Leonardo da Vinci
Erasmus
Copernicus
Michalangelo
Ulrich Zwingli
Paracelsus
Andreas Vesalius
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of ichnology- the branch of paleontology concerned with the study of fossilized tracks, trails, and burrows. He is one of the greatest painters of all time.
He is credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo is the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination", and he is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.
Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time.
Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.
Leonardo was born out-of-wedlock son of the wealthy Florentine legal notary, and Caterina, a peasant. He spent his first 5 years in the home of his mother, and from 1457 lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle in the small town of Vinci. His father had married a 16-year-old girl who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was 16, his father married again to 20-year-old who also died without children.
Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only 2 childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second occurred while he was exploring in the mountains: he discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.
In 1466, at the age of 14, Leonardo was apprenticed for 7 years to the artist Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day, whose workshop was one of the finest in Florence. Leonardo was exposed to both theoretical training and a vast range of technical skills, including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling.
By 1472, at the age of 20, Leonardo qualified as a master in the guild of artists and doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him.
In 1476, Leonardo and 3 other young men were charged with performing anal and oral sex in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute but acquitted. Homosexual acts were illegal in Renaissance Florence. In 1478, he left Verrocchio's studio and was no longer a resident at his father's house. Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499.
At the start of the Second Italian War in 1499, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice where he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.
In 1502, Leonardo entered the service of the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and traveling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. He was hired as a chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in order to allow a supply of water to sustain the canal during all seasons. Leonardo returned to Florence, where he spent 2 years working with Michelangelo.
In 1506 Leonardo returned to Milan. Many of his most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan. Leonardo did not stay in Milan for long because his father had died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his father's estate. By 1508 Leonardo was back in Milan.
From 1513 to 1516, under Pope Leo X, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time. In 1515, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan. In 1516, he entered Francis' service near the king's residence. He spent the last 3 years of his life here and died at the age of 67 of a stroke.
Although usually named together as the 3 giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was 23 when Michelangelo was born and 31 when Raphael was born. Raphael lived until the age of only 37 and died in 1520, the year after Leonardo died, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.
Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are his innovative techniques for laying on the paint. His detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology; his interest in physiognomy and the way humans register emotion in expression and gesture. His innovative use of the human form in figurative composition and his use of subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Virgin of the Rocks.
Most of Leonardo's writings are in mirror-image cursive.
Leonardo's approach to science was observational: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli.
As a successful artist, Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses. During his lifetime, Leonardo was valued as an engineer claiming to be able to create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege. Leonardo's fame within his own lifetime was such that the King of France carried him away like a trophy, and was claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died.
Erasmus (1466-1536)
Erasmus was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and continued to recognize the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination.
His parents were not legally married. His father was a Catholic priest and curate. His mother was the daughter of a physician. Erasmus was cared for by his parents until their early deaths from the plague in 1483. Erasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. At the age of 9, he and his older brother Peter were sent to one of the best Latin schools in the Netherlands where he learned the importance of a personal relationship with God. His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, who had moved to provide a home for her sons, died from the infection. In 1487, when he was 19, poverty forced Erasmus into the consecrated life and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood at the age of 25.
Martin Luther's movement had begun allowing the publication of the New Testament and tested Erasmus' character. The issues between growing religious movements, which would later become known as Protestantism, and the Catholic Church had become so clear that few could escape the summons to join the debate. Erasmus, at the height of his literary fame, was inevitably called upon to take sides, but partisanship was foreign to his nature and his habits. In all his criticism of clerical follies and abuses, he had always protested that he was not attacking the Church itself or its doctrines, and had no enmity toward churchmen. He believed that his work so far had commended itself to the best minds and also to the dominant powers in the religious world. Erasmus did not build a large body of supporters with his letters. He chose to write in Greek and Latin, the languages of scholars. His critiques reached an elite but small audience.
Luther claimed that free will does not exist because sin makes human beings completely incapable of bringing themselves to God. He had great respect for Luther, and Luther spoke with admiration of Erasmus's superior learning. Luther hoped for his cooperation in a work which seemed only the natural outcome of his own. In their early correspondence, Luther expressed boundless admiration for all Erasmus had done in the cause of a sound and reasonable Christianity and urged him to join the Lutheran party. Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing that to do so would endanger his position as a leader in the movement for pure scholarship which he regarded as his purpose in life. Only as an independent scholar could he hope to influence the reform of religion. When Erasmus hesitated to support him, the straightforward Luther became angered that Erasmus was avoiding the responsibility due either to cowardice or a lack of purpose. However, any hesitancy on the part of Erasmus stemmed, not from lack of courage or conviction, but rather from a concern over the mounting disorder and violence of the reform movement.
Twice in the course of the great discussion, he allowed himself to enter the field of doctrinal controversy, a field foreign to both his nature and his previous practice. One of the topics he dealt with was free will, a crucial question. He lampooned the Lutheran view on free will. He laid down both sides of the argument impartially. In response, Luther attacked Erasmus going so far as to claim that Erasmus was not a Christian. Erasmus lets it be seen that he would like to claim more for free will than St. Paul and St. Augustine seem to allow according to Luther's interpretation. For Erasmus the essential point is that humans have the freedom of choice.
As the popular response to Luther gathered momentum, the social disorders, which Erasmus dreaded and Luther disassociated himself from, began to appear, including the German Peasants' War, the Anabaptist disturbances in Germany and in the Low Countries, iconoclasm and the radicalization of peasants across Europe. If these were the outcomes of reform, he was thankful that he had kept out of it. Yet he was ever more bitterly accused of having started the whole "tragedy" as the Catholics dubbed Protestantism.
Certain works of Erasmus laid a foundation for religious toleration and Ecumenism, the efforts by Christians of different Church traditions to develop closer relationships and better understandings. Although Erasmus did not oppose the punishment of heretics, in individual cases he generally argued for moderation and against the death penalty. He wrote, "It is better to cure a sick man than to kill him." A test of the Reformation was the doctrine of the sacraments, and the crux of this question was the observance of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist also called Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper, among other names is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches and an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted by Jesus Christ during his Last Supper; giving his disciples bread and wine during the Passover meal. Jesus commanded his followers to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the wine as "my blood". Through the Eucharistic celebration Christians remember both Christ's sacrifice of himself on the cross and his commission of the apostles at the Last Supper.
When his strength began to fail he suddenly died from an attack of dysentery. He was 70 years old.
Erasmus wrote both on ecclesiastic subjects and those of general human interest. By the 1530s, the writings of Erasmus accounted for 10 to 20 percent of all book sales in Europe. He is credited with coining the adage, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." He formed a collection of Latin proverbs and adages. Erasmus is also generally credited with originating the phrase "Pandora's box".
As a result of his reformatory activities, Erasmus found himself at odds with both the great parties. His last years were embittered by controversies with men toward whom he was sympathetic.
By the coming of the Age of Enlightenment, however, Erasmus increasingly again became a more widely respected cultural symbol and was hailed as an important figure by increasingly broad groups. In a letter to a friend, Erasmus once wrote:
"That you are patriotic will be praised by many and easily forgiven by everyone; but in my opinion it is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world the common fatherland of all."
Copernicus (1473-1543)
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe independently of Aristarchus of Samos, who had formulated such a model some 18 centuries earlier.
The publication of Copernicus' model in his book “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” just before his death in 1543 was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making an important contribution to the Scientific Revolution.
Copernicus was born and died in Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was also a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money –a key concept in economics– and in 1519 he formulated an economics principle that later came to be called Gresham's law.
Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will disappear from circulation.
Good money is money that shows little difference between its nominal value (the face value of the coin) and its commodity value (the value of the metal of which it is made, often precious metals, nickel, or copper). In the absence of legal-tender laws, metal coin money will freely exchange at somewhat above bullion market value. The price spread between face value and commodity value is called seigniorage. Because some coins do not circulate, remaining in the possession of coin collectors, this can increase demand for coinage.
On the other hand, bad money is money that has a commodity value considerably lower than its face value and is in circulation along with good money, where both forms are required to be accepted at equal value as legal tender.
Bad money included any coin that had been debased. Debasement was often done by the issuing body, where less than the officially specified amount of precious metal was contained in an issue of coinage, usually by alloying it with a base metal. The public could also debase coins, usually by clipping or scraping off small portions of the precious metal. Ridged edges on coins are intended to make clipping evident. Other examples of bad money include counterfeit coins made from base metal. Today all circulating coins are made from base metals, known as fiat money.
Good money disappears from circulation as citizens retained them to capture the steady current and future intrinsic value of the metal content over the newly inflated and therefore devalued coins, using the newer coins in daily transactions.
Gresham's law states that any circulating currency consisting of both "good" and "bad" money where both forms are required to be accepted at equal value under legal tender law, "good" money quickly becomes dominated by the "bad" money. This is because people spending money will hand over the "bad" coins rather than the "good" ones, keeping the "good" ones for themselves.
The quantity theory of money (QTM) states that the general price level of goods and services is directly proportional to the amount of money in circulation, or money supply. Copernicus's recommendations on monetary reform were widely read by leaders of both Prussia and Poland in their attempts to stabilize currency.
Copernicus was born to a father who was a merchant from Kraków and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Nicolaus was the youngest of 4 children. They soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential patrician families. Copernicus never married but from at least 1531 until 1539 his relations with a live-in housekeeper, were seen as scandalous by 2 bishops who urged him over the years to break off relations with his "mistress". Upon his father's death, young Nicolaus' maternal uncle took the boy under his wing and saw to his education and career.
Copernicus' studies gave him a thorough grounding in the mathematical astronomy taught at the University and a good knowledge of the philosophical and natural-science writings of Aristotle and Averroes stimulating his interest in learning and making him conversant with humanistic culture. Copernicus broadened the knowledge that he took from the university lecture halls with independent reading of books.
Copernicus' 4 years at Kraków played an important role in the development of his critical faculties and initiated his analysis of logical contradictions in the 2 "official" systems of astronomy - Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres, all with the same center, and Ptolemy's mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles.
One of the subjects that Copernicus studied was astrology, since it was considered an important part of a medical education. However, unlike most other prominent Renaissance astronomers, he appears never to have practiced or expressed any interest in astrology. It was during this time that the idea finally crystallized, of basing a new system of the world on the movement of the Earth.
Some time before 1514, Copernicus wrote an initial outline of his heliocentric theory. It was a briefly and clearly expressed theoretical description of the world's heliocentric mechanism, with mathematics. It differed in some important details of geometric construction but it was already based on the same assumptions regarding Earth's motions.
The results of his observations of Mars and Saturn in this period, and especially a series of observations of the Sun made in 1515, led to discovery of the variability of Earth's eccentricity and of the movement of the solar apogee in relation to the fixed stars, which in 1515–19 prompted his first revisions of certain assumptions of his system. Some of the observations that he made in this period had a connection with a proposed reform of the Julian calendar made in the first half of 1513. Copernicus was among the learned men who had sent the Council proposals for the calendar's emendation.
Copernicus built on knowledge over 2 thousand years old.
Philolaus (480BC-385BC) described an astronomical system in which a Central Fire, different from the Sun, occupied the center of the universe. A counter-Earth, the Earth, the Moon, the Sun itself, planets, and stars all revolved around it, in that order outward from the center.
Heraclides Ponticus (387BC-312BC) proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis. Aristarchus of Samos (310BC-230BC) was the first to advance a theory that the earth orbited the sun. Further mathematical details of Aristarchus' heliocentric system were worked out around 150BC by the Greek astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia.
The immediate result of the 1543 publication of Copernicus's book was only mild controversy. Catholic side opposition only commenced by Tolosani 75 years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo who claimed that the earth moved around the sun, against biblical teachings.
Emulating the rationalistic style of Thomas Aquinas, Tolosani sought to refute Copernicanism by philosophical argument. Copernicanism was absurd, according to Tolosani, because it was scientifically unproven and unfounded. First, Copernicus had assumed the motion of the Earth but offered no physical theory whereby one would deduce this motion. Second, Tolosani charged that Copernicus's thought process was backwards. He held that Copernicus had come up with his idea and then sought phenomena that would support it, rather than observing phenomena and deducing from them the idea of what caused them. It was argued that mathematical numbers were a mere product of the intellect without any physical reality, and as such could not provide physical causes in the investigation of nature.
Copernicus had used mathematics and astronomy to postulate about physics and cosmology, rather than beginning with the accepted principles of physics and cosmology to determine things about astronomy and mathematics. Thus Copernicus seemed to be undermining the whole system of the philosophy of science at the time. Tolosani held that Copernicus had fallen into philosophical error because he had not been versed in physics and logic. Copernicus' major work on his heliocentric theory was published in the year of his death. He had formulated his theory by 1510.
Copernicus was seized with internal bleeding and paralysis, and he died at age 70.
Michalangelo (1475-1564)
Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered by some the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his artistic versatility was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival, the fellow Florentine and client of the Medici, Leonardo da Vinci.
A number of Michelangelo's works of painting, sculpture and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in these fields was colossal, given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches and reminiscences. He is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. He sculpted 2 of his best-known works before the age of 30. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, he also created 2 of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art.
At the age of 74, he succeeded as the architect of St. Peter's Basilica. He transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his death. Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. In fact, 2 biographies were published during his lifetime.
Michelangelo was born to a family of small-scale bankers in Florence; but the bank failed, and his father briefly took a government post in Caprese, where Michelangelo was born. At the time of Michelangelo's birth, his father was the town's Judicial administrator and local administrator. Michelangelo's mother claimed to descend from a Countess.
Several months after Michelangelo's birth, the family returned to Florence, where he was raised. During his mother's later prolonged illness, and after her death in 1481 when he was 6 years old, Michelangelo lived with a nanny and her husband, a stone-cutter, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. There he gained his love for marble.
As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar. He showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of other painters. The city of Florence was at that time Italy's greatest center of the arts and learning. Art was sponsored by the town council, the merchant guilds, and wealthy patrons such as the Medici and their banking associates.
The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence. A sculptor labored for 50 years to create the bronze doors which Michelangelo was to describe as "The Gates of Paradise". The exterior niches of the Church contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence. The interiors of the older churches were covered with frescoes which Michelangelo studied and copied in drawings.
During Michelangelo's childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Among them was a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence and who in 1488, took on 13 year old Michelangelo as an apprentice. The next year, his father persuaded him to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was rare for someone of 14. When asked for his 2 best pupils, Michelangelo was one of them.
From 1490-1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy the Medici had founded where his work and outlook were influenced by many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day.
Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492 brought a reversal of Michelangelo's circumstances. Michelangelo left the security of the Medici court and returned to his father's house. In the following months he carved a wooden crucifix as a gift to the prior of the Florentine church, which had allowed him to do some anatomical studies of the corpses from the church's hospital. In 1495 the Medici were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola.
Girolamo Savonarola was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church.
In 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, and threatened Florence, such prophecies seemed on the verge of fulfillment. While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar's urging, established a "popular" republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity and "richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever", he instituted an extreme puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.
In 1495 when Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI's Holy League against the French, the Vatican summoned Savonarola to Rome. He disobeyed and further defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires of the vanities, and pious theatricals. A bonfire of the vanities is a burning of objects condemned by authorities as occasions of sin. Thousands of objects such as cosmetics and art. The focus of this destruction was nominally on objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, fine dresses, playing cards, and even musical instruments. Other targets included books that were deemed to be immoral, as well as manuscripts of secular songs and artworks, including paintings and sculpture. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated Savoralona and threatened to place Florence under an interdict. Savonarola was imprisoned in 1498, and Church and civil authorities condemned him to be hanged and burned with 2 others in the main square of Florence. Savonarola's devotees kept his cause of republican freedom and religious reform alive well into the following century, although the Medici was restored to power in 1512 with the help of the papacy, and eventually broke the movement.
Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna. Towards the end of 1494, the political situation in Florence was calmer. The city, previously under threat from the French, was no longer in danger as Charles VIII had suffered defeats.
Michelangelo arrived in Rome in 1496 at the age of 21. A year later, he was commissioned to carve a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus. Michelangelo was 24 at the time of its completion. It was soon to be regarded as one of the world's great masterpieces of sculpture.
Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499. The republic was changing after the fall of its leader, anti-Renaissance priest Savonarola, who was executed in 1498. Michelangelo was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier. It was to be a colossal statue of marble portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom. Michelangelo responded by completing his most famous work, the statue of David, in 1504. The masterwork definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination. A team of consultants, including Botticelli and Leonardo was called together to decide upon its placement.
With the completion of the David came many other commissions. In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope and commissioned to build the Pope's tomb, which was to include 40 statues and be finished in 5 years. Under the patronage of the pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction.
During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately 4 years to complete. The composition stretches over 500 square meters of ceiling and contains over 300 figures. At its center are 9 episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into 3 groups: God's creation of the earth; God's creation of humankind and their fall from God's grace; and lastly, the state of humanity as represented by Noah and his family. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted 12 men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, 7 prophets of Israel, and 5 prophetic women of the Classical world.
In 1513, Pope Julius II died and was succeeded by Pope Leo X, the second son of Lorenzo de Medici. Pope Leo commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the facade of the Basilica in Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. He agreed reluctantly and spent 3 years creating drawings and models for the facade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry specifically for the project. In 1520 the work was abruptly canceled by his financially strapped patrons before any real progress had been made.
In 1520 the Medici came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the Basilica. Fortunately for posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s, was more fully realized. Michelangelo used his own discretion to create the composition of the Medici Chapel, which houses the large tombs of 2 of the younger members of the Medici family. It also serves to commemorate their more famous predecessors.
Pope Leo X died in 1521 and was succeeded briefly by the austere Adrian VI, and then by his cousin Medici as Pope Clement VII. In 1524 Michelangelo received an architectural commission from the Medici pope.
The Sack of Rome in 1527 was a military event carried out in Rome by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. It marked a crucial imperial victory in the conflict between Charles and the alliance of France, Milan, Venice, Florence and the Papacy.
In 1527, Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528 to 1529. The city fell in 1530, and the Medici were restored to power. Michelangelo fell out of favor with the young Alessandro Medici, and fearing for his life, fled to Rome, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel and the library. Despite Michelangelo's support of the republic and resistance to the Medici rule, he was welcomed by Pope Clement, who reinstated an allowance that he had previously granted the artist and made a new contract with him over the tomb of Pope Julius.
Shortly before his death in 1534 Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint a fresco of The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. His successor, Paul III, was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project, which he labored on from 1534 to 1541.
The fresco depicts the Second Coming of Christ and his Judgment of the souls. Michelangelo ignored the usual artistic conventions in portraying Jesus, showing him as a massive, muscular figure, youthful, beardless and naked. He is surrounded by saints, with one holding a drooping flayed skin, bearing the likeness of Michelangelo. The dead rise from their graves, to be consigned either to Heaven or to Hell.
Once completed, the depiction of Christ and the Virgin Mary naked was considered sacrilegious, and the campaign to have the fresco removed or censored, was resisted by the Pope. Shortly before Michelangelo's death, it was decided to obscure the genitals and an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commissioned to make the alterations.
In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. The process of replacing the Constantinian basilica of the 4th century had been underway for 50 years and in 1506 foundations had been laid. Successive architects had worked on it, but little progress had been made. Michelangelo was persuaded to take over the project. The dome, not completed until after his death, has been called "the greatest creation of the Renaissance". As construction was progressing on St Peter's, there was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished.
Michelangelo died when he was 79 years old.
Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531)
Ulrich Zwingli was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel. He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus.
Zwingli was born in Switzerland, to a family of farmers, the third child of nine. His father played a leading role in the administration of the community. Zwingli's primary schooling was provided by his uncle, a cleric. When he was 10, he was sent to Basel to obtain his secondary education where he learned Latin. After 3 years in Basel, he stayed a short time in Bern.
The Dominicans, an order that preached and taught the Gospel and opposed heresy, tried to persuade Zwingli to join their order but his father and uncle disapproved of such a course and he left Bern without completing his Latin studies. He enrolled in the University of Vienna in 1498 and 4 years later he transferred to the University of Basel where he received the Master of Arts degree and was ordained a priest when he was 22 years old.
His first ecclesiastical post was the pastorate of the town of Glarus, where he stayed for 10 years. Soldiers were used as mercenaries in Europe, and Zwingli became involved in politics. The Swiss Confederation was embroiled in various campaigns with its neighbors: the French, the Hapsburg, and the Papal States. Zwingli placed himself solidly on the side of the Roman See. In return, Pope Julius II honored Zwingli by providing him with an annual pension. He took the role of chaplain in several campaigns in Italy. The decisive defeat of the Swiss in the Battle of Marignano caused a shift in mood in Glarus in favor of the French rather than the pope.
The Battle of Marignano in 1515 was between France and the Old Swiss Confederacy near Milan. It resulted in a victory for French forces. It pitted the French army, composed of the best armored lancers and artillery in Europe with rifles and canons against the Old Swiss Confederacy with young men with nothing more than courage and desire to rape and plunder. With the French were Germans, bitter rivals of the Swiss for fame and renown in war. Present at the battle was Zwingli.
There was political controversy on which side the young men seeking employment as mercenaries should take service, the side of France or that of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States. The aim was to prevent that men took service on both sides of the war, which would result in the unhappy constellation of "brothers fighting brothers" on the battlefield, as had been the case at Novara in 1500. Zwingli had supported the Pope but public opinion in Glarus had shifted towards a clearly pro-French stance after the peace of 1516. Zwingli became an outspoken opponent of mercenary service, arguing that "war is sweet only to those who have not experienced it."
Zwingli decided to retreat to Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz for 2 years. He exchanged scholarly letters with a circle of Swiss humanists and began to study the writings of Erasmus (1466-1536), a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he continued to recognize the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone.
He remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed, and even angered, scholars in both camps. Zwingli's turn to relative pacifism and his focus on preaching can be traced to the influence of Erasmus.
Zwingli's theological stance was gradually revealed through his sermons. He attacked moral corruption and in the process he named individuals who were the targets of his denunciations. Monks were accused of indolence and high living. In 1519, Zwingli specifically rejected the veneration of saints and called for the need to distinguish between their true and fictional accounts. He cast doubts on hell fire, asserted that unbaptized children were not damned, and questioned the power of excommunication. His attack on the claim that tithing was a divine institution, however, had the greatest theological and social impact. This contradicted the immediate economic interests of the foundation. Zwingli insisted that he was not an innovator and that the sole basis of his teachings was Scripture.
Within the diocese of Constance, a special indulgence for contributors to the building of St Peter's in Rome was offered. Zwingli responded with displeasure that the people were not being properly informed about the conditions of the indulgence and were being induced to part with their money on false pretenses. This was over a year after Martin Luther published his theses denouncing indulgences and being able to be pardoned from sins for a payment.
In 1519, Zwingli became the pastor in Zurich where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic Church. Zurich was struck by an outbreak of the plague during which at least one in four persons died. All of those who could afford it left the city, but Zwingli remained and continued his pastoral duties. In his first public controversy in 1522, he attacked the custom of fasting during Lent. In his publications, he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, promoted clerical marriage, and attacked the use of images in places of worship. 3 years later, he introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the Mass. Zwingli also clashed with the Anabaptists, which resulted in their persecution and turned Zurich into a theocracy.
The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Catholic. Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines. Zwingli's ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther and other reformers. They met and although they agreed on many points of doctrine, they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist the holy communion of taking wine and bread - that Jesus is really or substantially present -his blood in the wine and his body in the bread, not merely symbolically or metaphorically.
The Swiss Confederation in Zwingli's time consisted of 13 cantons as well as affiliated areas and common lordships. Unlike the modern state of Switzerland, which operates under a federal government, each of the 13 cantons was nearly independent, conducting its own domestic and foreign affairs. Each canton formed its own alliances within and without the Confederation. This relative independence served as the basis for conflict during the time of the Reformation when the various cantons divided between different confessional camps. Military ambitions gained an additional impetus with the competition to acquire new territory and resources.
The wider political environment in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries was also volatile. For centuries the relationship with the Confederation's powerful neighbor, France, determined the foreign policies of the Swiss. Nominally, the Confederation formed a part of the Holy Roman Empire. However, through a succession of wars in 1499, the Confederation had become de facto independent. As the 2 continental powers and minor regional states and the Papal States competed and fought against each other, there were far-reaching political, economic, and social consequences for the Confederation. During this time the mercenary pension system became a subject of disagreement. The religious factions of Zwingli's time debated vociferously the merits of sending young Swiss men to fight in foreign wars mainly for the enrichment of the cantonal authorities.
These internal and external factors contributed to the rise of a Confederation national consciousness, in which the term fatherland and patriotism began to take on meaning beyond a reference to an individual canton. At the same time, Renaissance humanism, with its universal values and emphasis on scholarship as exemplified by Erasmus, the "prince of humanism", had taken root in the Confederation. Zwingli was born within this environment, defined by the confluence of Swiss patriotism and humanism.
The first public controversy regarding Zwingli's preaching broke out in 1522 during the season of Lent when Christians fasted. On the first fasting Sunday, Zwingli and about a dozen other participants consciously transgressed the fasting rule by cutting and distributing two smoked sausages. Zwingli defended this act in a sermon. He noted that no general valid rule on food can be derived from the Bible and that to transgress such a rule is not a sin. The event, which came to be referred to as the Affair of the Sausages, is considered to be the start of the Reformation in Switzerland. Following this event, Zwingli and other humanist friends petitioned the bishop to abolish the requirement of celibacy on the clergy. The issue was not just an abstract problem for Zwingli, as he had secretly married a widow earlier in the year.
Their cohabitation was well-known and their public wedding took place 3 months before the birth of their first child. They would eventually have 4 children: Other Swiss clergymen joined in Zwingli's cause. He defended himself against charges of inciting unrest and heresy. He denied the ecclesiastical hierarchy any right to judge on matters of church order because of its corrupted state.
The events of 1522 brought no clarification on the issues. Not only did the unrest between Zurich and the bishop continue, tensions were growing among Zurich's Confederation partners in the Swiss Diet which recommended that its members prohibit the new teachings, a strong indictment directed at Zurich. The city council felt obliged to take the initiative and find its own solution.
The Zurich city council invited the clergy of the city and outlying region to a meeting to allow the factions to present their opinions. The bishop was invited to attend or to send a representative. The council would render a decision on who would be allowed to continue to proclaim their views. The meeting attracted a large crowd of approximately 600 participants. The bishop sent a delegation who was forbidden to discuss high theology before laymen, and simply insisted on the necessity of the ecclesiastical authority. The decision of the council was that Zwingli would be allowed to continue his preaching and that all other preachers should teach only in accordance with Scripture.
Zwingli's closest friend and colleague and pastor called for the removal of statues of saints and other icons. This led to demonstrations and the city council decided to work out the matter as well as discuss other topics of dispute. The essence of the mass and its sacrificial character was also included as a subject of discussion. Supporters of the mass claimed that the eucharist was a true sacrifice, while Zwingli claimed that it was a commemorative meal.
An invitation was sent out to the Zurich clergy and the bishop of Constance. This time, however, the lay people of Zurich, the dioceses of Chur and Basel, the University of Basel, and the 12 members of the Confederation were also invited. About 900 persons attended this meeting, but neither the bishop nor the Confederation sent representatives. Zwingli again took the lead in the disputation. Also taking part was a group of young men demanding a much faster pace of reformation, who among other things pleaded for replacing infant baptism with adult baptism.
The arguments led to the question of whether the city council or the ecclesiastical government had the authority to decide on these issues. A motion was suggested that as images were not yet considered to be valueless by everyone, he suggested that pastors preach on this subject even if threatened by punishment, and it would be left up to the people to decide whether to keep or remove the religious statues and images. The council of Zuerich adopted this motion.
A year later, the council decided on the orderly removal of images within Zurich, but rural congregations were granted the right to remove them based on majority vote. The bishop of Constance tried to intervene in defending the mass and the veneration of images. Zwingli wrote an official response for the council and the result was the severance of all ties between the city and the diocese.
Although the council had hesitated in abolishing the mass, the pastors were unofficially released from the requirement of celebrating mass. As individual pastors altered their practices as each saw fit, Zwingli was prompted to address this disorganized situation by designing a communion liturgy in the German language. Shortly before Easter, Zwingli and his closest associates requested the council to cancel the mass and to introduce the new public order of worship.
In 1525, Zwingli celebrated communion under his new liturgy. Wooden cups and plates were used to avoid any outward displays of formality. The congregation sat at set tables to emphasize the meal aspect of the sacrament. The sermon was the focal point of the service and there was no organ music or singing. The importance of the sermon in the worship service was underlined by Zwingli's proposal to limit the celebration of communion with its consecrated bread and wine to 4 times a year.
For some time Zwingli had accused religious orders that relied exclusively on charitable donations to survive so that all their time and energy could be expended on practicing or preaching and serving the poor. He accused them of hypocrisy and demanded their abolition in order to support the truly poor. He suggested the monasteries be changed into hospitals and welfare institutions and incorporate their wealth into a welfare fund. The council secularized the church properties and established new welfare programs for the poor. Zwingli requested permission to establish a Latin school in the Zuerich cathedral. The council agreed and it was officially opened in 1525 with Zwingli and a teacher to re-educate the clergy. The Zurich Bible translation was largely attributed to Zwingli.
Many in the radical wing of the Reformation became convinced that Zwingli was making too many concessions to the Zurich council. They rejected the role of civil government and demanded the immediate establishment of a congregation of the faithful. Conrad Grebel, the leader of the radicals and the emerging Anabaptist movement, spoke disparagingly of Zwingli. The council insisted on the obligation to baptize all newborn infants. A public debate was held and the council decided in favor of Zwingli requiring anyone refusing to have their children baptized to leave Zurich. The radicals ignored these measures and performed the first recorded Anabaptist adult baptisms. The Zurich council decided that no compromise was possible and released the notorious mandate that no one shall re-baptize another under the penalty of death.
A man who had sworn to leave Zurich and not to baptize any more, had deliberately returned and continued the practice. After he was arrested and tried, he was executed by being drowned. He was the first Anabaptist martyr. 3 more were to follow, after which all others either fled or were expelled from Zurich.
While Zwingli carried on the political work of the Swiss Reformation, he developed his theological views with his colleagues. He strongly disagreed with Luther on the interpretation of the Eucharist. He attacked the idea of the real presence and argued that the words “This is my body, this is my blood" were just metaphors and in effect, the meal was symbolic of the Last Supper.
In 1524, 5 cantons formed an alliance to defend themselves from Zwingli's Reformation. 7 years later in 1531, Zwingli's alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons. In a surprise move, the Five States declared war on Zurich. Zurich's mobilization was slow due to internal squabbling and 3500 poorly deployed men encountered a Five States force nearly double their size near Kappel. Many pastors, including Zwingli, were among the soldiers. The battle lasted less than one hour and Zwingli, age 47 was among the 500 casualties in the Zurich army.
Calvin differed with Zwingli on the Eucharist and criticized him for regarding it as simply a metaphorical event. In 1549, however, Calvin declared that the Eucharist was not just symbolic of the meal, but they also rejected the Lutheran position that the body and blood of Christ is in union with the elements. John Calvin (1509-1564) was an influential French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, aspects of which include the doctrines of predestination and of the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Various Congregational, Reformed, Reformed Baptists and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world.
Paracelsus (1493 – 1541)
Paracelsus was a Swiss German philosopher, physician, botanist, astrologer, and occultist. He was credited as the founder of toxicology. He was also a famous revolutionary for utilizing observations of nature, rather than referring to ancient texts, something of radical defiance during his time. Modern psychology often also credits him for being the first to note that some diseases are rooted in psychological conditions. His most important legacy is likely his critique of the scholastic methods in medicine, science and theology. Much of his theoretical work does not withstand modern scientific thought, but his insights laid the foundation for a more dynamic approach in the medical sciences.
He was raised in the village of Einsiedeln in Switzerland in the Benedictine Abbey. The monastery was built 500 years before he was born and was a major resting point for pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the apostle St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where St.James was buried.
His father was a chemist and physician. His mother was a bonds woman of the abbey and died when he was still a baby. When he was 9 years old, they moved to a monastery in Villach, Austria, where his father worked as a physician, attending to the medical needs of the pilgrims and inhabitants of the cloister where the monks and nuns lived.
He was educated by his father in botany, medicine, mineralogy, mining, and natural philosophy. He also received a profound humanistic and theological education from local clerics. When he was 16, he started studying medicine at the University of Basel, later moving to Vienna. 6 years later, he got his doctorate degree. When he was 29 years old, he was employed as a military surgeon in the Venetian service. He traveled a lot, and was involved in the many wars waged in Holland, Scandinavia, Prussia, Tartary, the countries under Venetian influence, and the near East. His wanderings as a physician and journeyman miner took him through Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Russia. He then wandered Africa and Asia Minor, in the pursuit of hidden knowledge.
He gained a reputation for being arrogant and soon garnered the anger of other physicians in Europe. Some even claim he was an alcoholic. He was prone to many outbursts of abusive language, abhorred untested theory, and ridiculed anybody who placed more importance on titles than practice. During his time as a professor at University of Basel, he invited barber-surgeons, alchemists, apothecaries, and others lacking academic background to serve as examples of his belief that only those who practiced an art knew it. He was known for telling everyone that “The patients are your textbook, the sickbed is your study.” He held the chair of medicine at the University of Basel and city physician for less than a year. He angered his colleagues by lecturing in German instead of Latin in order to make medical knowledge more accessible to the common people. He was credited as the first to do so.
When he was 33 years old,he bought the rights of citizenship in Strasbourg to establish his own practice. The Dutch Renaissance humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam, also at the University of Basel, witnessed his medical skills and they took to each other and spent many hours discussing medical and theological subjects. He was the first to publicly condemn the medical authority of Avicenna and Galen. When he was 34, he threw their writings into a bonfire.
He was a contemporary of Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci and Martin Luther. During his life, he was compared with Luther partly because his ideas were different from the mainstream and partly because of openly defiant acts against the existing authorities in medicine, such as his public burning of ancient books. This act struck people as similar to Luther's defiance against the Church. He rejected that comparison saying that
"I leave it to Luther to defend what he says and I will be responsible for what I say. That which you wish to Luther, you wish also to me: You wish us both in the fire."
After slandering his opponents with vicious epithets due to a dispute over a physician's fee, he had to leave Basel secretly fearing punishment by the court. He became a tramp, wandering through Central Europe.
When he was 36 years old, he officially adopted the name Paracelsus which is presumed to mean "surpassing Celsus", a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity known for his literary work. A year later, at the instigation of the medical faculty at the University of Leipzig, the city council of Nürnberg prohibited the printing of his works. He revised old manuscripts and wrote new ones but had trouble finding publishers. 6 years after that, he finished and was able to publish "The Great Surgery Book" which greatly helped regain his fame.
Astrology was a very important part of his medicine and he was a practicing astrologer, as were many of the university-trained physicians working at his time in Europe. He largely rejected the philosophies of Aristotle and Galen, as well as the theory of humors. Although he did accept the concept of the 4 elements as water, air, fire, and earth, he saw them merely as a foundation for other properties on which to build.
He was one of the first medical professors to recognize that physicians required a solid academic knowledge in the natural sciences, especially chemistry. He pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. From his study of the elements, he adopted the idea of tripartite alternatives to explain the nature of medicine, taking the place of sulfur, a combustible element, mercury, a changeable fluid element and salt, a, permanent solid element.
He believed that sulfur, mercury, and salt which he referred to as tria prima contained the poisons contributing to all diseases. He saw each disease as having 3 separate cures depending on how it was afflicted, either being caused by the poisoning of the tria prima or being cured by them. He drew the importance of the tria prima from medieval alchemy, where they all occupied a prominent place. He also believed that the tria prima provided a good explanation for the nature of medicine because each of these properties existed in many physical forms.
The tria prima also defined the human identity.
- sulfur embodied the soul, the emotions and desires,
- mercury epitomized the spirit, imagination, moral judgment, and the higher mental faculties and
- salt represented the body.
He claimed that by understanding the chemical nature of the tria prima, a physician could discover the means of curing disease. With every disease, the symptoms depended on which of the 3 principals caused the ailment. He theorized that materials which were poisonous in large doses may be curative in small doses.
He used the name "zinke" which meant "pointed" in German for the element zinc, based on the sharp pointed appearance of its crystals after smelting. He had unknowingly observed hydrogen when he noted that in reaction when acids attack metals, a gas was a by-product.
He invented chemical therapy, chemical urinalysis, and suggested a biochemical theory of digestion. He used chemistry and chemical analogies in his teachings to medical students and to the medical establishment, many of whom found them objectionable.
He claimed that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of Man and Nature. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. As a result of this idea of harmony, the universe's macrocosm was represented in every person as a microcosm.
An example of this correspondence was the doctrine of signatures used to identify curative powers of plants. If a plant looked like a part of the body, then this signified its ability to cure this given anatomy. As an example, because the root of the orchid looked like a testicle, he claimed that it could therefore heal any testicle associated illness. He mobilized the microcosm-macrocosm theory to demonstrate the analogy between the aspirations to salvation and health. As humans must ward off the influence of evil spirits with morality, they also must ward off diseases with good health.
He believed that true anatomy could only be understood once the nourishment for each part of the body was discovered. He believed that therefore, one must know the influence of the stars on these particular body parts. According to the insights in his time, 7 was a special number. There were 7 planets in the sky, 7 metals on Earth and 7 major organs in man. Everything was heavenly and closely interrelated.
Diseases were caused by poisons brought from the stars. However, 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, but also because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not. He claimed that like cures like. If a star or poison caused a disease, then it must be countered by another star or poison. Because everything in the universe was interrelated, beneficial medical substances could be found in herbs, minerals and various chemical combinations.
He viewed the universe as one coherent organism pervaded by a uniting life-giving spirit, and this in its entirety, man included, was 'God'. His views put him at odds with the Church, for which there necessarily had to be a difference between the Creator and the created.
He was also responsible for the creation of an analgesic opium tincture very common to relieve pain. He first encountered this drug on a visit to Constantinople. His work “The Great Surgery Book” is a forerunner of antisepsis, the practice of using antiseptics to eliminate the microorganisms that cause disease. This specific empirical knowledge originated from his personal experiences as an army physician in the Venetian wars.
He demanded that the application of cow dung, feathers and other obnoxious concoctions to wounds be avoided in favor of keeping the wounds clean. He claimed that if infection could be prevented, then Nature could heal the wound all by herself. During his time as a military surgeon, he was exposed to the crudity of medical knowledge at the time, when doctors believed that infection was a natural part of the healing process. He advocated for cleanliness and protection of wounds, as well as the regulation of diet. Popular ideas of the time opposed these theories and suggested sewing or plastering wounds.
He was credited with the recognition of the inherited character of syphilis. His first medical publication was a short pamphlet of syphilis treatment that was also the most comprehensive clinical description the period ever produced. He wrote a clinical description of syphilis in which he maintained that it could be treated by carefully measured doses of mercury. Similarly, he was the first to discover that the disease could only be contracted by contact.
Hippocrates put forward the theory that illness was caused by an imbalance of the 4 humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. These ideas were further developed by Galen into an extremely influential and highly persistent set of medical beliefs that were to last 300 years after Paracelsus died.
Contrarily, he believed in 3 humors: sulfur representing combustibility, mercury representing liquidity and salt representing stability. He defined disease as a separation of one humor from the other two. He believed that body organs functioned alchemically, that is, they separated pure from impure.
The dominant medical treatments in the time were specific diets to help in the "cleansing of the putrefied juices" combined with purging and bloodletting to restore the balance of the 4 humors. He supplemented and challenged this view with his beliefs that illness was the result of the body being attacked by outside agents. He objected to excessive bloodletting, saying that the process disturbed the harmony of the system, and that blood could not be purified by lessening its quantity.
He gave birth to clinical diagnosis and the administration of highly specific medicines to match specific illnesses. This was uncommon for a period heavily exposed to cure-all remedies. The germ theory was anticipated by him as he proposed that diseases were entities in themselves, rather than states of being. He first introduced the black hellebore a healing plant to European pharmacology and prescribed the correct dosage to alleviate certain forms of arteriosclerosis. He recommended the use of iron for 'poor blood' and was credited with the creation of the terms, “chemistry”, “gas”, and “alcohol”.
He carried out a systematic study of minerals and the curative powers of alpine mineral springs. His countless wanderings also brought him deep into many areas of the Alps, where such therapies were already practiced. His major work “On the Miners' Sickness and Other Diseases of Miners” documented the occupational hazards of metalworking including treatment and prevention strategies.
He extended his interest in chemistry and biology to what is now considered toxicology. He clearly expounded the concept of dose response claiming that it is only the dose that determines that a thing is not a poison. This was used to defend his use of inorganic substances in medicine as outsiders frequently criticized his chemical agents as too toxic to be used as therapeutic agents. He claimed that substances considered toxic are harmless in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily harmless substance can be deadly if over-consumed. His belief that diseases located in a specific organ was extended to inclusion of target organ toxicity; that is, there was a specific site in the body where a chemical exerted its greatest effect.
Paracelsus encouraged using experimental animals to study both beneficial and toxic chemical effects. He was credited as providing the first clinical/scientific mention of the unconscious. He discussed psychosomatic illnesses stating that opinions and ideas can be the origin of diseases both in children and adults.
In children the cause can be also imagination, based not on thinking but on perceiving, because they have heard or seen something. This is because the sight and hearing of children are so strong that unconsciously they have fantasies about what they have seen or heard. Carl Gustav Jung studied his works intensively. Paracelsus called for the humane treatment of the mentally ill but was ignored for several centuries as he saw them not to be possessed by evil spirits, but merely 'brothers' ensnared in a treatable malady.
He died when he was 47 years old of natural causes.
After his death, the movement Paracelsianism, named after him, was seized upon by many wishing to subvert the traditional Galenic physics, and his therapies became more widely known and used. Most of his writings were published after his death and still much controversy prevailed. He was accused of leading "a legion of homicide physicians" and his books were called "heretical and scandalous". However, 77 years after his death, a new pharmacopeia by the Royal College of Physicians in London included paracelsian remedies.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)
Andreas Vesalius was a Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, On the Fabric of the Human Body. Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He later became Imperial physician at the court of Emperor Charles V.
Vesalius`s great grandfather taught medicine in 1528. His grandfather was the Royal Physician of Emperor Maximilian, while his father served as apothecary to Maximilian, and later valet de chambre to his successor Charles V. His father encouraged his son to continue in the family tradition, and enrolled him to learn Greek and Latin prior to learning medicine, according to standards of the era.
In 1528 Vesalius decided instead to pursue a career in the military at the University of Paris, where he relocated in 1533. There he studied the theories of Galen. It was during this time that he developed an interest in anatomy, and he was often found examining excavated bones from the cemeteries nearby.
Vesalius was forced to leave Paris in 1536 owing to the opening of hostilities between the Holy Roman Empire and France. After settling briefly in Venice in 1536, he moved to the University of Padua to study for his medical doctorate, which he received in 1537.
On the day of his graduation he was immediately offered the chair of surgery and anatomy at Padua. Vesalius traveled through Italy, and assisted the future Pope Paul IV and Ignatius of Loyola to heal those afflicted by leprosy. In Venice, he met the illustrator needed to publish his first anatomical text in 1538.
Previously these topics had been taught primarily from reading classical texts, mainly Galen, followed by an animal dissection by a barber–surgeon whose work was directed by the lecturer. No attempt was made to confirm Galen's claims, which were considered undeniable. Vesalius, in contrast, performed dissection as the primary teaching tool, handling the actual work himself and urging students to perform dissection themselves. Hands-on direct observation was considered the only reliable resource, a huge break with medieval practice, which prohibited human dissection.
Vesalius created detailed illustrations of anatomy for students in the form of 6 large woodcut posters. When he found that some of them were being widely copied, he published them all in 1538. In 1539 he also published a letter on bloodletting. This was a popular treatment for almost any illness, but there was some debate about where to take the blood from. The classical Greek procedure, advocated by Galen, was to collect blood from a site near the location of the illness. However, the Muslim and medieval practice was to draw a smaller amount of blood from a distant location. Vesalius' pamphlet generally supported Galen's view.
In 1541 while in Bologna, Vesalius discovered that all of Galen's research had to be restricted to animals; since dissection of humans was banned in ancient Rome. Galen had dissected monkeys instead, which he considered structurally closest to man. Even though Galen produced many errors due to the anatomical material available to him, he was a qualified examiner, but his research was weakened by stating his findings philosophically causing his facts to be based more on religion rather than science. Vesalius began to write his own anatomical text based on his own research. Until Vesalius pointed out Galen's substitution of animal for human anatomy, it had gone unnoticed and had long been the basis of studying human anatomy. However, some people still chose to follow Galen and resented Vesalius for calling attention to the difference.
Galen had assumed that arteries carried the purest blood to higher organs such as the brain and lungs from the left ventricle of the heart, while veins carried blood to the lesser organs such as the stomach from the right ventricle. In order for this theory to be correct, some kind of opening was needed to interconnect the ventricles, and Galen claimed to have found them. So paramount was Galen's authority that for 1400 years a succession of anatomists had claimed to find these holes, until Vesalius admitted he could not find them. Nonetheless, he did not venture to dispute Galen on the distribution of blood, being unable to offer any other solution, and so supposed that it diffused through the unbroken partition between the ventricles.
Other famous examples of Vesalius disproving Galen's assertions were his discoveries that the lower jaw was composed of only 1 bone, not 2 which Galen had assumed based on animal dissection and that humans lack the network of blood vessels at the base of the brain that is found in sheep and other ungulates.
Vesalius' work was ferociously attacked for refuting a lot of Galen's works and correcting many Galenic errors. One of his main detractors and one-time professors published an article that claimed that the human body itself had changed since Galen had studied it.
At about the same time he published an abridged edition for students. That work was groundbreaking in the history of medical publishing and is considered to be a major step in the development of scientific medicine. Because of this, it marks the establishment of anatomy as a modern descriptive science.
Though Vesalius' work was not the first such work based on actual dissection, nor even the first work of this era, the production quality, highly detailed and intricate plates, and the likelihood that the artists who produced it were clearly present in person at the dissections made it an instant classic. Pirated editions were available almost immediately, an event Vesalius acknowledged in a printer's note would happen. Vesalius was 28 years old when the first edition was published.
Soon after publication, Vesalius was invited to become imperial physician to the court of Emperor Charles V. Vesalius took up the offered position in the imperial court, where he had to deal with other physicians who mocked him for being a mere barber surgeon instead of an academic working on the respected basis of theory. In the 1540s, shortly after entering in service of the emperor, Vesalius married and the couple had one daughter. Over the next 11 years Vesalius traveled with the court, treating injuries caused in battle or tournaments, performing postmortems, administering medication, and writing private letters addressing specific medical questions.
Vesalius had performed an autopsy on an aristocrat in Spain while the heart was still beating, leading to the Inquisition's condemning him to death. Philip II had the sentence commuted to a pilgrimage. In 1564 Vesalius went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He sailed with the Venetian fleet and after struggling for many days with adverse winds, he was shipwrecked on the island where he soon died, at 50 years old.
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William Shakespeare, William Harvey, Christopher Wren, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, Euler,
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William Shakespeare, William Harvey, Christopher Wren, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, Euler,
James Watt, Mayer Rothschild, Johann Adam Weishaupt, Edward Jenner, Samuel Hahnemann,
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