Nicholas Copemicus(1473-1543)
That Nicholas Copernicus delayed until near death topublish
De revolutionibus
has been taken as a signthat he was well aware of the possible furor his workmight incite; certainly his preface to Pope Paul IIIanticipates many of the objections it raised. But hecould hardly have anticipated that he wouldeventually become one of the most famous people of all time on the basis of a book that comparatively fewhave actually read (and fewer still understood) in the450 years since it was first printed.Copernicus was bom into a well-to-do mercantilefamily in 1473, at Torun, Poland. After the death of his father, he was sponsored by his uncle, BishopWatzenrode, who sent him first to the University of Krakow, and then to study in Italy at the universitiesof Bologna, Padua and Ferrara. His concentrationsthere were law and medicine, but his lectures on thesubject at the University of Rome in 1501 alreadyevidenced his interest in astronomy. Returning toPoland, he spent the rest of his life as a church canonunder his uncle, though he also found time to practicemedicine and to write on monetary reform, not tomention his work as an astronomer.In 1514, Copernicus privately circulated an outline of his thesis on planetary motion, but actual publicationof
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On theRevolutions of the Heavenly Spheres)
containing hismathematical proofs did not occur until 1543, after asupporter named Rheticus had impatiently taken itupon himself to publish a brief description of the
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