Niccolò Comneno Papadopoli (, ''Nikólaos Komninós Papadópoulos''; 6 January 1655 on

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

– 20 January 1740 in

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

) was an Italian lawyer and historian of Greek origin.

Life

He was born to Zuanne (Giovanni) Papadopoli, a Greco- Venetian administrator at

Candia The name Candia can refer to: People * The House of Candia, a noble family from Savoy (14th-16th) * Alfredo Ovando Candía, 56th president of Bolivia * Antoinette Candia-Bailey, American academic administrator * Cecilia Maria de Candia, British-It ...

, present day

Heraklion Heraklion or Herakleion ( ; , , ), sometimes Iraklion, is the largest city and the administrative capital city, capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion (regional unit), Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in G ...

. He claimed descent from the

Komnenian dynasty The House of Komnenos ( Komnenoi; , , ), Latinized as Comnenus ( Comneni), was a Byzantine Greek noble family who ruled the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries. The first reigning member, Isaac I Komnenos, ruled from 1057 to 1059. Th ...

, but this claim is considered fictional by modern historians Papadopoli studied

Canon Law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

and became a librarian at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

. In 1726 he published on the history of the university. That work contains gross inaccuracies (if not lies), for example regarding the life of

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

and

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

. Papadopoli had falsely claimed in 1726 that he had seen an entry of Copernicus in records of a "Polish nation" at the university. In the century that had passed since, this claim had been widely published and ''"found a place in all subsequent biographies of Copernicus, but the decorative particulars added by the historian of the Pavian university have been shown to be wholly incorrect"'' and ''utterly baseless''''As for the assertion that Copernicus was registered as a Pole at Padua, that was investigated, at the instance of Prince Boncompagni, by Favaro, and found utterly baseless. On the other hand,

Carlo Malagola Carlo Malagola (5 August 1855, in Ravenna – 23 October 1910, in Venice) was a 19th-century Italian historian. Among others, he studied the archives of Bologna, and the life of Antonio Urceo (''Antonius Urceus''), called ''Codro'' (1446–1500), ...

, in his admirable work on Urceo Codro showed that "Niccolo Kopperlingk di Thorn" had registered as a law student at Bologna in the album of the "Nazione Alemanna". This may not prove much, but it is, at least, not an invention.'' –

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

5. Oct. 1893
in a reply t
''Was Copernicus a German?''
p. 185–186, in Charles Sanders Peirce, Kenneth Laine Ketner, James E. Cook: ''Contributions to the Nation'', Published 1982, Texas Tech University Press, 202 pages ( paper hardbound) as shown over 150 years by

and

Leopold Prowe Leopold Friedrich Prowe (14 October 1821 – 26 September 1887) was a German historian and gymnasium instructor, born as the son of a town councillor of Thorn in West Prussia (now in Poland), the town where in 1473 the astronomer Nicola ...

. Papadopoli's work was continued since 1739 by

Jacopo Facciolati Jacopo Facciolati (1682–1769) was an Italian lexicographer and philologist. Biography He was born at Torreglia, in what is now the province of Padua (then in the Republic of Venice), in 1682. He was admitted to the seminary of Padua thanks to ...

Literature

* Von Moy de Sons, K. E., Vehring, Fr. H. : Archiv für Katholisches Kirchenrecht, Verlag Franz Kirchheim, Mainz1863
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* Christian Pletzing:''„Deutsche Kultur" und „polnische Zivilisation" Geschichtsbilder in West- und Ostpreußen zwischen Vormärz und Kulturkampf''
S. 189-204
in: Matthias Weber: ''Preussen in Ostmitteleuropa: Geschehensgeschichte und Verstehensgeschichte'', Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003, , * Stefan Kirschner, Andreas Kühne: ''"Die Rezeption von Copernicus im Spiegel seiner Biographien"''; in: ''Form, Zahl, Ordnung. Studien zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte.'' Festschrift für Ivo Schneider zum 65. Geburtstag; hrsg. v. Rudolf Seising, Menso Folkerts, Ulf Hashagen; Stuttgart (Steiner) 2004 (Boethius, Bd. 48), S. 467-479
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External links

Works, in Opac of Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale

'’Prænotiones mystagogicæ ex jure canonico’’, National library at Florence
{{DEFAULTSORT:Papadopoli, Nicolo 1655 births 1740 deaths 18th-century Italian historians Writers from Heraklion 17th-century Italian jurists 17th-century Roman Catholics 18th-century Italian jurists 18th-century Roman Catholics Venetian Greeks Kingdom of Candia Italian people of Greek descent Converts to Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy Greek Roman Catholic writers Academic staff of the University of Padua