Nicolaus Copernicus Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, and Sigismund I the Old. He was a friend and key advisor to each ruler, and his influence greatly strengthened the ties between Warmia and Poland proper. Watzenrode came to be considered the most powerful man in Warmia, and his wealth, connections and influence allowed him to secure Copernicus' education and career as a canon at Frombork Cathedral. Copernicus is postulated to have spoken Latin, German, and Polish with equal fluency; he also spoke Greek and Italian, and had some knowledge of Hebrew. The vast majority of Copernicus's extant writings are in Latin, the language of European
Nicolaus Copernicus first to react to news of Copernicus's theory. Melanchthon wrote: Nevertheless, in 1551, eight years after Copernicus's death, astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published, under the sponsorship of Copernicus's former military adversary, the Protestant Duke Albert, the "Prussian Tables", a set of astronomical tables based on Copernicus's work. Astronomers and astrologers quickly adopted it in place of its predecessors. Some time before 1514 Copernicus made available to friends his "Commentariolus" ("Little Commentary"), a manuscript describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis. It contained seven basic assumptions (detailed below). Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work. About 1532 Copernicus had