Caspar Peucer
| Caspar Peucer | |
|---|---|
 Caspar Peucer | |
| Born |
January 6, 1525 Bautzen |
| Died |
September 25, 1602 Dessau |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Mathematics, astronomy, and medicine |
| Academic advisors |
Erasmus Reinhold Georg Joachim Rheticus |
| Notable students |
Tycho Brahe Johannes Praetorius Salomon Alberti |
Caspar Peucer (pronounced /ˈbɔɪkər/, German: [ˈbɔɪkɐ];[1] January 6, 1525 – September 25, 1602) a German reformer, physician, and scholar of Sorbian origin.
Biography
Born in Bautzen, Peucer studied mathematics, astronomy, and medicine at the University of Wittenberg from 1540. In 1543, he became a lodger in the house of one of the most famous professors in Wittenberg, the theologian and humanist Philipp Melanchthon, whose daughter Magdalena he married in 1550. In 1554, he became professor of mathematics at the University of Wittenberg, and in 1560 professor of medicine, leading the Wittenberg faculty in that field. Until 1574, he also served several times as dean and rector. In spite of his medical profession — in 1570, he became even personal physician to the Elector of Saxony — he was, after the death of Melanchthon, one of the leading Protestants in Saxony.
In 1574 Peucer was officially charged with Crypto-Calvinism in an inter-Lutheran fight for power and put in jail in the famed Pleissenburg Fortress in Leipzig for twelve years. Released in 1586, he went to the Duchy of Anhalt, where he became Councillor and personal physician to the Prince of Anhalt.
He died in the capital of Dessau in 1602.
References
- ↑ Robert S. Westman (2011). The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 112. ISBN 9780520254817.
Works (incomplete)
He wrote on astronomy, geometry, and medicine, and edited some of Melanchthon's letters (1565 and 1570):
- Tractatus historicus de Ph. Melanchthonis sententia de controversia coenae Domini, 1553 (printed 1596)
- Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus, 1553
- Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum, 1560
- Opera Melan, 1562–65
- Epistolae, 1565
- Idyllion de Lusatia, 1583 (printed 1594)
Literature
- Caspar Peucer 1525–1602, Hans-Peter Hasse und Günther Wartenberg, ISBN 3-374-02106-9
- Zwischen Katheder, Thron und Kerker, Stadtmuseum Bautzen, Domowina Verlag, ISBN 3-7420-1925-2
- Wolfgang Klose, Das Wittenberger Gelehrtenstammbuch: das Stammbuch von Abraham Ulrich (1549–1577) und David Ulrich (1580–1623), Halle: Mitteldt. Verl., 1999, ISBN 3-932776-76-3
- Claudia Brosseder, Im Bann der Sterne: Caspar Peucer, Philipp Melanchthon und andere
- Henke, Kaspar Peucer und Nikolaus Crell (Marburg, 1865)
External links
- Caspar Peucer in the German National Library catalogue
- Achim Krümmel (1994). "Peucer, Kaspar". In Bautz, Traugott. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). 7. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 388–389. ISBN 3-88309-048-4.
- Julius August Wagenmann (1887), "Peucer, Kaspar", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), 25, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 552–556
-
"Peucer, Kaspar". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. - Caspar Peucer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project