Nicolaus Copernicus Monument, Toruń Nicolaus Copernicus Monument, Toruń The Nicolaus Copernicus Monument in the home town of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was erected in 1853 by a "monument committee" of the city's residents. King Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712–1786) intended to erect a monument at Copernicus' grave in Frauenburg (Frombork), but the grave could not be located. Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) lived in Thorn (Toruń), then in the Kingdom of Poland, for many years. In the late 18th century, Poland was partitioned and the city of Thorn passed to Prussia. From 1807 to 1813, the city was part of the Duchy of Warsaw,
Nicolaus Copernicus several Kraków astronomers with whom he collaborated in 1515–30 in observing eclipses. Tycho Brahe would include a fragment from the "Commentariolus" in his own treatise, "Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata", published in Prague in 1602, based on a manuscript that he had received from the Bohemian physician and astronomer Tadeáš Hájek, a friend of Rheticus. The "Commentariolus" would appear complete in print for the first time only in 1878. In 1510 or 1512 Copernicus moved to Frombork, a town to the northwest at the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast. There, in April 1512, he participated in the election of Fabian