Who was Copernicus, Sir Thomas More, Artemesia Gentileschi, and Pope Leo X?
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Sir Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, and statesman. He is also recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church. During his life he gained a reputation as a leading Renaissance humanist, an opponent of the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther and for writing long treatises opposing William Tyndale and others who wished to see the Bible translated into the English language. For three years toward the end of his life he was Lord Chancellor. More coined the word “utopia” – a name he gave to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in Utopia, published in 1516. An important counsellor to Henry VIII of England, he was imprisoned, tried and executed for treason by beheading in 1535 after he had fallen out of favour with the king over his refusal to sign the
