Renaissance in Poland late 18th century. The period of Polish Renaissance, supportive of intellectual pursuits, produced many outstanding artists and scientists. Among them were Nicolaus Copernicus who in his "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" presented the heliocentric theory of the universe, Maciej of Miechów, author of "Tractatus de duabus Sarmatis..." – the most accurate up to date geographical and ethnographical account of Eastern Europe; Bernard Wapowski, a cartographer whose maps of that region appeared in Ptolemy's "Geography"; Marcin Kromer who in his "De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum libri..." described both the history and geography of Poland; Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, a philosopher concerned with
Nicolaus Copernicus common in the period, the spellings of both the toponym and the surname vary greatly. Copernicus "was rather indifferent about orthography". During his childhood, about 1480, the name of his father (and thus of the future astronomer) was recorded in Thorn as "Niclas Koppernigk". At Kraków he signed himself, in Latin, "Nicolaus Nicolai de Torunia" (Nicolaus, son of Nicolaus, of Toruń). At Bologna, in 1496, he registered in the "Matricula Nobilissimi Germanorum Collegii, resp. Annales Clarissimae Nacionis Germanorum", of the "Natio Germanica Bononiae", as "Dominus Nicolaus Kopperlingk de Thorn – IX grosseti". At Padua he signed himself "Nicolaus Copernik", later