| Copernicus (1473-1543) saw his treatise on the heliocentric model of the planetary system: "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" published in as late as 1543. A few years before that an extensive report on his work appeared, by his pupil Joachim Rhaeticus. It became known as: "Narratio prima". |
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Before he went to Italy, for a ten year stay, Copernicus studied painting, philosophy, medicine, mathematics and astronomy in Kraków. In 1505 he returned to Poland to settle in Frombork. | 
As usual on these pages all images represent hyperlinks.A nice French first day cover (125 kB) | 
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The Jagiellonian university of Kraków is one of the oldest on the world.
It was founded in 1364 (and reorganized in 1400 by Ladislass Jagiello, who gave it its name).
The Cracovian astrolabe
on the stamp on the right is of a much later date.
Notice the walls of the Wawel stronghold in the bend of the river.
It took about half a century before telescopical observations by
Galileo (and others)
decided in favor of Copernicus' heliocentric model over the Ptolemeic system [with the earth in the middle].
In the same period Johann Kepler
developped his even more superior model, based on the careful [naked eye!] astronomical observations of
Tycho Brahe ,
where each planet moves around the sun in a elliptical orbit and the sun is located in one of its two focal points.
In 1835 Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", published in 1632,
was finally removed from the Roman Catholic "Index". Already in 1705, Edmond Halley correctly predicted the return of the 1682 comet [first observed in 240 BC] near the end of 1758.
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On leaf 11 verso of Copernicus'autograph of the "De revolutionibus"
there is still a reference to Aristarchus (of Samos) who long before,
in the third century B.C., proposed a heliocentric model of the planetary system. He also used it to devise a simple model
to calculate the ratio of the distances of the earth to the moon and sun, respectively.
This part does not appear in the printed Nürnberg version from 1543, with Osiander's notorious preface. In 1616 the
"De revolutionibus" was put on the "Index". In 1617 a new version
[with explanations] appeared in Amsterdam.
| In recent years (1919-1954) the Cracow Astronomical Observatory flourished under the numerical mathematician [cracovian calculus, triangular factorization of matrices (1938!), inversion of partitioned matrices] and astronomer [first determination of the orbit of pluto, parabolic orbits]: |
