Pavimentum - the lost observatory of Nicolaus Copernicus
The Frombork astronomer made his first documented astronomical observations in Italy, in early 1497. However, most of the sky observations that served the astronomer to confirm his mathematical investigations were conducted primarily in Frombork. He did not do so from the wooden porch of one of the towers of the fortress, as is often depicted in paintings, prints and images of the astronomer. Copernicus built a leveled brick platform in the garden of one of the canonries, outside the perimeter of Frombork’s Cathedral Hill, called a pavimentum. On this leveled terrace he set up astronomical instruments, which he used to conduct observations of the Sun, planets and stars.
The observatory was described by Tycho de Brahe’s envoy, Elias Olsen Morsing. The Danish astronomer’s envoy, with the permission of the Frombork canons, took Copernicus’ instruments to Denmark. However, they were destroyed at the Tycho de Brahe observatory on the island of Ven as a result of a huge fire.
For more than 100 years, the pavimentum has been the subject of searches carried out by various groups of archaeologists. The first explorations were carried out even before World War II, followed by others in the 1960s. In 2009, archaeological work was carried out by excavating the garden of the St. Stanislaus canonry in Frombork (were the astronomer used to live), but the pavimentum was not found.
In 2018, an interesting concept was put forward by Michal Juszczakiewicz and Robert Szaj during the making of the documentary film “Secrets of Copernicus’ astronomy” produced by the Nicolaus Copernicus Foundation. During the making of the film, archaeological GPR surveys were carried out in places where the researchers indicated the traces of pavimentum might be found. The surveys ruled them out as possible locations of the observatory remains. Work is currently underway to verify Juszczakiewicz and Szaj’s hypothesis of a different location of Nicolaus Copernicus’ pavimentum.
