101243 | POLAND & FRANCE. Nicolaus Copernicus bronze Medal.

101243  |  POLAND & FRANCE. Mikołaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus) bronze Medal. Issued 1818. Series Numismatica Universalis Virorum Illustrium (41mm, 41.35 g, 12h). By Petit & Durand in Paris.

 

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, bust left / NATUS / TORUNII / IN PRUSSIA. / AN. M. CCCC. LXXIII. / OBIIT / AN. M. D. XLIII. in six lines. Edge: Plain.

 

Hutten-Czapski 3868. Gem Mint State. Rich brown surfaces, with a good deal of brilliance in the fields. Compare to a similar example in Warszawskie Centrum Numizmatyczne 67 (26 November 2016), lot 779, which realized a hammer of $312 [plus buyer's fee].

 

Born in the Kingdom of Poland in 1473, Mikołaj Kopernik would become one of the most important mathematicians and astronomers of the Renaissance, formulating his famous model that placed the sun—and not the earth—at the center of what was then considered the known universe. This heliocentrism was key to a greater understanding of astronomy and paved the way for further advances by figures such as Kepler and Galileo a century later.

 

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