Secondary sourcePainting

Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (Albertina Museum)

A later engraved portrait of Copernicus appearing on a printed book page with an accompanying verse.

A posthumous printed portrait of Copernicus paired with verse, showing his place in later books celebrating scholars.

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Engraved portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus in an oval frame, shown on a book page with a page number 52 in the corner. The man has curly hair and wears a fur-trimmed garment. Latin inscription 'NICOLAUS COPERNICUS' appears at the bottom, with a verse text block below and a catalogue number beneath the page. — Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus. The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria.

About this source

What it is

This engraved oval portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus is held by the Albertina Museum in Vienna. It appears on a numbered book page, with his name inscribed below the image and a block of verse text beneath it.

The portrait shows a man with curly hair wearing a fur-trimmed garment.

Why it matters

Like other later portraits, this image was created long after Copernicus lived, as part of a book honoring or explaining his scientific legacy. The accompanying verse suggests that such books combined image and poetic text to celebrate famous scholars for readers of the time.

Look closer

What might the verse beneath the portrait have said about Copernicus's achievements?
Why do you think books paired portraits with poems or written tributes?
How reliable do you think this image is as a record of what Copernicus actually looked like?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Nicolaus Copernicus on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Nicolaus Copernicus sources

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Title page of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, printed 1543 in Nuremberg by Johann Petreius. Large capitals read NICOLAI COPERNICI TORINENSIS, followed by the book title and an address to the reader in Latin. Handwritten ink marks read Bibliotheca and Univers, and a Greek motto appears below the text.

Book

Primary source

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

Nicolaus Copernicus · 1543

Engraved portrait print of Nicolaus Copernicus in an octagonal frame with stippled background. A man with wavy shoulder-length hair wears a fur-trimmed garment and holds a small armillary-style sphere. Caption reads NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, with publisher line Zwickau, bei Gebr. Schumann below.

Painting

Secondary source

Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (Schumann print)

Gebrüder Schumann

Scanned page from a 1543 printed book titled Nicolai Copernici, showing a diagram of concentric circles with the Sun at the center, labeled planetary orbits including Mercury, Venus, Earth (terra) with the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer sphere of fixed stars. Latin text surrounds the diagram.

Artifact

Primary source

Copernicus's Diagram of the Planetary System

Nicolaus Copernicus · 1543

Engraved oval portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, a man with wavy shoulder-length hair and a fur-collared garment, inside a decorative border with Latin inscriptions and dates, on a book page photographed on a dark background with a gray scale.

Painting

Secondary source

Engraved Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (Herzog August Library)

Unbekannt

Handwritten manuscript page on aged paper, titled 'Nicolai Copernici de hypothesibus motuum coelestium a se constitutis commentariolus', with a decorated initial M and several lines of Latin script in brown ink. Page number 34 appears at top right.

Document

Primary source

Commentariolus

Nicolaus Copernicus · by 1514

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