WITH COPERNICUS’ BOOK
BETWEEN TWO CO-CAPITALS

-text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

It is known that he who changed
the human understanding about the Sun in the 16th century
was the Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543).

In fact he lived during the time of the long Polish-Lithuanian union
(a personal one since 1386, and a commonwealth in between 1569 and 1785),
which had two co-capitals, Krakow (south) and Vilnius (north),
until 1596 (when Warsaw became the unique Capital).

First I imagined that the road between the two cities
through an immense field zone
was terribly long (over 800 km) and boring
for those who lived in the 15th century,
and even for me it could be difficult,
although I had to follow it by bus (in July 2015).

But a surprising idea,
based on Copernicus’ fundamental book,
dispersed my anxiety.

Thus…

It is well-known that Nicolas Copernicus
conceived the heliocentric theory in the 1510s in Frombork (North Poland),
but it is too little known that his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
was published only in 1543 in Nurnberg (South Germany)
by his (German) pupil Rhaeticus.

Today the original manuscript of Copernicus
is kept by the Krakow University
(the place of his youth studies),
while a printed copy from that first series
is kept by the Vilnius University.

Through logic imagination,
I supposed that Rhaeticus left the manuscript in Krakow,
then he moved to Vilnius (where he lived for a while),
and he left there the printed copy…
so that I had to cover, after about 4.5 centuries,
the same road with Copernicus’ disciple,
lit by the heliocentric theory…

And the road became very pleasant,
richly embellished by the colors of nature…

A short halt
in a Polish romantic place…

Think of great Copernicus
And his pupil Rhaeticus
If you pass through the Polish-Lithuanian zone.

They corrected an error
Crowning the Sun as emperor
And putting him on our cosmic throne.