Nicolaus Copernicus of his life. At the instance of Roger Boscovich, the Catholic Church's 1758 "Index of Prohibited Books" omitted the general prohibition of works defending heliocentrism, but retained the specific prohibitions of the original uncensored versions of "De revolutionibus" and Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems". Those prohibitions were finally dropped from the 1835 "Index". There has been discussion of Copernicus' nationality and of whether it is meaningful to ascribe to him a nationality in the modern sense. Nicolaus Copernicus was born and raised in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous and polyglot region of the Kingdom of Poland. He was
Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God Heliocentric model drawn on a large flat board (based on an illustration from "De revolutionibus") standing next to him. The exact location depicted by Matejko is fictional; modern scholars are still looking for the exact location of the Copernicus observatory, and agree that Matejko's portrayal was more of a "romantic vision". Whereas Matejko shows Copernicus on a tower, in reality his small observatory was probably set up at ground level, possibly in the gardens near his house. The main features of the composition include a symmetrical focal point with atmospheric perspective around the subject, a radial balance of light arranged