Leopold Prowe

Leopold Friedrich Prowe (14 October 1821 - 26 September 1887) was a German historian and gymnasium instructor, born as the son of a town councillor of Thorn in West Prussia, the town where in 1473 German astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born. Prowe compiled a comprehensive German language biography of Copernicus, titled Nicolaus Coppernicus.[1]

Contents

Life

Prowe studied in Leipzig and Berlin and then returned home to become a teacher at the gymnasium of Thorn. In 1839, a local "monument committee" had been founded with the intention to erect a monument, which was created by Friedrich Tieck of Berlin, and erected posthumously in 1853. The activities then continued in a society for science and arts, called Coppernicus-Verein für Wissenschaft und Kunst zu Thorn, headed by Prowe for many years.

Work

Prowe researched the local archives of Copernicus' birthplace, as well as those of other towns in Prussia where the astronomer had worked and lived, especially Frauenburg. He also travelled to Krakau, then part of Austria,[2] to Italian cities, and to Upsala in Sweden, where documents and books owned by the German astronomer and scientist Copernicus had been abducted to in later wars. He published several reports, contributed to the celebration of the 400th anniversary in 1873, and to the Latin and German edition of de revolutionibus in 1879.

Prowe's two-volume biography of the astronomer, published in 1883 and 1884, consists of two volumes, the first (about 970 pages split in two books, before and after the year 1512) describes his life, the second volumes (over 500 pages) focuses on works of the astronomer, works falsely attributed to him, and other documents related to the life of the astronomer. Prowe also corrected the disinformation given by librarian Nicolaus Comnenus Papadopoli in 1726. Papadopoli was reporting the discovery of an inscription by Copernicus to a Natio Polonia, an alleged Polish students association in Padua, Italy. This alleged membership of Copernicus served as an argument to aggressive Polish nationalists in the 19th century, who wanted to rewrite history and create false impression that Copernicus was not a German but a Pole. Eventually, this disinformation was unveiled around 1880 by Carlo Malagola, who proved that instead Copernicus as a German had been inscripted to the German students association in Padua at that time.

Prowe's biography is still considered a masterwork:

Notes

  1. ^ With the spelling with pp used by the astronomer himself in most cases, especially in official documents. Based on over two dozen signatures of the astronomers, of which more than 74% use the spelling with two p, Prowe and Curtze came to the conclusion that the form Coppernicus is the best form to represent the chosen name of the astronomer (and the form Koppernick for his family). - Maximilian Curtze: Ueber die Orthographie des Namens Coppernicus., in the foreword to Nicolaus Coppernicus aus Thorn über die Kreisbewegungen der Weltkörper, 1879 de.wikisource.org
  2. ^ "Krakau, Austria"
  3. ^ Edward Rosen, "Copernicus' Attitude Toward the Common People, Journal of the History of Ideas, 32(April–June 1971)2: 281.[1]
  4. ^ Andreas Kühne, "Copernicanism" (translated from German by Andrea Katherina-Mayer), in Arne Hessenbruch, ed., Reader's Guide to the History of Science Taylor & Francis, 2000, p. 152. ISBN 9781884964299[2]

External links