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 Pythagoras's system involved a moving earth. The Pythagorean system was mentioned by Aristotle. Copernicus owned a copy of Giorgio Valla's "De expetendis et fugiendis rebus", which included a translation of Plutarch's reference to Aristarchus's heliostaticism. In Copernicus' dedication of "On the Revolutions" to Pope Paul III—which Copernicus hoped would dampen criticism of his heliocentric theory by "babblers... completely ignorant of [astronomy]"—the book's author wrote that, in rereading all of philosophy, in the pages of Cicero and Plutarch he had found references to those few thinkers who dared to move the Earth "against the traditional opinion of astronomers and almost against