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 (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg ("Nürnberg"), Germany. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task of supervising the rest of the printing to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander. Osiander added an unauthorised and unsigned preface, defending Copernicus' work against those who might be offended by its novel hypotheses. He argued that "different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion [and therefore] the astronomer will take as his first choice that hypothesis which is