Nicolaus Copernicus business trips in today's Pomorskie Voivodeship led to Gdansk, Malbork, Sztum and Kwidzyn. In the article, we will focus on journeys that are confirmed in the Gdansk and Torun records and in state records.
Gdańsk, Mariacka Street, photo by Piotr Książek
Copernicus in Gdansk
During his stay in Gdansk, Copernicus participated in meetings with the leading representatives of the Gdansk burghers of that period — mayors and prominent councilors,
* January 21, 1504, Lukasz Watzenrode did not participate in the last day of the meeting (January 20, 1504 in Elblag). Due to the above, it is assumed that both he and Copernicus went to Gdansk, where on January 21 Watzenrode’s niece, Kordula nee Allen, married Reinhold Feldstedt, a banker and councilor of Gdansk.
* 25 May – 8 June 1504 Gdansk. The royal procession, and with it Lukasz Watzenrode, Bishop of Warmia, and Nicolaus Copernicus in Gdansk.
Aleksander Jagiellonczyk arrived in Gdansk “with clergy and secular lords” on May 25 (Registry Files); Watzenrode was booked accommodation with Reinhold Feldstedt. The bishop participated in the king’s confirmation of the city’s privileges. On June 2, 1504, a solemn homage to Alexander took place by all the townspeople at Dlugi Targ Street. The retinue, together with the king, visited the port of Gdansk and Wisloujscie, and took part in a number of further ceremonies in honor of the monarch.
* It is assumed that the visit took place in mid-July 1526, when King Sigismund I the Old, after suppressing the revolt of the Gdansk populace and commoners, entered the walls of the humiliated city on April 17 with a large retinue of secular and clerical dignitaries.
Among that group was also the Bishop of Warmia, Maurycy Ferber. During the king’s 3-month stay in the city, a congress of the Prussian estates was held there in mid-July. He also dealt with the issue of monetary reform, adopting a resolution in this respect on July 17, partly consistent with the postulates of Copernicus, and deviating from the project of the royal secretary Jost Ludwik Decjusz. On the following day, the Prussian council sent a letter from Gdansk to Decjusz, arguing with his views and quoting a number of arguments taken directly from Copernicus’s monetary treatises from the years 1519—1522.
* Jerzy Joachim Rheticus “Narratio Prima” (The first account of the books On the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus). This text was written in the summer of 1539 during the visit of both scholars to the Bishop of Chelmno, Tiedemann Giese, at the castle in Lubawa. In 1540, the work “The First Tale” (Narratio prima) by Jerzy Joachim Retyk was published in the Gdansk publishing house. Rheticus, with the consent of Copernicus, wrote a text summarizing and explaining everything contained in the main work. He gave his introduction to the heliocentric theory with the title Narratio prima (The First Story). Printing was undertaken by Franciszek Rhode’s publishing house in Gdansk.
Copernicus in Sztum
- koniec października 1506 roku, Łukasz Watzenrode, biskup warmiński, nocuje w Sztumie.
- 19 stycznia 1512 r. Łukasz Watzenrode, biskup warmiński, w drodze do Krakowa zatrzymuje się w Sztumie; obecni tu kanonicy Jerzy Delau i Mikołaj Kopernik.
Na zamku w Sztumie Watzenrode odbył rozmowy z przedstawicielami Gdańska, którzy go prosili o wstawiennictwo u króla. Gdańszczan przyjęli na schodach zamku kanonicy Jerzy Delau i Mikołaj Kopernik, wprowadzając ich następnie na salę. Zamek w Sztumie otrzymał Watzenrode od króla w 1509 r., jako najwyższy sędzia Prus Królewskich
Kopernik uczestniczył na zamku w Sztumie przy audiencji, której Watzenrode udzielił posłom gdańskim: burmistrzowi Maciejowi Ziimmermannowi i rajcy Łukaszowi Kedingowi — osobnikom, kierującym ówczesnym życiem politycznym Gdańska.
