The Sleepwalkers

  Unfortunately, the expected death of Canon Matthias de Launau, Precentor of the Frauenburg Cathedral, occurred ten days too early, on 21 September. Had he died in October, Bishop Lucas could have made Nicolas a Canon without further ado; but in all uneven months of the year the privilege of filling vacancies in the Ermland Chapter belonged not to the Bishop, but to the Pope. There were other candidates, and complicated intrigues for the prebend; Nicolas was defeated and complained about his misfortune in several letters which were still extant in the seventeenth century, but have vanished since.

  Two years later, however, a new vacancy occurred in the Chapter, this time conveniently in the month of August, and Nicolas Koppernigk was duly appointed a Canon of Frauenburg Cathedral; whereupon he promptly departed for Italy, to continue his studies. He drew his prebend, but he neither took Holy Orders, nor was his physical presence at Frauenburg required for the next fifteen years. During this period, the new Canon's name only appears twice on the Cathedral records: the first time in 1499, when his appointment was officially confirmed, the second time in 1501, when his original leave of absence of three years was extended by another three years. A Canonry in Ermland seems to have been, in the vulgar parlance of our century, a cushy job.

  From the age of twenty-two to thirty-two, the young Canon studied at the Universities of Bologna and Padua; added to his four years at Cracow, this makes altogether fourteen years spent at various universities. According to the Renaissance ideal of l'uomo universale, he studied a little of everything: Philosophy and Law, Mathematics and Medicine, Astronomy and Greek. He took his degree as a doctor of Canon Law at Ferrara in 1503, aged thirty. Apart from paying his immatriculation fees and taking his degree, he left no trace, either of distinction or scandal, on the records of his various universities.

  While the majority of the young men from Torun went for their preliminary studies to the German university of Leipzig, Koppernigk went to Polish Cracow; but at the next stage, in Bologna, he joined the German, not the Polish natio or student fraternity, whose list of new members enrolled in 1496 shows the name of "Nicolaus Kopperlingk de Thorn". The natio Germanorum was the most powerful in Bologna, both in the frequent street brawls and inside the alma mater. Its roster contained the names of many illustrious German scholars, among them Nicolas of Cusa. Uncle Lucas, too, had first studied in Cracow, and then joined the German natio in Bologna; and young Nicolas can hardly be blamed for following in his footsteps. Besides, nationalism by rigid ethnic divisions was still a plague of the future; thus beside the natio Germanorum there existed independent Swabian, Bavarian, etc. natios. Yet for the last four hundred years a bitter and silly feud has been raging between Polish and German scholars, both claiming Copernicus as a true son of their nation. 10 All one can say is, in the manner of Solomon, that his forebears came from the proverbially mixed stock of the border provinces between the Germanic and Slavonic peoples; that he lived in a contested territory; that the language he mostly wrote was Latin, the vernacular of his childhood German, while his political sympathies were on the side of the Polish King against the Teutonic Order, and on the side of his German Chapter against the Polish King; lastly, that his cultural background and heritage were neither German, nor Polish, but Latin and Greek.

  Another much discussed question was why, having completed his studies in Canon Law at the world-famous university of Padua, Copernicus chose to take his degree at the small and insignificant University at Ferrara, where he had never studied. The puzzle was solved only at the end of the last century, when an Italian scholar 11 unearthed the fact that around A.D. 1500, degrees could be obtained in Ferrara not only more easily, but also considerably cheaper. A newly promoted Doctor at Bologna or Padua was expected to provide lavish entertainment to celebrate the event; by slipping away from his teachers and friends to obscure Ferrara, Canon Nicolas, following the precedent set by some other members of the natio Germanorum, successfully avoided the burdens of hospitality.

  Copernicus' diploma reveals another interesting detail: that the candidate was not only a Canon of Frauenburg Cathedral, but also enjoyed a second absentee prebend as "Scholasticus of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross in Breslau". What rights and duties, apart from drawing a steady income, this impressive title entailed, the historians are unable to tell. It is doubtful whether Canon Koppernigk ever visited Breslau; one can only assume that he obtained this additional benefice through some Silesian business relation of his late father's, or the loving care of Uncle Lucas. He kept the matter characteristically secret throughout his life; neither in the records of the Frauenburg Chapter, nor in any other document, is Canon Koppernigk's second ecclesiastical function mentioned; it appears only in his promotion paper. It is not difficult to guess that on this particular occasion the candidate in Canon Law found it expedient to reveal his learned title.

  In between his studies in Bologna and Padua, he also spent a year in Rome – the jubilee year 1500. There, according to his disciple, Rheticus, Copernicus "being twenty-seven years of age, more or less, he lectured on mathematics before a large audience of students and a throng of great men and experts in this branch of knowledge." 12 This assertion, based on the Canon's scant remarks about his life to Boswell Rheticus, was eagerly taken up by subsequent biographers. Yet neither the records of the University, nor of any college, seminary or school in Rome mention lectures by Copernicus. It is now assumed that he may have given some casual talks, as travelling scholars and humanists usually did when visiting a centre of learning. The lectures, and his ten years' presence in Italy, left no echo or trace in the countless letters, diaries, chronicles or memoirs of that hyper-awake, garrulous and graphomane age, when Italy was like a floodlit stage over which no foreign scholar of any personality could pass without being noticed and recorded in one way or another.

  The only treat for the biographer, during these ten Italian years, is a letter which shows that on one occasion the Koppernigk brothers (for Andreas had joined Nicolas as a student in Bologna) ran out of money and had to borrow a hundred ducats. They were lent to them by their Chapter's representative in Rome, one Bernard Sculteti, and were refunded to the latter by Uncle Lucas. It is the only episode with a flicker of human interest in Canon Koppernigk's uneventful youth, and his starved biographers understandably tried to squeeze the last drop out of it. But Sculteti's letter to Bishop Lucas, which is the source of the story, merely reports the bare facts of the financial transaction – and adds that Andreas has threatened "to offer his services to Rome" 13 unless he could repay at once the debts which the brothers had contracted scholarium more, after the habit of students. By reporting Andreas' blackmailing threat and passing over Nicolas in silence, the diplomatic Sculteti (who later became Leo X's private chaplain and chamberlain) obviously meant to lay the blame for the affair on the elder brother; so that, whatever interest the episode contains, it primarily concerns Andreas, the rake.

  4. Brother Andreas

  Since he evidently exerted a strong and lasting influence on Nicolas, it will be of interest to know a little more about Andreas. Every single fact that has emerged about him confirms the contrast in character between the brothers. Andreas is the older one, but he immatriculates at Cracow University some time, and at Bologna two full years, later than Nicolas; and pays only part of the fee at Cracow, whereas Nicolas pays the full fee. Nicolas is made a Canon by Uncle Lucas in 1497; the older brother again two years later, in 1499. In 1501, both apply for a three-year extension of their leave of absence. Nicolas is readily granted his request: having promised to study medicine, it is hoped "that he will later on be useful to the revered head of the diocese and the Canons of the Chapter"; whereas at the same session, Andreas' request is granted with the dry motivation "because he is considered capable of continuing his studies."

  Everything seems to indicate that Andreas was the type of young man of whom, in the respectable world of small-town wholesale merchants, it is prophesied that he will come to an evil end. He did. At the
termination of their Italian studies, Andreas returned to Frauenburg infected with an incurable disease, which the records of the Chapter describe as lepra. This expression was, at the time, used on the Continent as loosely as "the pox" was in England, and may either have really meant leprosy, or, more likely, syphilis – which was ravaging Italy, whereas leprosy was on the decline.

  It made, in fact, very little difference whether Canon Andreas had leprosy or the syphilis, for both spread horror and disrepute. A couple of years after his return, Andreas' condition began to deteriorate rapidly, and he asked for leave to go back to Italy and seek treatment there. This was granted in 1508. Yet four years later, Andreas was back in Frauenburg, by now so repulsive in appearance that the terrified Chapter decided to get rid of him by every means. In September 1512, a meeting was held of the assembled Chapter, including brother Nicolas, which resolved to break off all personal relations with Canon Andreas; to ask him to account for the sum of twelve hundred Hungarian gold florins which had been confided to him for ecclesiastical purposes; to seize his prebend and all other revenues; and to grant him a small annuity on condition that he took himself off from their midst.

  Andreas refused to submit to this decision; he fought back simply by remaining in Frauenburg, and displaying his leprous countenance as a memento mori among his smug and pleasure-loving brethren in Christ. In the end they had to give in: the seizure was lifted, and a higher annuity granted to Andreas pending the final decision by the Apostolic See – always provided that "the mortally infected, contagious leper" left the town. Andreas accepted the settlement, yet he lingered on in Frauenburg for another two or three months, and put in at least two more stage-appearances at sessions of the Chapter to spite his colleagues, including beloved brother Nicolas. Then he went back to the congenial Rome he had first known under the rule of the Borgias.

  Yet even in his "mortally infected" state, he took an active part in the intrigues at the Papal Court concerning the succession at the Bishopric of Ermland; and it is a tribute to his remarkable character that, at one stage, when Sigismund of Poland felt moved to protest against the machinations of the Chapter, he addressed his letter not to its official delegates in Rome, but to the exiled and ostracized leper, Andreas. He died a few years later, under unknown circumstances, at an unknown date.

  Canon Nicolas never mentioned Andreas' illness, nor his scandalous life and death. All that Rheticus has to say on the subject is that the astronomer had "a brother called Andreas who had been acquainted with the famous mathematician Georg Hartman in Rome." 14 The later biographers were equally discreet on the subject of brother Andreas. Not until A.D. 1800 did one Johan Albrecht Kries mention the illness of Andreas in an obscure journal. 15 But he quickly repented; and three years later, when Kries edited an earlier Copernicus biography by Lichtenberg, he too kept quiet on the subject.

  Had the Koppernigks been born in Italy instead of a Prussian backwater, Andreas would have been a reckless condottière, and Uncle Lucas the autocratic ruler of a city state. Hemmed in between these two powerful and headstrong characters, bullied by the first, despised and disgraced by the second, Nicolas took refuge in secretiveness, caution, obliquity. The earliest engravings, and the later portraits of doubtful authenticity, all show a strong face with a weak expression: high cheekbones, wide-set dark eyes, square chin, sensuous lips; but the glance is uncertain and suspicious, the lips curve into a sour pout, the face is closed, on the defensive.

  It was toward the end of his Italian studies that the heliocentric system began to take shape in Nicolas' mind. The idea was, of course, not new, and it was much discussed in Italy at that time; I shall return to this point later on. Nicolas had taken an active interest in astronomy at an early stage of his Italian studies; it became the main solace of his frustrated life. When he became acquainted with the Aristarchian idea of the sun-centred universe, he grasped at it and never let go again. For thirty-six years, on his own testimony, he hugged his theory to his anxious heart, and only agreed, reluctantly, to divulge its secret on the doorstep of death.

  In 1506, at the age of thirty-three, Canon Koppernigk, Doctor of Canon Law, terminated his studies in Italy and returned home to Prussia. The next six years he spent with Uncle Lucas at Heilsberg Castle, the residence of the Bishops of Ermland.

  Thirteen years had gone by since he had been elected a Canon of Frauenburg Cathedral, and he had as yet neither exercised his functions, nor paid more than two fleeting visits to his Chapter. The new, indefinite leave of absence was granted on the official grounds that he should act as private physician to Uncle Lucas. In fact, the Bishop wanted his fidus Achates in constant attendance, and to the end of his life kept Nicolas at his court.

  However, the appointment of Nicolas as a house physician was not solely an official pretext. Though he never took his medical degree, he had studied medicine, as befitting in those days for a gentleman of the clergy, at the renowned University of Padua. One of his teachers had been the famed Marcus Antonius de la Torre, for whom Leonardo had drawn his anatomical studies of horses and men. Whether Nicolas had occasion to minister as a physician to Uncle Lucas, is not recorded; but later on he did treat Lucas' successors, Bishops Ferber and Dantiscus, for various ailments – partly in person, partly by mail; and he was summoned by Duke Albert of Prussia to attend one of his counsellors. In fact, Copernicus was far better known in Ermland as a physician than as an astronomer.

  The nature of his approach to medicine one can gather from the prescriptions he copied out from various text-books. It was as conservative as his approach to science in general; he believed as unquestioningly in the doctrines of Avicenna, as he believed in the physics of Aristotle, and in the epicycles of Ptolemy. One of the prescriptions which he copied out twice (once on the back cover of Euclid Elements of Geometry, and a second time on the margin of a surgical volume) contains the following ingredients: Armenian sponge, cinnamon, cedar wood, bloodroot, dittany, red sandalwood, ivory shavings, crocus (or saffron), spodumene, camomile in vinegar, lemon rind, pearls, emerald, red jacinth and sapphires; a deer's heart-bone or pulped heart, a beetle, the horn of a unicorn, red coral, gold, silver and sugar. 16 It was a typical prescription of the age, together with lizards boiled in olive oil and earthworms washed in wine, calf's gall and donkey's urine. But it was also the age which saw the rise of Paracelsus, Servetus and Vesalius, the overthrow of Avicenna and the medieval Arab school. There is a type of genius: Bacon and Leonardo, Kepler and Newton, who, as if they were charged with electricity, draw an original spark from any subject they touch, however remote from their proper field; Copernicus was not one of them.

  His main duties, however, during his six years at Heilsberg Castle were not of a medical, but of a diplomatic nature. Little Ermland, a border territory, was an object of constant friction, intrigues and wars – as the neighbouring Danzig was to be four hundred years later. The principal cities of Ermland were Frauenburg, the Cathedral town; Heilsberg, where the Bishop resided; and, further inland, Allenstein – each of them centred on a medieval castle on a hill, and fortified by wall and moat. It was the largest of the four Prussian dioceses, and the only one which, thanks to Bishop Lucas' astuteness, successfully maintained its independence both against the Teutonic Order and the Polish King. While, politically, he sided with the latter, Bishop Lucas never surrendered his autonomous rights, and ruled his remote territory in the grand style of a Renaissance Prince.

  A fifteenth century "Ordonance of the Castle of Heilsberg" 17 describes in minute detail the personnel of the Bishop's Court, their order of precedence, and the table etiquette. At the sound of the dinner bell, all the residents and guests have to wait at the doors of their apartments till the Bishop enters the paved court, announced by the baying of his hounds which are released at that moment. When the Bishop, with mitre, staff and purple gloves, appears in the court, a procession is formed which follows him into the Hall of Knights. The servants hand round wash-basins and towels, and after grace has been s
aid, the Bishop ascends the raised dais to the principal table, reserved for the highest ranking dignitaries and guests. There are altogether nine tables: the second is reserved for the higher, the third for the lower officials, the fourth for the principal servants, the fifth for feeding the poor, the sixth, seventh and eighth for the lower servants and the servants' servants, the ninth for the jugglers, jesters and mountebanks who entertain the company.

  It is not recorded to which of the tables Canon Nicolas was assigned; presumably to the second. He was now getting on to forty. His duties included accompanying Uncle Lucas on his journeys and diplomatic missions to Cracow and Torun, to the Prussian and Polish diets, to King Sigismund's Coronation and wedding; also the drafting of letters and political documents. He presumably assisted the Bishop with two of the latter's pet projects: to get rid of the Teutonic Knights by sending them on a crusade against the Turks, and to found a Prussian university at Elbing; both of which came to naught.

  Yet the pulse of time in Ermland was of a leisurely rhythm, and his duties left Canon. Koppernigk sufficient freedom to pursue his personal interests. Observing the sky was not one of them – during his six years at Heilsberg he did not record a single observation. But he was preparing two manuscripts: one a Latin translation, the other an outline of the Copernican system of the universe. The first he had printed, the second not.