Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus 1473-1543

Analysis of a tomb in St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, commissioned by the Pope four years ago, using Carbon-14 and DNA analysis, enabled the announcement earlier this year that it does indeed contain the remains of St. Paul. Similarly, computer analysis has now verified the discovery of the long-lost body of Mikolaj Kopernik (1473-1543), popularly known as Nicolaus Copernicus, buried anonymously in the Polish cathedral of Frombork. DNA samples of a femur bone and a tooth matched the DNA of a strand of hair found in one of his books in a Swedish library. Digital reconstruction from his skull done in a crime lab reproduced his broken nose and a scar on the forehead.

Copernicus, son of a Polish father and German mother, was a priest and the temporary administrator of the diocese of Frauenburg. As a Renaissance man, he put Leonardo da Vinci in the shade, although painting seems to be the one art that did not claim him as a master. After studies in the universities of Krakow (where Pope John Paul II studied and taught), Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, he became a prominent jurist and mathematician and also practiced medicine for six years, donating his service to the poor. The polymath pioneered reform of the monetary system as it was developing in his day and did it so well that he was made an economic advisor to the government of Prussia. In what little spare time he had, he translated into Latin for posterity the Greek letters of Theophylactus.

He studied astronomy well enough to lecture in Rome on the planets, and shortly before his death he completed his heliocentric cosmology. This "Copernican Revolution" which overturned the Ptolemaic picture of Earth as the center of the universe, except for Manhattan of course, launched modern astronomy and greatly influenced Galileo who was born 21 years after the death of Copernicus. He was too careful a theologian to muddle astronomy with astrology as did Galileo, nor did he insist unscientifically that his theory was absolute fact, a mistake which got Galileo into trouble.

Father Copernicus seems to have been so self-effacing that he was not considered well-known enough for a marked grave. He did not change the world as Christ did, but he changed the way the world is understood. He stands in the line of such Catholic scientists as Pascal the mathematician, Lavoisier the father of modern chemistry, Schrodinger who discovered wave mechanics, Vesalius the anatomist, Fermi who began atomic physics, Malphigi who developed microscopic anatomy, von Neumann who theorized the modern computer, the childless monk Mendel who became the father of genetics, Pasteur whose germ theory saved countless lives, and Fleming whose penicillin probably saved more lives than any other discovery in history. The identification of the body of Copernicus is a fitting reminder of this great and continuing tradition.