Nicolaus Comnenus Papadopoli

Nicolaus Comnenus Papadopoli ( Italian Niccolò Comneno Papadopoli , Greek Νικόλαος Κομνηνός Παπαδόπουλος Nikólaos Komninós Papadópoulos ; * January 6, 1655 in Crete ; † January 20, 1740 in Padua) was an Italian canon lawyer and historian.

life and work

His father was Giovanni Papadopoli, a notary public for the Republic of Venice in the island's capital Candia, now Heraklion (Ηράκλειο).

At the University of Padua he worked as a librarian and in 1726 published a two-volume work on its history under the title Historia Gymnasii Patavini . It attracted attention in various countries because of the prominent personalities mentioned in it, with Papadopoli ultimately becoming known for his mistakes: in England people were particularly interested in his anecdotes from the life of Oliver Cromwell . But since the (later) Lord Protector never stayed in Italy, Papadopolis must have been mistaken here or knowingly spread a falsehood.

Admission of a student to the '' Natio Germanica Bononiae '', the German natio at the University of Bologna , around the 15th century

In historical research in Germany and Poland, Papadopolis stated for a long time that Nicolaus Copernicus had enrolled at natio Polona to study medicine . After the middle of the 19th century, Baldassare Boncompagni and Antonio Favaro , among others, checked the old registers and found that at that time there was no Polish connection in Padua in which the future astronomer could have registered himself. Thus, the representation of Papadopolis as a Papadopoli forgery went down in the history of the Copernicus biographies. Carlo Malagola researched the documents of the University of Bologna and found that in 1496 a Nicolaus Kopperlingk de Thorn was recorded in the files of the Natio Germanica - which does not prove, however, where instead of the non-existent Natio Polona Kopernikus had actually matriculated in Padua. It was thanks to the Coppernicus biographer Leopold Prowe to bring the errors and correct evidence to the general public in Germany .

Papadopolis well-known work on canon law are the Prænotiones mystagogicæ ex jure canonico . In it he wrote about the validity or invalidity of marriages of orthodox priests, marriages entered into after ordination were forbidden, but still valid.

literature

Sir James Burrow: A few anecdotes and observations relating to Oliver Cromwell and his family. J. Worrall, London 1763. (Electronic reproduction: Thomson Gale, Farmington Hills, Mich. 2003. Google Book Search )
KE Von Moy de Sons, Fr. H. Vehring: Archives for Catholic Canon Law. Verlag Franz Kirchheim, Mainz 1863 ( Google Book Search )
Christian Pletzing: "German Culture" and "Polish Civilization" Historical images in West and East Prussia between Vormärz and Kulturkampf. In: Matthias Weber: Prussia in East Central Europe: History of events and history of understanding. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003, ISBN 3-486-56718-7 , pp. 189-204. .
Stefan Kirschner, Andreas Kühne: The reception of Copernicus in the mirror of his biographies. In: Rudolf Seising, Menso Folkerts, Ulf Hashagen (eds.): Form, number, order. Studies in the history of science. Festschrift for Ivo Schneider on his 65th birthday. (= Boethius. Volume 48). Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, pp. 467-479. ( Google book search )

Web links

Papadopoli's writings in the Opac des Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale
Standard entry in the Opac of the SBN
Prænotiones mystagogicæ ex jure canonico in the National Library of Florence

Individual evidence

^ Alfred Vincent: Comedy . In: David Holton (Ed.): Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete . Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 103–128, here: p. 103, note 2.
↑ As for the assertion that Copernicus was registered as a Pole at Padua, that was investigated, at the instance of Prince Boncompagni, by Favaro, and found utterly baseless. On the other hand, Carlo Malagola, in his admirable work on Urceo Codro showed that "Niccolo Kopperlingk di Thorn" had registered as a law student at Bologna in the album of the "Nazione Alemanna". This may not prove much, but it is, at least, not an invention. - Charles Sanders Peirce in The Nation magazine , October 5, 1893, in response to a letter to the editor on Was Copernicus a German? , Pp. 185-186: To the editor of The Nation: Sir, in your review of Mr. Oliver Lodge's book on the 'Pioneers of Science', I was quite surprised to read that the father of Copernicus - and Copernicus himself necessarily too - was believed to have been a German. I had always taken it for a well-established fact that Copernicus was a Pole by birth and nationality. Copernicus is merely a Latinized form of the original name Kopernik, which corresponds with it in sound; and Kopernik is not a German, but a Slavonic name. It is not Polish, but Bohemian, and in the light of documentary evidence the family of the Koperniks can really be traced back to Bohemian ancestry. The zemani (knights) of Kopernik were Bohemian noblemen whose name appears in the historical records of the fourteenth century, and has been preserved to this day in the name of the Bohemian village Kopernik, their former seat, situated between the cities of Kosmonosy and Bakov in northeastern Bohemia. In the records of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the name can no longer be found, but a clue to its disappearance may be found in the archives of the city of Cracow. Dr. Lodge says: "His father is believed to have been a German." True, this is the belief, and it is founded on an accurate knowledge of the genealogy of the family, which, for a family of merchants, was locally far from obscure . ... bears the figure of a man; so does the escutcheon of Copernicus. Copernicus went to study at a Polish University, Cracow, in preference to that of Leipzig, and when in Italy, at the University of Padua, he registered as a Pole and not as a German. - JJ Král, Chicago, Ill., September 18, 1893 " books.google.com . Reprinted in: Kenneth Laine Ketner, James E. Cook: Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to The Nation, Part One: 1869-1893. Texas Tech University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-89672-154-X . ( Online ).
↑ The fact was asserted by Papadopoli in 1726, and found a place in all subsequent biographies of Copernicus; but the decorative particulars added by the historian of the Patavian university having been shown wholly incorrect, it seemed unreasonable to rely on his discredited authority for the fundamental circumstance. - Sydney Smith and others: The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal . 1883, A. and C. Black ( online ).

personal data
SURNAME	Papadopoli, Nicolaus Comnenus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Papadopoli, Niccolò Comneno (Italian); Papadópoulos, Nikólaos Komninós; Παπαδόπουλος, Νικόλαος Κομνηνός (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian canon lawyer and historian of Greek origin
DATE OF BIRTH	January 6, 1655
PLACE OF BIRTH	Crete
DATE OF DEATH	January 20, 1740
Place of death	Padua

[1] Alfred Vincent: Comedy . In: David Holton (Ed.): Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete . Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 103–128, here: p. 103, note 2.

[2] As for the assertion that Copernicus was registered as a Pole at Padua, that was investigated, at the instance of Prince Boncompagni, by Favaro, and found utterly baseless. On the other hand, Carlo Malagola, in his admirable work on Urceo Codro showed that "Niccolo Kopperlingk di Thorn" had registered as a law student at Bologna in the album of the "Nazione Alemanna". This may not prove much, but it is, at least, not an invention. - Charles Sanders Peirce in The Nation magazine , October 5, 1893, in response to a letter to the editor on Was Copernicus a German? , Pp. 185-186: To the editor of The Nation: Sir, in your review of Mr. Oliver Lodge's book on the 'Pioneers of Science', I was quite surprised to read that the father of Copernicus - and Copernicus himself necessarily too - was believed to have been a German. I had always taken it for a well-established fact that Copernicus was a Pole by birth and nationality. Copernicus is merely a Latinized form of the original name Kopernik, which corresponds with it in sound; and Kopernik is not a German, but a Slavonic name. It is not Polish, but Bohemian, and in the light of documentary evidence the family of the Koperniks can really be traced back to Bohemian ancestry. The zemani (knights) of Kopernik were Bohemian noblemen whose name appears in the historical records of the fourteenth century, and has been preserved to this day in the name of the Bohemian village Kopernik, their former seat, situated between the cities of Kosmonosy and Bakov in northeastern Bohemia. In the records of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the name can no longer be found, but a clue to its disappearance may be found in the archives of the city of Cracow. Dr. Lodge says: "His father is believed to have been a German." True, this is the belief, and it is founded on an accurate knowledge of the genealogy of the family, which, for a family of merchants, was locally far from obscure . ... bears the figure of a man; so does the escutcheon of Copernicus. Copernicus went to study at a Polish University, Cracow, in preference to that of Leipzig, and when in Italy, at the University of Padua, he registered as a Pole and not as a German. - JJ Král, Chicago, Ill., September 18, 1893 " books.google.com . Reprinted in: Kenneth Laine Ketner, James E. Cook: Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to The Nation, Part One: 1869-1893. Texas Tech University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-89672-154-X . ( Online ).

[3] The fact was asserted by Papadopoli in 1726, and found a place in all subsequent biographies of Copernicus; but the decorative particulars added by the historian of the Patavian university having been shown wholly incorrect, it seemed unreasonable to rely on his discredited authority for the fundamental circumstance. - Sydney Smith and others: The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal . 1883, A. and C. Black ( online ).