Naturalists 16th century
Otto Brunfels (also Brunsfels, Braunfels) was a German theologian, botanist and physician.
After studying theology and philosophy at the University of Mainz, Brunfels went to a Cartesian monastery near Strasbourg and later became interested in botany there. 1524 he opened a school in Strasbourg. In 1530, Brunfels began studying medicine at the University of Basel and two years later became city physician in Bern, where he remained for the rest of his life.
In addition to theological works, Brunfels published works on education, Arabic, pharmacy, and botany. His Herbarium Vivae Icones (1530 and 1536) and Contrafayt Kreüterbuch (1532-1537) contain woodcuts of German plants with their German common names. The 135 original woodcuts are detailed, accurate, and realistic depictions of living plants by the German artist and engraver Hans Weiditz. Brunfels' work contributed to the shift away from medieval outdated herbalism to the establishment of botany as a modern science. Carl Linnaeus considered Brunfels one of the founders of modern botany.
Christopher Columbus (Spanish: Cristóbal Colón, Latin: Christophorus Columbus, Italian: Cristoforo Colombo) was a medieval Spanish navigator of Italian origin who discovered the New World in 1492.
About the exact origin of Columbus scientists argue to this day. He already from his youth had a brilliant knowledge of mathematics, knew several languages, including Latin. Columbus was familiar with the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers and thinkers who depicted the Earth as a sphere, not flat, as was believed in the Middle Ages. Christopher was also trained in the art of navigation and made his first voyages as a young man in the Mediterranean Sea, later sailing to Africa and participating in a northern expedition through the British Isles and Iceland.
Gaining experience, studying geography and maps, Columbus assumed that it was possible to reach India by the western route. He sought financial support from European monarchs, but only the Spanish monarch was interested in the prospects. He agreed and borrowed money to outfit a squadron of ships to find a western route to India.
Christopher Columbus made four historic voyages to the shores of America: August 3, 1492 - March 15, 1493; September 25, 1493 - June 11, 1496; May 30, 1498 - November 25, 1500 and May 9, 1502 - November 7, 1504. Expeditions of Columbus for the first time made information about the lands in the west common knowledge and began the colonization of America by Europeans. But the discoverer of new lands to the end of his life was convinced that he had discovered the richest Western India.
From the last expedition Columbus returned to Spain terminally ill, his last money he spent to pay debts to its participants. Two years later, the discoverer of the New World died in poverty in a small house. Columbus's discoveries, accompanied by the colonization of land, the establishment of Spanish settlements, enslavement and mass extermination of the indigenous population, which he called Indians, were of world significance.
William Gilbert was a British physicist and medical scientist famous for pioneering the study of magnetic and electrical phenomena.
After receiving a medical degree, Gilbert settled in London and began his research. In his major work De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On Magnetic Stones and Magnetic Bodies and the Great Magnet of the Earth), published in 1600, the scientist describes in detail his studies of magnetic bodies and electric attraction.
After years of experimentation, he came to the conclusion that the compass arrow points north-south and downward because the Earth acts as a rod magnet. He was the first to use the terms electric attraction, electric force, and magnetic pole. Gilbert came to believe that the Earth rotates on its axis and that the fixed stars are not all the same distance from the Earth, and believed that the planets are held in their orbits by magnetism.
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician and astronomer who discovered that the Earth and planets move around the Sun in elliptical orbits.
Kepler created the three fundamental laws of planetary motion. He also did seminal work in optics and geometry, calculated the most accurate astronomical tables, and made many inventions and discoveries in physics on which further scientific discoveries by advanced scientists were based.
Thomas Moffet was a British naturalist-naturalist and physician.
After receiving his MD degree in 1580, Thomas Moffet studied the anatomy of the mulberry silkworm in Italy, then returned to England to study arthropods in general, especially spiders. He edited and expanded the work Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum ("Insect Theater"), an illustrated guide to the classification and life of insects.
Moffet was also an ardent supporter of the Paracelsian system of medicine.
Bernard Palissy was a French natural scientist, painter, ceramicist and sculptor, geologist and writer of the French Renaissance.
Born into a family of artisans, Palissy apprenticed with his father as a glass artist and traveled throughout southwestern France comprehending pottery and studying geology. Today he is best known for his amazing lead-glazed pottery with images of various animals and people. After seeing a white glazed cup, probably of Chinese porcelain, in the 1540s, he set out to learn the secrets of its manufacture. His early research is described in De l'art de la terre. Although Palissy never succeeded in reproducing what he saw, his experiments gave him a thorough knowledge of the chemical compositions of minerals.
From 1575 in Paris, Palissy gave public lectures on natural history, which were published as Discours admirables (1580). In this treatise, Bernard Palissy touches on an incredibly wide range of subjects, from the techniques of ceramics, metallurgy and chemistry to hydrology, geology and fossils. He correctly identified fossils as the remains of ancient life. This work reveals him as a writer and scientist, a creator of modern agronomy and a pioneer of the experimental method, with scientific views generally more advanced than those of his contemporaries.
Paracelsus, born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance.
He was a pioneer in several aspects of the "medical revolution" of the Renaissance, emphasizing the value of observation in combination with received wisdom. He is credited as the "father of toxicology". Paracelsus also had a substantial influence as a prophet or diviner, his "Prognostications" being studied by Rosicrucians in the 1600s. Paracelsianism is the early modern medical movement inspired by the study of his works.
