Nicolaus Copernicus pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was also a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money – a key concept in economics – and in 1519 he formulated an economic principle that later came to be called Gresham's law. Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in the city of Thorn (modern Toruń), in
Renaissance in Poland celebrated life and the position of country's noble, while Kochanowski wrote about the pleasures and beauty of life in the countryside, surrounded by nature. Literary forms varied, from ode, pastorals and sonnets to elegy, satire and romance. In applied sciences, scholars of the period include Jan Łaski ("John Lasco"), evangelical reformer, Maciej of Miechów ("Maciej Miechowita"), writer and university teacher, Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer known in Polish as Mikołaj Kopernik, Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki ("Laurentius Grimaldius Gosliscius"), political thinker and philosopher; Marcin Kromer, writer and geographer; Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, writer and philosopher; Piotr Skarga, Jesuit political reformer; Józef Struś, doctor, scientist, mayor