Philosophers 16th century
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known simply as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who played a significant role in the High Renaissance period. Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, Michelangelo's works are a testament to his mastery in various artistic realms, defining him as a quintessential Renaissance man.
Michelangelo's fame began early in his career, most notably with his sculptures "Pietà" (1499) and "David" (1501), both completed before he turned thirty. Despite his self-perception primarily as a sculptor, Michelangelo made an indelible mark in painting, particularly with the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. These works include the scenes from Genesis on the chapel's ceiling and "The Last Judgment" on its altar wall, showcasing his innovative use of physical realism and psychological tension.
Among his most famous works, the "David" statue, now housed in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, and the "Pietà," located in St. Peter's Basilica, stand out for their intricate detail and emotional depth. Michelangelo's ability to imbue life into marble and his thoughtful consideration of light and shadow in painting were revolutionary. His techniques in fresco painting, such as the buon fresco method used in the Sistine Chapel, where he painted on wet plaster, were groundbreaking for their time.
Despite his temperamental nature, Michelangelo was deeply religious and dedicated to his art, often eschewing the use of assistants. His works were not only recognized and admired in Italy but also attracted attention from abroad, including the Ottoman Empire. Michelangelo's influence extended beyond his lifetime, significantly impacting the development of Mannerism and the Baroque style.
For art collectors and experts, Michelangelo's works remain a pinnacle of artistic achievement. His ability to blend realism with expressive physicality in both sculpture and painting set new standards in art. His works in major museums and galleries worldwide continue to inspire and awe viewers, reflecting the enduring legacy of his genius.
For those interested in the world of art and antiques, staying informed about Michelangelo's works and their influence on modern art is essential. To receive updates on new product sales and auction events related to Michelangelo, sign up for our newsletter. This subscription is an excellent opportunity for enthusiasts and experts alike to stay connected with the ongoing legacy of one of history's greatest artists.
Jacobus Faber Stapulensis or Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples was a French humanist, Catholic theologian, philosopher, music theorist and mathematician. He taught at the University of Paris. He is best known as the first translator into French of the complete text of the Bible.
Robert Fludd was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and Rosicrucian.
Fludd is best known for his compilations in occult philosophy. He had a celebrated exchange of views with Johannes Kepler concerning the scientific and hermetic approaches to knowledge.
Girolamo Franzosi was an Italian physician and philosopher.
He was born in Polpenazza (now Polpenazze del Garda), near the Lombard lakeshore, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Franzosi was a student at Padua and became a convinced Aristotelian. He opposed the anatomists of the Neoteric Academy, which represented the new trends of medicine in Verona in contrast to the Galenic tendencies of traditional medicine.
Franzosi's other works, written under the influence of Girolamo Cardano and Agostino Nifo, deal with such wide-ranging topics as dreams, prophecies, imagination, and the medicinal properties of viper venom. He printed most of his works in Verona, calling himself "medicus and philosopher of Verona".
Gemma Frisius, born Jemme Reinerszoon Frisius, was a Dutch mathematician, physician, cartographer, philosopher, engraver, and master of astronomical instruments.
He taught mathematics and medicine at the University of Leuven and applied his mathematical knowledge to astronomy, geography, and map-making. Frisius participated in the creation of the latest globes and used mathematics in geodesy and navigation in new ways and invented or improved many instruments, including the cross staff, the astrolabe, and the astronomical rings (also known as "Gemma rings"). He ran a workshop for making such instruments.
Frisius is credited with being one of the founders of the Dutch school of cartography.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian naturalist, physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician.
Using his own improved telescopes, Galileo Galilei observed the movements of the Moon, Earth's satellites, and the stars, making several breakthrough discoveries in astronomy. He was the first to see craters on the Moon, discovered sunspots and the rings of Saturn, and traced the phases of Venus. Galileo was a consistent and convinced supporter of the teachings of Copernicus and the heliocentric system of the world, for which he was subjected to the trial of the Inquisition.
Galileo is considered the founder of experimental and theoretical physics. He is also one of the founders of the principle of relativity in classical mechanics. Overall, the scientist had such a significant impact on the science of his time that he cannot be overemphasized.
Levinus Lemnius (Dutch: Lieven Lemse, Lenneus, Lennius, Lemmens, Lemnii of Lemnes) was a Dutch physician, philosopher, botanist and writer.
He studied under the famous Swiss botanist and bibliographer Conrad Gesner at the University of Louvain and under the famous Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius at the University of Padua. Lemnius's book On the Habit and Constitution of the Body was translated by Thomas Newton, an Anglican clergyman who translated some of Lemnius's treatises into English, as well as other modern continental and classical works.
Lemnius is considered the first author to describe the plants mentioned in the Bible, in T. Newton's translation, Herbal for the Bible (1587). Levin Lemnius's most famous book is Occulta naturae miracula (1559), a book of mysteries that was reprinted many times over a period of four hundred years.
Fortunio Liceti (Latin: Fortunius Licetus) was an Italian physician, natural philosopher, writer and educator.
Liceti studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Bologna and earned doctorates in these disciplines. He taught logic and philosophy at the University of Pisa, and became professor of philosophy at the University of Padua and the University of Bologna. At the University of Padua, Liceti became friends with Galileo Galilei.
Liceti's inquisitive mind was interested in a wide range of subjects: from genetics and reproduction to gems and animals. In general, Fortunio Liceti was a very industrious and prolific scientist: he published a book each year, writing more than seventy works on a wide range of subjects, including the human soul, reproduction, and birth defects.
In 1616, Liceti wrote and published the first edition of De monstruorum causis, natura et differentiis (On the Causes, Nature, and Differences of Monsters), a chronologically ordered catalog of monsters from antiquity to the seventeenth century. Among these monsters were infants with congenital malformations. Liceti was one of the first scholars to attempt to systematically categorize birth defects according to their causes, including numerous causes not related to the supernatural. This topic interested the scientist greatly and he returned to it several times during his life, supplementing it with illustrations, among other things. From 1640 to 1650. Liceti also wrote and published seven different volumes in which he answered questions from famous people on a wide variety of medical topics.
Niccolò di Bernardo Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, politician and diplomat, historian and Renaissance writer.
As a young man, Niccolò Machiavelli faced financial difficulties due to his father's debts, but had access to a rich library. Machiavelli's early life and career began during a period of political upheaval in Italy. After the expulsion of the Medici family in 1494, for 14 years Niccolo Machiavelli served as a diplomat to the Florentine Republic. During this service, he gained a reputation as a cunning and unconventional thinker. However, when the Medici returned to power in 1512, Machiavelli was dismissed, imprisoned, and temporarily removed from political life.
During this period Machiavelli wrote his famous work The Sovereign, which has become one of the key works in the history of political philosophy. This book epitomizes the Machiavellian approach to politics, where the means justify the end, and where a leader should use any method to consolidate his power. The treatise drew criticism from the Pope, who condemned it for supporting rule through deceit and fear. Nevertheless, The Sovereign is still an important work of political literature, and Machiavelli has come to be called "the father of modern political theory."
Machiavelli lived the rest of his life in a small village near Florence, where he continued his creative endeavors, writing On the Art of War, as well as poems and plays. His literary legacy has become an integral part of the history of political philosophy.
Thomas More was a British lawyer, humanist philosopher, writer and statesman.
As the son of a London judge of the Royal High Court, Thomas studied at Oxford and then in London with the best lawyers. More also studied the works of the ancient classics, improved in Greek and Latin languages, composed his works. In 1497 More met and became friends with Erasmus of Rotterdam, became a member of his humanist circle.
In 1510-1518 Thomas More was deputy sheriff of London, and in 1517 entered the service of the king, becoming one of the most effective and trusted civil servants of Henry VIII. He acted as his secretary, interpreter, speech writer, chief diplomat, counselor, and confidant. He was knighted in 1521, became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, and in 1525. - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Around 1515. More wrote The History of Richard III, and in 1516 he published his most significant work, Utopia, in which he described an imaginary ideal state.
Thomas More opposed the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon and refused to recognize the king as the head of the Church of England, as required by the Act of Supremacy in 1534. For his refusal, he was beheaded in the Tower of London in 1535. 400 years later, in 1935 Thomas More was canonized by the Catholic Church, and in 1980 the Church of England recognized him as a "saint and hero of the Christian Church."
Giovanni Nardi was an Italian physician and natural philosopher.
After studying at the University of Pisa, Nardi worked as a physician in Florence. He corresponded with many of the leading natural philosophers and antiquarians of his time, including members of the Accademia dei Lincei. In 1620 Nardi became court physician to Duke Ferdinando II Medici of Tuscany and accompanied him on his travels. In his Florentine home, Nardi amassed a collection of antiques and curiosities.
Nardi wrote several volumes on natural philosophy, as well as a commentary on Lucretius entitled Titi Lucretii Cari De rerum naturae libri sex (1647). Nardi's commentaries on Lucretius's natural history, medicine, physics, and theory of atomism far exceed the poem itself.
Nostradamus (French: Michel de Nostredame) was a French physician-pharmacist, writer, poet, astrologer and alchemist.
Nostradamus was born into a family of baptized Jews and studied various sciences in Avignon. At that time the plague was rampant in Europe, and Nostradamus decided to become a healer, in 1526 he even invented an anti-plague medicine, and later received a degree of Doctor of Medicine. He began his medical practice around the 1530s in Agen. During the plague outbreaks in Aix and Lyon in 1546-1547, he gained fame for his innovative treatments. Nostradamus described his methods of dealing with epidemics in several medical works. In addition to medicine, he also practiced astrology.
Nostradamus gained worldwide fame thanks to his gift as a seer. He began making prophecies around 1547 and first published them in 1555 in a book called Centuries. The book was written in rhymed quatrains - catrines - with predictions of future events in European history. Some of his prophecies were close to the truth, and the fame of the visionary Nostradamus reached the court of Catherine de Medici, who ordered him to compile horoscopes of her children. In 1564 he was appointed physician to Charles IX, to whom he also made several predictions that came true.
Nostradamus's book of prophecies was a huge success, and it still arouses interest, but he wrote allegorically and many of the katrines cannot be interpreted unambiguously.
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.
Paolo Ricci (Italian: Paolo Ricci, Latin: Paulus Ricius, German: Paul Ritz), also known as Ritz, Riccio, or Paulus Israelita, was a humanist convert from Judaism, a writer-theologian, Kabbalist, and physician.
After his baptism in 1505 he published his first work, Sol Federis, in which he affirmed his new faith and sought through Kabbalah to refute modern Judaism. In 1506 he moved to Pavia, Italy, where he became a lecturer in philosophy and medicine at the university and met Erasmus of Rotterdam. Ricci was also a learned astrologer, a professor of Hebrew, philosophy, theology, and Kabbalah, a profound connoisseur and translator of sacred texts into Latin and Hebrew, and the author of philosophical and theological works.
Paolo Ricci was a very prolific writer. His Latin translations, especially the translation of the Kabalistic work Shaare Orach, formed the basis of the Christian Kabbalah of the early 16th century.
Giuseppe Rosaccio was an Italian physician, astronomer, cosmographer and cartographer.
Rosaccio graduated from the University of Padua, studied philosophy, medicine and law, and worked as a physician and judge. He became famous for a series of works that popularized a number of scientific disciplines. Some of his books deal with astrological medicine, specific diseases and their remedies, and the distillation of medicines from plants.
Giuseppe Rosaccio wrote about forty works on various topics of interest to him, but the main one was geography. He wrote an essay on the Muslim religion and treatises on geography, cosmography, astronomy, and astrology, which became very popular and were repeatedly reprinted.
Rosaccio created many atlases and small-format geographical works. Among his works is Ptolemy's Geography, which contains many indexes and is written in Italian (1599). He also authored a large map of the world (1597), and a large map of Italy and Tuscany (1609). His book Journey from Venice to Constantinople includes maps of the route with brief texts, that is, it is essentially an illustrated version of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Desiderius Erasmus, also Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus (Latin: Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, Dutch: Gerrit Gerritszoon) was a Dutch humanist, philosopher, and the greatest scholar of the Northern Renaissance.
He was illegitimate and brought up under the name Gerhard Gerhards, later in Latin his name was dubbed Desiderius Erasmus. At the age of 13, the boy was sent to a monastery, where he later took the ministry. Erasmus read a lot, improving in Latin and Ancient Greek, studied oratory. A few years later he received the post of secretary to the bishop of the French city of Cambre. From 1493 to 1499 Rotterdam lived in Paris, then in London he was introduced to Thomas More, John Fisher, and John Colet.
Erasmus was constantly on the move, rarely staying in one place and traveling frequently between the Netherlands, Britain, France and Italy. In Turin he earned a doctorate in theology and was received by the Pope, then taught ancient Greek and theology at Cambridge. He corresponded with the rulers of various countries, popes and cardinals, and with statesmen, answering their questions of a scientific, political, and philosophical nature. As a true humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam adhered to the ideas of a scientific spirit that favored research and true knowledge.
Among the merits of Rotterdamsky study of religious texts from a scientific position, critical interpretation of theology. Erasmus was able to lay the groundwork for historical-critical study of the past, especially in his studies of the Greek New Testament and the church fathers. His educational writings helped to replace the old school curriculum with a new humanistic emphasis on the classics.
In 1501, Erasmus produced a religious and ethical treatise, The Arms of the Christian Warrior, published in 1504. His work entitled "The Praise of Folly" was reprinted 40 times only during the author's lifetime, the book has been translated into all popular languages of the world. The series "Conversations in a Simple Way" (1518-1533) is among the most popular books on pedagogy. Erasmus promoted respect and care for children, opposing violence and corporal influence. He also promoted the idea that education should be compulsory for everyone.
Israël Spach (also Israelis Spachius) was a German and French physician, medical writer and teacher of medicine.
Spach studied at the University of Tübingen, receiving the degree of doctor of medicine, and from 1589 taught medicine and Hebrew at the University of Strasbourg, with the rank of professor of medicine. He was characterized by a high bibliographical education.
Spach was the author of a gynecological encyclopedia, Gynaeciorum sive de mulierum tum communibus, tum gravidarum, parientium, et puerperarum affectibus et morbis, published in Strasbourg in 1597. It was a very significant book for its time.
Israël Spach also wrote Nomenclator scriptorum medicorum..., published in Frankfurt in 1591, which was the first attempt at a bibliography on medical subjects. It was organized under very broad subject headings, with indexes of authors and subjects.
Huldrych or 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, a scholarly center of Renaissance humanism. 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.