Nicolaus Copernicus surviving primary documents on the early years of Copernicus's childhood and education. Copernicus biographers assume that Watzenrode first sent young Copernicus to St. John's School, at Toruń, where he himself had been a master. Later, according to Armitage, the boy attended the Cathedral School at Włocławek, up the Vistula River from Toruń, which prepared pupils for entrance to the University of Kraków, Watzenrode's alma mater in Poland's capital. In the winter semester of 1491–92 Copernicus, as "Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia", matriculated together with his brother Andrew at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University). Copernicus began his studies in the
Renaissance in Poland celebrated life and the position of country's noble, while Kochanowski wrote about the pleasures and beauty of life in the countryside, surrounded by nature. Literary forms varied, from ode, pastorals and sonnets to elegy, satire and romance. In applied sciences, scholars of the period include Jan Łaski ("John Lasco"), evangelical reformer, Maciej of Miechów ("Maciej Miechowita"), writer and university teacher, Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer known in Polish as Mikołaj Kopernik, Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki ("Laurentius Grimaldius Gosliscius"), political thinker and philosopher; Marcin Kromer, writer and geographer; Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, writer and philosopher; Piotr Skarga, Jesuit political reformer; Józef Struś, doctor, scientist, mayor