Johann Jakob Vogel

Portrait of Copernicus

copperplate engraving

1683

Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus based on his epitaph effigy in SS Johns' church in Toruń and printed in Christoph Hartknoch's Alt und Neues Preussen, Frankfurt 1684. The print is a mirror image of the original source. Like the original though, the lower part of the picture features an intriguing sentence, an excerpt from an ode to the Passion of Christ by Pope Pius II in which the author compares the astronomer to a criminal crucified alongside Christ. The caption which labels Copernicus as a mathematician from Toruń must have been taken from the engraving by Theodorus de Bry printed in Boissard's Images.

Copernican Library in Toruń