Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was a canon of Frauenburg cathedral in Polish Prussia, trained in law and medicine at Cracow, Bologna and Padua, who administered church estates, treated the poor, and in his spare time worked out that the earth turns and goes round the sun. He circulated a sketch of the theory around 1514 and published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres only in the year of his death, 1543, reportedly receiving the first copy on his deathbed. The book kept the circles and epicycles of Ptolemy and was little read; Kepler and Galileo made it a revolution.