more than a century old, and, with Heidelberg,
Cologne, Erfurt, Leipsic, and Rostock, besides Greifswald and
Freiburg, founded about the middle of the fifteenth century, had
reached a high state of development, and contained larger numbers of
students, with few exceptions, than these same institutions have ever
had down to our own day. In most cases their charters were derived
from the pope; and most of the universities were actually recognized
as ecclesiastical institutions, in the sense that their officials held
ecclesiastical authority.

At this time--the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century--it was not unusual for students, in their
enthusiasm for learning, to attempt to exhaust nearly the whole round
of university studies. Medicine seems to have been a favorite subject
with scholars who were widely interested in knowledge for its own {28}
sake. Almost at the same time that Copernicus was studying in Italy,
the distinguished English Greek scholar, Linacre, was also engaged in
what would now be called post-graduate work at various Italian
universities, and in the household of Lorenzo the Magnificent at
Florence, with whose son--so much did Lorenzo think of him--he was
allowed to study Greek. Linacre (as will be seen more at length in the
sketch of his life in this volume), besides being the greatest Greek
scholar of his time, the friend later of More and Colet and Erasmus in
London, was also the greatest physician in England.

To those familiar with the times, it may be a source of surprise to
think of Copernicus, interested as we know him to have been in
literature and devoted so cordially to astronomy, yet taking up
medicine as a profession. He seems, however, to have been led to do so
by his distinguished teacher, Novara, who realized the talent of his
Polish pupil for mathematics and astronomy and yet felt that he should
have some profession in life. A century ago Coleridge, the English
writer, said that a literary man should have some other occupation.
Oliver Wendell Holmes improved upon this by adding: "And, as far as
possible, he should confine himself to the other occupation." Novara
seems to have realized that Copernicus might be under the necessity of
knowing how to do something else besides making astronomical
observations, in order to gain his living; and as medicine was {29}
satisfyingly scientific, the old teacher suggested his taking it up as
a profession. Copernicus made h