Nicolaus Copernicus Prussia also resisted the Polish crown's efforts for greater control over the region. "Encyclopædia Britannica", "Encyclopedia Americana", "The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia", "The Oxford World Encyclopedia", and "World Book Encyclopedia" refer to Copernicus as a "Polish astronomer". Sheila Rabin, writing in the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", describes Copernicus as a "child of a German family [who] was a subject of the Polish crown", while Manfred Weissenbacher writes that Copernicus's father was a Germanized Pole. There are additional arguments for Kopernik's Polish descent on his father's side. Kopernik's Y-DNA haplogroup, R1b L51, is found in southern Poland (in Silesia, where his father
Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God () is an oil painting by the Polish artist Jan Matejko, finished in 1873, depicting Nicolaus Copernicus observing the heavens from a balcony by a tower near the cathedral in Frombork (seen in the back). Currently the painting is in the collection of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, which purchased it from a private owner with money donated by the Polish public. The painting presently adorns the Aula of the Collegium Novum of the University. As with many other works, Matejko painted his artwork in 1872 as part