More or less at the same time as Poggio Bracciolini discovered the manuscript of Lucretius, the heady atmosphere of Italian humanism and the enthusiasm for ancient texts also intoxicated a young Pole who had come to study in Italy, first at Bologna, then at Padua. He signed himself in the Latin manner: Nicolaus Copernicus. The young Copernicus studies Ptolemy’s Almagest and falls in love with it. He decides to spend his life doing astronomy, following in the footsteps of the great Ptolemy.
