The Sleepwalkers (58 page)

Everything
seems
to
indicate
that
Andreas
was
the
type
of
young
man
of
whom,
in
the
respectable
world
of
small-town
wholesale
merchants,
it
is
prophesied
that
he
will
come
to
an
evil
end.
He
did.
At
the
termination
of
their
Italian
studies,
Andreas
returned
to
Frauenburg
infected
with
an
incurable
disease,
which
the
records
of
the
Chapter
describe
as
lepra.
This
expression
was,
at
the
time,
used
on
the
Continent
as
loosely
as
"the
pox"
was
in
England,
and
may
either
have
really
meant
leprosy,
or,
more
likely,
syphilis
–
which
was
ravaging
Italy,
whereas
leprosy
was
on
the
decline.

It
made,
in
fact,
very
little
difference
whether
Canon
Andreas
had
leprosy
or
the
syphilis,
for
both
spread
horror
and
disrepute.
A
couple
of
years
after
his
return,
Andreas'
condition
began
to
deteriorate
rapidly,
and
he
asked
for
leave
to
go
back
to
Italy
and
seek
treatment
there.
This
was
granted
in
1508.
Yet
four
years
later,
Andreas
was
back
in
Frauenburg,
by
now
so
repulsive
in
appearance
that
the
terrified
Chapter
decided
to
get
rid
of
him
by
every
means.
In
September
1512,
a
meeting
was
held
of
the
assembled
Chapter,
including
brother
Nicolas,
which
resolved
to
break
off
all
personal
relations
with
Canon
Andreas;
to
ask
him
to
account
for
the
sum
of
twelve
hundred
Hungarian
gold
florins
which
had
been
confided
to
him
for
ecclesiastical
purposes;
to
seize
his
prebend
and
all
other
revenues;
and
to
grant
him
a
small
annuity
on
condition
that
he
took
himself
off
from
their
midst.

Andreas
refused
to
submit
to
this
decision;
he
fought
back
simply
by
remaining
in
Frauenburg,
and
displaying
his
leprous
countenance
as
a
memento
mori
among
his
smug
and
pleasure-loving
brethren
in
Christ.
In
the
end
they
had
to
give
in:
the
seizure
was
lifted,
and
a
higher
annuity
granted
to
Andreas
pending
the
final
decision
by
the
Apostolic
See
–
always
provided
that
"the
mortally
infected,
contagious
leper"
left
the
town.
Andreas
accepted
the
settlement,
yet
he
lingered
on
in
Frauenburg
for
another
two
or
three
months,
and
put
in
at
least
two
more
stage-appearances
at
sessions
of
the
Chapter
to
spite
his
colleagues,
including
beloved
brother
Nicolas.
Then
he
went
back
to
the
congenial
Rome
he
had
first
known
under
the
rule
of
the
Borgias.

Yet
even
in
his
"mortally
infected"
state,
he
took
an
active
part
in
the
intrigues
at
the
Papal
Court
concerning
the
succession
at
the
Bishopric
of
Ermland;
and
it
is
a
tribute
to
his
remarkable
character
that,
at
one
stage,
when
Sigismund
of
Poland
felt
moved
to
protest
against
the
machinations
of
the
Chapter,
he
addressed
his
letter
not
to
its
official
delegates
in
Rome,
but
to
the
exiled
and
ostracized
leper,
Andreas.
He
died
a
few
years
later,
under
unknown
circumstances,
at
an
unknown
date.

Canon
Nicolas
never
mentioned
Andreas'
illness,
nor
his
scandalous
life
and
death.
All
that
Rheticus
has
to
say
on
the
subject
is
that
the
astronomer
had
"a
brother
called
Andreas
who
had
been
acquainted
with
the
famous
mathematician
Georg
Hartman
in
Rome."
¹⁴
The
later
biographers
were
equally
discreet
on
the
subject
of
brother
Andreas.
Not
until
A.D.
1800
did
one
Johan
Albrecht
Kries
mention
the
illness
of
Andreas
in
an
obscure
journal.
¹⁵
But
he
quickly
repented;
and
three
years
later,
when
Kries
edited
an
earlier
Copernicus
biography
by
Lichtenberg,
he
too
kept
quiet
on
the
subject.

Had
the
Koppernigks
been
born
in
Italy
instead
of
a
Prussian
backwater,
Andreas
would
have
been
a
reckless
condottière,
and
Uncle
Lucas
the
autocratic
ruler
of
a
city
state.
Hemmed
in
between
these
two
powerful
and
headstrong
characters,
bullied
by
the
first,
despised
and
disgraced
by
the
second,
Nicolas
took
refuge
in
secretiveness,
caution,
obliquity.
The
earliest
engravings,
and
the
later
portraits
of
doubtful
authenticity,
all
show
a
strong
face
with
a
weak
expression:
high
cheekbones,
wide-set
dark
eyes,
square
chin,
sensuous
lips;
but
the
glance
is
uncertain
and
suspicious,
the
lips
curve
into
a
sour
pout,
the
face
is
closed,
on
the
defensive.