’s younger brother, though direct evidence is lacking). When the future canon of Warmia was ten, his father died, and the care of the siblings fell to their uncle, Łukasz Watzenrode. Thanks to his patronage and financial support, Nicolaus and Andrew began their studies in mathematics and the natural sciences at the Kraków Academy (1491–1495). 

From 1491 to 1495, Copernicus studied at the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the Kraków Academy—one of Europe’s leading centers for mathematical astronomy at the time. There, he learned geocentric astronomy, the principles of astrology, and how to use astronomical tables to calculate the positions of celestial bodies.  

He may also have conducted his first observations of the sky during this period, since the curriculum likely included instruction in using contemporary astronomical instruments. Among the lecturers he most likely encountered were renowned scholars such as Jan of Głogów (ca. 1445–1507) and Wojciech of Brudzew (1445/46–1495), whose lectures attracted students and scholars from across Central Europe. 

Watzenrode’s predecessor on the Warmian bishop’s throne, Nicholas Tungen (born in Toruń in 1447), began efforts to secure Copernicus’s uncle, Łukasz Watzenrode, as his successor. Bishop Tungen was a proponent of Warmia’s independence from both the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic State and sought to prevent King Casimir Jagiellon’s plans to appoint his son, the future Cardinal and Primate Frederick Jagiellon, as Bishop of Warmia. 

In the autumn of 1488, Łukasz Watzenrode traveled to Rome to seek papal approval as Tungen’s coadjutor, or successor. However, he did not receive the necessary papal document before Tungen’s death on February 14, 1489. The behind-the-scenes maneuvers of King Casimir Jagiellon’s envoys likely contributed to Watzenrode’s difficulties in securing the bishopric. 

Despite Rome’s lack of approval, the Warmia Chapter—also opposed to Prince Frederick’s candidacy—elected Watzenrode as bishop. As early as 1479, ten years before this election, the Chapter had signed an agreement with the Polish ruler, pledging to elect a bishop “pleasing to the king” in the future. To justify their choice, the canons of Frombork cited Watzenrode’s longstanding cooperation with the Primate of Poland and Lithuania, Archbishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Gniezno, and emphasized the Watzenrode family’s support for Poland during the Thirteen Years’ War against the State of the Teutonic Order. 

On May 8, 1489, Watzenrode’s election was approved by Pope Innocent VIII. Appointed by the Pope, the new Bishop—disguised as a wanderer, bookseller, and preacher—traveled across Europe to Frombork, where crossing the cathedral’s threshold fulfilled the final requirement for his episcopal consecration. After the death of Casimir Jagiellon, the new Duke of Warmia strengthened ties with King John Olbracht, paid him homage, and became an advisor to him and his successors, Alexander and Sigismund the Old. On May 6, 1499, he signed the act renewing the Polish-Lithuanian union in Kraków. He was also a signatory of the Piotrków-Mielnicki union in 1501, as well as the decree electing Alexander Jagiellon, King of Poland. It was thanks to Bishop Łukasz Watzenrode’s efforts that Nicolaus Copernicus was admitted to the Warmia Chapter in 1497, followed by his brother Andrzej. 

Bishop Łukasz Watzenrode sent his nephew Nicolaus to Italy for several years of study. From 1496 to 1500, the future founder of the heliocentric theory studied canon law at the University of Bologna. Yet it was astronomy—the queen of sciences—that most captivated the young Pole. In Bologna, he studied under Dominic Maria Novara. At Novara’s house at Via Galiera 65 (the contemporary address), Copernicus took up residence, and it was there that he made one of his first documented astronomical observations. On March 29, 1497, the two astronomers observed the occultation of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus by the Moon. This observation confirmed their serious doubts about the Moon’s motion in Ptolemy’s geocentric model. Copernicus had already concluded that this was one of the model’s gravest flaws: the observed data did not match the theory’s prediction that the Moon’s apparent diameter should increase several times, which no one had ever witnessed. During the Jubilee year, Copernicus also spent time in Rome, where some researchers believe he lectured and first voiced his doubts about the geocentric theory. 

In 1501, Copernicus briefly returned to Warmia. On August 28, 1501, he received permission from the Warmian chapter to pursue further studies—this time in medicine at the University of Padua—while continuing his legal studies. 

From 1501 to 1503, Copernicus studied medicine in Padua. Historians continue to debate where and when he began his medical studies and whether he completed his legal studies in Bologna or Padua. Most scholars agree that he earned his Master of Arts in Bologna and likely began medical studies there before continuing his education after moving to Padua in 1501. Although he did not receive a doctorate, he probably graduated with a bachelor’s degree. 

In Padua, Copernicus also studied Greek philology under Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, whose influence led him to translate the poems of Theophylact Simocatta from Greek into Latin—a work he later published in Kraków and presented to his uncle Łukasz Watzenrode in gratitude for years of support. On May 31, 1503, Copernicus successfully defended his doctorate in canon law at the University of Ferrara, after which he left the hospitable lands of the Po Valley forever. 

Nicolaus Copernicus became one of the sixteen canons of Warmia while still studying in Italy, in 1497—a position secured through the efforts of his uncle, Łukasz Watzenrode. This role provided lifelong material security, allowing Copernicus to pursue his passions for mathematics and astronomy. Upon returning from his studies in 1503, he devoted himself to the Warmian Chapter and Diocese, today part of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. 

He administered the chapter’s estates and, in 1520–1521, played a key role in organizing the defense of Olsztyn during the war with the State of the Teutonic Order. Copernicus was also approached by a papal envoy to assist with calendar reform, but declined, citing insufficient expertise in astronomy. 

Between 1517 and 1522, Copernicus authored successive versions of his treatise on coinage, observing that inferior money tends to drive out superior money—a principle now known as Copernicus-Gresham’s Law. He proposed methods to stop this process. In his surviving manuscript, he wrote: 

“Although there are an infinite number of plagues that usually cause the downfall of kingdoms, principalities, and republics, in my opinion the worst are four: discord, mortality, barrenness of the earth, and vile money.” 

On March 21, 1522, in Grudziądz, he presented another version of his treatise at the assembly of the estates of Royal Prussia. He called for monetary unification, the abolition of most coinage privileges, preservation of the shekel as currency, and maintenance of a fixed ratio between the shekel and the penny. Most of his proposals, however, were not adopted. 

In 2021, the Nicolaus Copernicus Foundation produced a dramatized documentary Secrets of Copernicus’ Economics (directed and written by Michał Juszczakiewicz and Robert Szaj), which, among other things, reconstructs the 1522 Assembly (Sejm) of Royal Prussia in Grudziądz. 

Copernicus also sought to regulate bread prices in Warmia, proposing a fair pricing system based on the value of wheat and rye, the weight of the bread, and taking into account the costs of labor, transportation, and flour quality. Like his treatise on coinage, Copernicus’s Olsztyn Bread Tax was never implemented. 

Nevertheless, it stands as a testament to his inquisitive mind and deep social conscience—a mind capable of grappling with the complexities of economics. 

All of Copernicus’s economic inquiries focused on the unification of currency value as well as weights and measures. Although the latter were standardized only at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, speculation on the value of money—which the Frombork astronomer vehemently opposed—remains common to this day. 

Paradoxically, Copernicus’s first published book had no connection to either astronomy or his work in the Warmian Chapter. His literary debut was a Latin translation from Greek of Theophylact Simocatta’s Letters on Customs, Idylls, and Love, published in Kraków in 1509. He dedicated it to his uncle, Łukasz Watzenrode, Bishop of Warmia, as a token of gratitude for his many years of support and guidance in shaping Copernicus’s life path. 

This didactic work by Simocatta, from the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries, consists of 85 short letters. One reads: 

“If nature had not mixed bitterness with the pleasures of love, then men would be enslaved to women. Do not become arrogant, woman! The fire of Aphrodite has died in me. The wounds dealt by Eros’s arrows are not eternal.” 

Among Copernicus’s closest friends was Tiedemann Giese (1480–1550), canon of Warmia from 1507 and, from 1538, bishop of Chełmno, who resided at Lubawa Castle. After Copernicus’s death, Giese was appointed bishop of Warmia. The astronomer gladly accepted Giese’s invitations and visited him in Lubawa, where he also provided medical assistance. The only surviving letter from Giese to Copernicus, dated July 15, 1540, expresses thanks for medical advice regarding his illness, presumably malaria. 

Giese and Copernicus also shared an interest in astronomy. The Bishop even installed in Lubawa a gnomon and an equatorial ring, an instrument used to determine the timing of the equinoxes. 

Nicolaus Copernicus visited Lubawa several times. In 1533, he received an invitation to the consecration of Jan Dantyszek as the new Bishop of Chełmno but did not attend the ceremony. A few years later, Dantyszek became Bishop of Warmia. In the spring of 1538, Copernicus was in Lidzbark Warmiński and cared for Dantyszek’s health as a doctor. He then received a letter requesting that he come to Lubawa to support his friend, Bishop Tiedemann Giese. After a brief stay in Lubawa and the bishop’s successful recovery, Copernicus returned to Frombork. 

A year later, in spring 1539, a young Lutheran mathematician named Georg Joachim Rheticus arrived in Frombork from Wittenberg, eager to learn about the Warmian canon’s heliocentric theory. Despite the generally hostile attitude of Lutherans toward the new theory—Martin Luther himself reportedly called Copernicus as “that fool who wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down”—Copernicus took the manuscript of his work from a locked chest and left Rheticus “alone” with his theory. After three weeks of study, an overwhelmed Rheticus fell seriously ill. To aid his recovery, the two scholars traveled in late June 1539 to Lubawa, to the powerful fortified castle that served as the residence of Bishop Tiedemann Giese. 

It was at Lubawa Castle, during these several weeks, that Copernicus—initially, as in previous years, reluctant to publish his theory—was ultimately persuaded to share his revolutionary work with the world. By the end of his stay in Lubawa, he finally consented to publication. “Rightly, in my opinion, noble men and lovers of mathematics will be deeply grateful to the reverend Lord Chełmiński for having given mankind this work,” wrote Joachim Rheticus in his Narratio Prima, referring to Copernicus and Bishop Giese. 

During their weeks-long stay (lasting until mid-September 1539), Nicolaus Copernicus and Georg Joachim Rheticus traveled throughout the Lubawa Land, then the most densely populated region of Prussia. Despite this, Rheticus remarked that he “found himself in the farthest corner of the Earth.” The bishop’s retinue and their guests likely visited Prątnica, Tuszewo, Łążyn, Szczepankowo, Hartowiec, Truszczyny, Zwiniarz, Hartowiec, and Rybno. Here, Copernicus could also hear the familiar Polish language, which had been spoken in these villages since at least the 14th century. 

The year 1539 brought the most momentous summer to Lubawa Land. Invited by Bishop Giese, Copernicus and the young mathematician from Wittenberg, Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514–1574)—Copernicus’s only student—spent it in Lubawa. It was then that the idea to popularize Copernicus’s theory through a book written by Rheticus was born. Thus emerged the famous Narratio Prima, or First Account of the books On the Revolutions by Nicolaus Copernicus, published in 1540 in Gdańsk. This brief treatise preceded the publication of De revolutionibus by three years and remains one of the most intriguing texts documenting the astronomer’s life and work. Indeed, it was through this work that the world first learned the details of the heliocentric theory proposed by the noble canon of Warmia. In 2015, the Nicolaus Copernicus Foundation, together with the Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw Press, published Rheticus’s work in two volumes. 

It is unknown when Nicolaus Copernicus discovered the true structure of the Solar System—whether it was in Kraków, during his stay in Italy, or already in Warmia. He first outlined heliocentric astronomy in a general way in a manuscript treatise Commentariolus, known in Polish as Zarys podstaw astronomii (Outline of the Foundations of Astronomy) or Komentarzyk (Commentary). We know this text must have been written before 1514, because a catalog of the library of the Kraków scholar Maciej of Miechów, compiled that year, lists: “A manuscript of six pages on the theory that the Earth moves, while the Sun remains stationary.” 

In Copernicus’s time, astronomy did not yet know the telescope. The sky was observed with the naked eye, aided by simple instruments. Copernicus constructed his own devices based on descriptions and knowledge from antiquity. He had a parallactic triangle, a solar quadrant, and a ring astrolabe. According to some researchers, he also conducted observations of solar eclipses using a camera obscura. 

None of these instruments have survived to the present day, but thanks to descriptions from Copernicus’s era, we know what they looked like. The only surviving instrument made by Copernicus—though heavily damaged—was sensationally discovered by archaeologists in the cloister of Olsztyn Castle. It is an astronomical table drawn on a vertical wall, presumably constructed using gnomonic reflection, which allowed the determination of the timing of the equinoxes. 

Nicolaus Copernicus conducted most of his observations in Frombork. Contrary to what is often shown in paintings and illustrations, he did not do so from a wooden porch on one of the fortress towers. Instead, he constructed a leveled brick platform in the garden of one of the canonries outside the perimeter of Frombork’s Cathedral Hill, known as the pavimentum. On this flat terrace, he set up astronomical instruments to observe the Sun, planets, and stars. 

The observatory was described by Tycho Brahe’s envoy, Elias Olsen Morsing. With permission from the Frombork canons, Morsing took Copernicus’s instruments to Denmark. Unfortunately, they were destroyed in a major fire at Brahe’s observatory on the island of Ven. 

For several decades, the pavimentum has been the focus of archaeological searches. The first excavations were conducted in the 1960s. In 2009, researchers once again searched for the lost observatory in the garden of St. Stanislaus’s canonry in Frombork (where Copernicus had lived), but the pavimentum was not found. 

In 2018, an intriguing theory was proposed by Michał Juszczakiewicz and Robert Szaj during the making of the documentary Secrets of Copernicus’ Astronomy, produced by the Nicolaus Copernicus Foundation. Work is currently underway to verify their hypothesis about a previously unconsidered location for Copernicus’s pavimentum. 

However, the core of Copernicus’s theory was not based on astronomical observations—of which few remain—but rather on his reflections on the harmony of the structure of the cosmos as it was then known. Copernicus surmised that geocentric astronomy described the construction of the world through a rather haphazard compilation of hypotheses. 

Copernicus sought the simplest solutions to logically explain the observed motions of celestial bodies and concluded that this condition was fulfilled by a system with the Sun, not the Earth, at its center. 

By moving the center of the Solar System from Earth to the Sun, he greatly simplified both the system itself and the calculation of celestial positions. With his profound mathematical knowledge, he described in detail the paths along which the planets travel around the Sun, as well as their sizes and locations in space. 

Copernicus hesitated for a long time before publishing his heliocentric theory. He finally decided to do so in 1539, following discussions with the Bishop of Chełmno, Tiedemann Giese, and his only pupil, Georg Joachim Rheticus, at Lubawa Castle. The manuscript, titled De revolutionibus… (“On the Revolutions”), left Frombork in September 1541. Rheticus delivered it to the well-known publishing house of Johannes Petreius in Nuremberg, which specialized in scientific works. Printing began in mid-1542 and was completed in spring 1543. In a letter to Rheticus, Bishop Giese wrote that Copernicus saw his work in its entirety on the very day he died—May 21, 1543. 

The work was published under the title De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, which Copernicus had not approved. The published text was preceded by an anonymous introduction, also unapproved by Copernicus, that stated the work was merely a useful theory for calculating planetary positions, for example in astrology. Some researchers speculate that upon seeing his book published in this form, the ailing astronomer may have suffered a stroke or heart attack that contributed to his imminent death. 

The first edition of Copernicus’s work did not provoke controversy within the Catholic Church. Instead, it was the Lutherans—led by Martin Luther, who publicly called Copernicus a fool—who became the principal opponents of the heliocentric theory. In 1559, the Church established the Index of Forbidden Books. Seven years later, in 1566, the second edition of De revolutionibus was published in Basel. 

On March 5, 1616, Copernicus’s work was added to the Index with a recommendation that appropriate corrections be made. That same year, Galileo Galilei underwent his first trial, during which Church “experts” declared absurd the claims that the Sun was stationary and the Earth moved around it. The following year, the third edition of De revolutionibus, under the title Astronomia instaurata, appeared in Amsterdam. 

In 1633, another trial of Galileo was held, once again condemning the Copernican heliocentric theory he supported. Galileo’s most important work, Dialogue, was added to the Index of Forbidden Books. In 1664, Pope Alexander VII, through his bull Speculatores domus Israel, condemned all works affirming the motion of the Earth. 

Almost a century later, in 1751, the progressive Pope Benedict XIV granted an imprimatur (permission) for the publication of Galileo’s Collected Works. In 1819, the final edition of the Index—including De revolutionibus and other works describing the heliocentric system—was issued. On September 11, 1822, the Cardinal Congregation of the Inquisition declared that “the printing and publication of works treating the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, according to the general opinion of contemporary astronomers, are permitted in Rome.” On September 25, 1822, Pope Pius VII officially approved the corresponding decree. However, it was not until six years later that De revolutionibus was officially removed from the Index. 

In 1854, the fourth edition of De revolutionibus appeared—the first to be published in a modern language (Polish). The translation was undertaken by Dr. Jan Baranowski, an astronomer and then-director of the Astronomical Observatory in Warsaw. 

This edition was unique for three reasons. First, it was issued simultaneously in both Latin and Polish, with the texts printed side-by-side on the same page within a single column. Second, it was published in the language of a country that had disappeared from the world map more than sixty years earlier. Third, the publication—which included many other documents related to the astronomer—was financed through a collection organized by the family of Władysław and Nina Łuszczewski among the Poles. 

It was in the Warsaw home of these intellectuals, under Russian rule, where Polish patriotic traditions were preserved, that funds were raised for the publication of Copernicus’s works. “With the combined efforts of all those we have the honor of presenting, we will ensure that the Polish translation of N. Copernicus’s writings makes them accessible to all his compatriots,” wrote the renowned poet and writer Deotyma (Jadwiga Łuszczewska), daughter of Nina and Władysław Łuszczewski, in her diary. 

After the first edition of Copernicus’s book was published in 1543, the manuscript was lost and only rediscovered nearly 200 years later in Prague. In 1953, the Czechoslovak government “lent” the manuscript to Poland, where it is now held in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków. In 1999, the manuscript of De revolutionibus was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. 

Our current view of the universe is owed to the discoveries of many outstanding scholars, astronomers, astrophysicists, physicists, and cosmologists. Yet, it is important to note that at the foundation of modern space research lies the widely accepted assumption that the Earth—together with its star, the Sun, situated on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy receding from others in an expanding universe—does not occupy a privileged position in the cosmos. 

Any observer orbiting another star, even in a different galaxy, would perceive the universe much the same way we do. In tribute to Nicolaus Copernicus and his groundbreaking discovery, this assumption is referred to in modern science as the Copernican Principle. 

The search for Copernicus’s burial place lasted more than 200 years. The first search was conducted by an expedition of the Warsaw Scientific Society in 1802, but it yielded no results. In February 1807, Napoleon ordered another search for the astronomer’s grave, which again ended in failure. Another attempt before World War II was made in the wrong location, and the coffins uncovered during the excavation were lost in Königsberg during the war. 

New insight into Copernicus’s burial site was provided by Dr. Jerzy Sikorski, a leading expert on the life and work of the great Pole. He demonstrated that earlier researchers had mistakenly identified the canon’s altar: after their deaths, members of the Warmia Chapter were buried near the altars they had served during their lifetimes. There were always sixteen canons in Frombork, and exactly that many altars beside the columns supporting the cathedral’s vault. Dr. Sikorski pointed out that the altars should be counted from the presbytery rather than from the main entrance. Thus, it was determined that the astronomer’s tomb should be near what is today the Altar of the Holy Cross.  

The search for the tomb was initiated by Bishop Dr. Jacek Jezierski and undertaken by a team led by Professor Jerzy Gąsowski from the Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology at the Aleksander Gieysztor Academy of Humanities. In 2005, the remains of a man aged about 60–70 were found in grave no. 13/05. The skull was preserved, though without the lower jaw, and only scattered bones remained from the skeleton. Anthropological research on the remains was conducted by Professor Karol Piasecki of the University of Szczecin. 

The skull was sent to the Central Forensic Laboratory of the Police Headquarters in Warsaw for facial reconstruction by Inspector Dariusz Zajdel. Zajdel was not informed whose face he was reconstructing, but the result strongly resembled known portraits of Copernicus. 

To definitively confirm the authenticity of the remains as those of Nicolaus Copernicus, DNA identification was required. This meant locating deceased or living relatives for genetic comparison. Neither Copernicus nor his younger brother Andrzej left any descendants. Professor Krzysztof Mikulski from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and his team tried to find maternal-line descendants of Copernicus. However, archival research ended with records from the 18th century, and no modern relatives could be found. 

A new lead regarding the discovery of Copernicus’s genetic material was suggested to Professor Jerzy Gąsowski’s team by the astronomer Professor Göran Henriksson from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University. The collection of the Polish astronomer, removed during the Swedish Deluge in the mid-17th century, is housed in the Uppsala University Library. Scientists consulted Professor Marie Allen, head of the Rudbeck Laboratory at the Department of Genetics and Pathology at Uppsala University, to attempt to locate Nicolaus Copernicus’s DNA within the holdings of his personal library. Genetic traces were sought on letters written by Copernicus, notes in the margins of his books, and on his handwritten sketches and drawings. Ultimately, in the book Calendarium Romanum magnum, ten hairs were found that could have come from the head of the Polish astronomer. Of these, two had an identical mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence to the one obtained from the bone found in grave 13/05 in Frombork. 

Some scientists have questioned certain aspects of the research carried out during the identification of Nicolaus Copernicus. The best way to fully resolve the doubts would be to locate the remains of Bishop Łukasz Watzenrode and compare his DNA with the genetic material obtained from the examination of Copernicus’s grave. The search for the Polish astronomer’s uncle has only just begun.