« ... Niklas Koppernigk was born in the city of Torùn (Thorn) situated on the Vistola river, where his father, a merchant, had reached a comfortable social position. 

Together with Prussia and Warmja (Ermland), Torùn had become a part of the Kingdom of Poland (1466), but was not yet annexed to the Polish territories. In 1491 Koppernigk, latinized his name to Copernicus and enrolled himself in the Krakow Academy. Here two schools of thought competed each other: one, gathered the "naturales" (cosmological physicists); the other, the "mathematicians" (astronomers that computed the positions of the celestial objects and, through the use of observations, controlled their positions). 

The "naturales" followed the theories of Aristotle and were supporters of the homocentric spheres system. The "mathematicians" were strict followers of Ptolemy’s Almagest and of the system that computed eccentrics and epicycles. Even if diverse, the two theories had some points in common: for both the Earth was the centre of the Universe and both professed the idea that the celestial motion was a circular uniform motion. 

The homocentric spheres system did not justify why planets appeared sometimes near and sometimes far away. The system of eccentrics and of epicycles, trying to explain the observational data in a way that could be accepted, had to develop precise hypotheses that could make up for the faults implicit in the system; faults that, otherwise, would have invalidated the system itself. 

Albert Brudzewo (Brudzewski) started him to astronomy, most probably through private lessons, as from 1490 Brudzewo’s public teachings were exclusively dedicated to lectures on Aristotle. 

In 1482 Albert wrote a commentary on Peurbach’s "Theoricae novae planetarum". This work was printed in Milan in 1495. In it he gave proof of his mathematical knowledge and of his flair to re-elaborate theories, reaching the same conclusions as those that originate from Ptolemy’s models.  

Lukasz Watzelrode, his maternal uncle, elected Bishop of Warmja in 1489, convinced him to complete his studies in Italy. In Bologna, where he signed into the "Natio Germanorum", he studied Greek and Plato quite intensely. Here he met the astronomer Domenico Maria Novara (1454-1504) "more as a friend, than just as a student", according to Rheticus. Novara was essentially an observer. Copernicus, as a witness, was himself pressed to do the same. The observation of Aldebaran (? Tauri) convinced him a new system was necessary to finally explain the phenomena. 

In 1497 Copernicus was named a canon at Frombork (Frauenberg), but prolonged his stay in Italy. In 1500, the year of the Jubilee, he was in Rome, where he probably gave lectures in mathematics. On 28 July 1501 the Chapter gave him the permission to complete his studies abroad. 

He reached Padua, where he studied medicine with Montagnana, G. Zerbi, Benedetti and Fracastoro. In such a stronghold of the theoris of Aristotle, he became friendly with Fracastoro, considered the founder of the modern epidemiology (54) and the point of contact between Aristotle and Plato. 

In 1503, he obtained a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara. He then returned to Warmja, where he became the secretary and the personal physician of his uncle, the Bishop. In his official capacity, he assisted his uncle in all the important audiences and assemblies of the Royal Prussian Estates. When his uncle died, he moved back to Frauenberg once again, recovering his former position. He also purchased a "tower" (turricola) on the north-western side of the walls of the fortress, using it for astronomical observations.  

He also became the Economic Administrator of the Chapter of Warmja, residing at Olsztyn (Allenstein). He promoted important initiatives trying to restore cultivation in abandoned lands; to allot grounds to the peasants of Mazuria; to reform coinage by restricting the minting of new coins and by regulating the relation of Prussian and Polish coinage, standardizing it all over the country. His is the formulation of the "Gresham’s law", according to which "bad" (debased) coinage drives "good" (un-debased) coinage out of circulation. He also was a highly appreciated physician and, during the epidemic of 1519, he offered his services to the people. 

When his territory became threatened, within the limits of his political authority, he opposed the knights of the Teutonic Order, appealing for aid to King Sigismund I and personally organizing the defense of the town. During this time he also carried out observations of eclipses or of planetary oppositions, so as to compute some orbits in a more accurate way. Observations, however, were not assiduous, maybe because the instruments, he had available, were rudimental and did not allow him to make new discoveries.  

It is not known how Copernicus developed his theories, reported in his work "De revolutionibus". We only know, he was pursuing a new theory, trying to overcome the conflict on celestial objects that reigned among mathematicians. After considering the systems of the epicycle, of the eccentric and of the anomalistic motions, he stated that something essential had been omitted.  

He found his starting point in Cicero, who reported that Nicaetus (Icaetus) thought the Earth moved, and in Plutarc (really, Pseudo-Plutarc), who deemed this theory trustworthy, while others considered it true already (55). 

Taking start from the "Placida Philosophorum" (56), describing the theories of Philolaus, Heraclides and Hecphantus, he began to worry about the Earth’s mobility. 

On this subject, in Book First he mentions, in a correct way, the description of Aetius, who stated, that Philolaus conceived the mobility of the Earth, of the Sun and of the Moon as a revolving motion about a central fire. Hence, he reported this theory, according to which the Earth is a planet among others, revolving about with a progressive motion made of multiple motions. 

He was well acquainted with Aristotle and Aetius, who both with great abundance of details spoke about this philosopher (Philolaus) and maybe, also, of Simplicius and of Thomas Aquinus. 

He was conscious he was disclosing a revolutionary theory that would upset traditional beliefs. This is why he often resumed the motivations of the ancient astronomers against the Earth’s rotation. 

Aristotle stated the four elements could only have an ascending or descending linear motion, while the circular motion was peculiar to the celestial objects. Ptolemy, on the contrary, stated it was impossible a rotation could take place within a period of twenty-four hours, as this would have caused the total disaggregation of the terrestrial body (57). 

Copernicus made his this theory as, with the use of it, he succeeded "to save the phenomena", as per the words and the will of the ancient people. 

In "De caelo" (58), Copernicus simplified Aristotle’s law concerning the linear motion of the elements and attributing this motion only to what was outside its natural location. He also abolished the diversity between celestial and terrestrial physics, asserting that the Earth’s motion was equivalent to the motion of the other planets, anticipating in such a way Newton’s future work. 

"De rivolutionibus orbium celestium" (On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres) was the first treatise that could really compete Ptolemy’s Almagest: formulating new theories in place of the old ones and devising new tables of the planetary motions. 

The treatise was completed in 1532. Soon after, Copernicus wrote, a summary in the form of a manuscript (Commentariolus) for some friends. The subject was also verbally lectured to Pope Clement VII. In 1536, Nikolaus Schonberg, Archbishop of Capua, entreated him to make his studies public, but Copernicus said he wished to maintain them secret, following the Pythagoras’s tradition. For sure, he was not mistaking, once, the unauthorized and unsigned preface, Osiander added to his work, was read. 

But his secret had a short life. Two years later Georg Joachim Lauschen (1516-1576), called Rethicus, a lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, called on him with the scope of becoming familiar with his discoveries. Enthusiast for these new theories, Rethicus completed a summary of them in 1540. This work named: "Narratio Prima" was printed first in Danzig and, some time later, in Basel. In such a way the theories of Copernicus started to circulate. 

Publication of the complete works of Copernicus should have been supervised by Rethicus, but suddenly, he became entrusted with new commitments and was compelled to leave this task to a Lutheran theologian, Osiander (Andreas Hosemann, 1498-1552) who, against Copernicus’s will, added the preface mentioned above, in which he explained that the task of an astronomer must not ascertain the truth or the verisimilar, but must simply try to offer hypotheses that "allow reliable computations able to exactly reproduce the observed motions". 

It remains to be seen, how much the well-known Lutheran theologian was trying to defend the work of Copernicus against those who could be offended by his novel hypothesis, or how much he was trying to save of the theories of Copernicus from the hostile Lutheran ideas. Throwing discredit and minimizing the importance of the work of Copernicus, he made safe the ideas of Luther, Zwingli and Melanchthon, strong objectors of all that was against the Bible’s teachings.  

The time, in which Copernicus lived, was a period of great studies, seething with novelties. Important cultural changes and numerous technical inventions developed contemporaneously, starting the so called "scientific revolution", the origin of modern science. 

This period, that marks its start from Copernicus’s epochal book "De revolutionibus", extends up to Isaac Newton’s works (59), lasting 144 years, during which deep changes took place. The revolution was, at first, mainly astronomical. Therefore, it is to the astral context, we owe a change in the quality of the world’s vision and of man’s existence.  

Once the Aristotelian - Thomist cosmology was superseded, the Earth was no more the centre of the Universe. The Sun now becomes the centre. Man’s image, that in the Middle Ages was the image of God, the supreme image, the centre round which everything revolved about and for which everything existed, is now emarginated. 

A sort of limitation, of conscious frailty, presses man to look at the Universe as to something infinite and endless, in the very same way as it was conceived by Campanella,. The privileged and unrivalled existence of man in the eyes of God becomes dubitable. 

Humanism and Renaissance, by rediscovering the " humanae litterae" and the classical world, crossed the borders and the limits of knowledge through curiosity, finally not a sinful curiosity. A curiosity that, in a stubbornly philological way, tried to approach:"veritas". 

The Earth is now a planet, same as all other planets. Religious and anthropological questions will distress the western culture, that was already doubtful about man’s dignity, after the geographical and ethnographical discoveries carried out in the late 15^th century. 

The status of the learned man changed. From that of a magician, an alchemist, a detainer of esoteric and secret knowledge to that of a scientist, of an observer and of a divulger. Knowledge was no more a matter restricted to few people, but became a popular affair, open to everybody and verifiable. Knowledge became an extraordinary democracy. Everybody enjoyed becoming part of it, even those outside academic circles. Only later, the academic context regained its role and, once again, granted an official character to man’s thought. 

Neo-Platonism is certainly a philosophy that supports the scientific revolution in a metaphysical way. Platonism, magic and hermetism, are blended together in it (60). 

The Italian cultural context which, at the time of Copernicus, was strongly Platonic and Neo-Platonic, influenced his vision of the world. Mathematics was the key that made it possible to read the Universe. Through it, man could finally seek the true and immutable features implicit in the order and in the symmetry of things which God created with geometrical precision and exactness. Copernicus gave birth to a novel Universe, following the secretive knowledge of the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines, maybe functional to a context into which Lutheranism certainly would have opposed a theory, suggesting that Earth moved, a motion that dissented from the Bible’s teachings. 

The Sun, as God, in accordance with a Neo-Platonic Theory, inherited from a hermetic context , is correctly placed in the centre of the Universe that moves around it. The heliocentric model, suggested and anticipated, as said before, by the ancient sages, is now capable to prove both the observations and the assumptions, either of philosophical and of religious nature. 

A tangible world with a geometrical structure, mathematically speaking, is mainly simple, harmonic and, therefore, also legible for the human mind. Man has the capacity to understand. Mathematics allow him to understand. Optimistically, trying to understand existence, man allows himself to change his exact place in the Universe and to accept infinity as a possibility.  

God becomes the centre of reality. Man becomes an observer convinced to have the knowledge of the divine construction. In this new role he does not lose his dignity, as feared. On the contrary, he ascends progressively to perfection. 

For sure, both the Catholic Church and the Protestant side, strongly contrasted these new ideas, but we are aware that Copernicus had been encouraged, at the beginning, by the Bishop of Capua, Counselor to Clement VII and Paul III. 

Furthermore, summaries of the theories of Copernicus (Commentariolus and Narratio Prima) had already been widely put into circulation at the time his book "De Revolutionibus" was under print. 

Maybe the author’s death avoided drags and trials, but it is well known that his theories, to which who followed made reference, opened a new chapter in the history of astronomy and science … »