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
European science in the Middle Ages effect on European society: the facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. When the Renaissance moved to Northern Europe that science would be revived, by figures as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Descartes (though Descartes is often described as an early Enlightenment thinker, rather than a late Renaissance one). Byzantine science played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Italy, and also in the transmission of medieval Arabic knowledge to Renaissance Italy. Its rich historiographical tradition preserved ancient knowledge upon which splendid art,