Priests
Sabine Baring-Gould was a Victorian British clergyman, poet, writer and folklorist.
He traveled extensively in Europe, studied at Clare College, Cambridge, was ordained in the Church of England in 1864, and was appointed vicar at Horbury. Baring-Gould was a polyglot and knew six languages. Despite his ministry, he had a serious interest in supernatural phenomena and in 1865 published a book called The Book of Werewolves.
In addition to this, Baring-Gould was interested in a wide range of subjects. His work is diverse and covered theology, history, poetry, hymns, fiction, biography, travel, social commentary, and folklore. Baring-Gould collected the folk songs of old English singers, personally visiting them and recording the words and music. In 1889 he published a collection of Songs of the West in four parts, of which he was proud, and also wrote several patriotic hymns.
Baring-Gould was a very prolific writer: during his life he wrote many novels, published short stories in periodicals, the popular "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," and others, his bibliography numbering some 1,250 works.
Robert Barrow was an American Quaker missionary, traveler, and writer.
Barrow participated in a voyage led by a Quaker trader from Jamaica, Jonathan Dickinson (1663-1722), traveling from Kingston to Philadelphia, but ran aground on the east coast of Florida. They were captured several times by the natives of the region. In March 1696, Jonathan Dickinson and his family and Robert Barrow sailed from Charles Town and reached Philadelphia fourteen days later. On April 4, 1697, three days after arriving in Philadelphia, Robert Barrow died.
Dickinson's account of their capture, release, and subsequent rescue by the Spanish was published in 1699 in Philadelphia under the title God's Patronizing Providence. The book became a bestseller. Robert Barrow had time to write his account of the adventure after their rescue by the Spanish governor of St. Augustine, who provided them with a canoe to take them to the English settlements in South Carolina.
Jacques Basnage de Beauval was a French theologian and historian, diplomat and writer.
His father was a prominent lawyer and his grandfather and great-grandfather were pastors, Jacques studied theology and languages at the Academy of Saumur, then at Geneva and Sedan. In 1676, Jacques Basnage was appointed pastor at Rouen during the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was forced to flee France for Holland, where he worked as a theologian, polemicist, historian, and diplomat in the service of the Grand Pensioner Hensius.
In 1717, on behalf of Holland, Basnage was sent to sign the treaty of the Triple Alliance (France, Holland, England). In the Annals of the United Provinces (1719-1726), compiled from the peace negotiations held at Münster, he displays breadth of vision, wisdom, and impartiality.
About 1719 Jacques Basnage was appointed historiographer of the Dutch states. He wrote several books on the Bible, the history of the Church, and the history of the Jewish people. Among the best known of these are his History of the Religion of the Protestant Denominations (1690), History of the Church of Jesus Christ to the Present Time (1699), written from Protestant positions, and History of the Jews (1706), as well as Jewish Antiquities, or Critical Notes on the Republic of the Jews (1713).
Jeremy Belknap is an American clergyman, historian, and author.
Belknap was educated at Harvard College and has devoted his life to the Congregationalist Church. In addition, he served for many years as secretary to the New Hampshire Ministerial Convention. He traveled throughout the state in his service and at the same time collected information on New Hampshire history. The result of these years of work was The History of New Hampshire, published in three volumes between 1784 and 1792. This work is the first modern history written by an American.
Belknap also wrote and published American Biographies in two volumes (1794 and 1798), which brought him to the attention of intellectuals across the country. He became a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Belknap was also a founding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first such society in America.
Pierre Bersuire, also known as Petrus Berchorius, was a French medieval writer, Benedictine monk, translator, and encyclopedist.
He was the leading French scholar of his time and friend of Petrarch, author of encyclopedic works on morality, and the first French translator of Titus Livy's History from the Foundation of the City. Very interesting for researchers is Pierre Bersuir's text Ovidius Moralisatus - written in Avignon in 1340 and spreading rapidly, it is a systematic allegorical analysis of the Metamorphoses, aimed at the current situation in church and society.
Bersuire was also an eloquent preacher and author of voluminous sermons.
Benito Rodríguez Blanes was a Spanish Baroque painter and Catholic priest, celebrated for his contributions to the Granada School of art. Born in Granada and living through the 17th and early 18th centuries, Blanes became an influential figure in Spanish Baroque painting. He is noted for being a follower of Alonso Cano, a prominent painter of the time.
Blanes' artistic work, deeply rooted in religious themes, is distinguished by its spiritual depth and intricate detail. His works include beautiful paintings of the Virgin Mary, which were once located in the staircase of the archbishop's palace, and the sacristy of the Discalced Carmelites in Granada. Particularly notable are his paintings at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada, including a revered depiction of a Dominican saint.
For art collectors and experts, Blanes' works remain a testament to the rich cultural and artistic heritage of the Granada School. His paintings offer a glimpse into the spiritual and artistic expressions of his era.
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Henry of Bracton (also Henry de Bracton, Henricus Bracton, Henry Bretton) was an English medieval jurist, royal judge, and compiler of the English common law. Bracton came from a wealthy family from Devon and studied at Oxford University and held various ecclesiastical offices, finally becoming Chancellor of the Diocese of Exeter. Bracton also received a legal education, and entered first the service of the famous judge William Raleigh, and in 1239 went into the service of King Henry III. In 1244 Bracton became a judge himself, and in 1255-56 he was a member of the King's Council.
Henry Bracton is famous for his two works, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae (On the Laws and Customs of England) and Note Book, which together represent one of the most important attempts to streamline and rationalize English medieval common law. The author constructed his works inspired by compilations of Lombard law and Roman civil law. In his first classical treatise, among other things, Bracton introduced the concepts of mens rea (criminal intent) and precedent. Bracton's work, written probably between 1250 and 1260, was cited in court until the eighteenth century.
Georg Braun was a German topographical geographer, cartographer and publisher.
Braun was the editor-in-chief of the Civitates orbis terrarum, a groundbreaking atlas of cities, one of the major cartographic achievements of the 16th century. It was the first comprehensive and detailed atlas, with plans of the world's famous cities and bird's-eye views, and became one of the best-selling works of the time.
The book was prepared by Georg Braun in collaboration with the Flemish engraver and cartographer Frans Hoogenberg. Braun, as editor-in-chief, acquired tables, hired artists, and wrote the texts. They drew on existing maps as well as maps based on drawings by the Antwerp artist Joris Hofnagel and his son Jacob. Other authors include Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), Jacob van Deventer (c. 1505-1575), and more than a hundred other artists and engravers.
Stephen Burroughs was an American adventurer and con man, impostor and counterfeiter who became a writer and preacher.
Stephen Burroughs as a child moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, and as a child earned and proudly carried the reputation of an incorrigible bully, everywhere and always looking for trouble. During the Revolutionary War at the age of 14, he ran away several times, then in the Continental Army, then left it. In the eyes of society Burroughs was a scoundrel: a fugitive, a deserter, pretended to be a ship's doctor, a pastor, escaped from several prisons, including the island fortress and even by burning the prison. The fame of his exploits often ran ahead of himself.
Stephen later moved to Canada and led a group of counterfeiters, and a few years later suddenly decided to reform himself and became a youth pastor.
By the age of 33, Burroughs had accomplished so many daring "feats" and adventures that he decided to write a story about himself in his own words. His full of adventures book "Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs" was published in 1798 and then reprinted under different names many dozens of times. And Burroughs himself died in 1840 in Canada as a free and wealthy man.
Johannes Busch was a major Dutch clergyman and reformed theologian.
As a monastic reformer and chronicler, the Augustinian canon of Windesheim, Johannes Busch is one of the most prominent figures of the Devotio moderna ("New Piety") movement in Catholicism. With his historiographical works Chronicle of the Monastery of Windesheim and Liber de reformatione monasteriorum he shaped the association of the Windesheim monastery and the late medieval observance movement.
Nicolas-Louis De la Caille was a French astronomer, abbot and educator.
He studied philosophy and theology, became an abbot, but the craving for science overpowered everything, and he studied astronomy on his own. In 1736, la Caille received a place at the Paris Observatory, in 1739 was appointed professor of mathematics at Mazarini-College in Paris and built his own observatory, where he conducted astronomical observations. In 1741 Lacaille was admitted to the Académie des Sciences.
La Caille was an outstanding astronomer: he observed more than 10,000 stars in the Southern Hemisphere and named 14 of the 88 constellations. In 1752, he made an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, where he built an observatory and conducted a huge series of observations, including the discovery and cataloging of 42 nebulae. These studies led to la Caille being called "the father of southern astronomy," and his observations from South Africa of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, combined with similar observations already made in the Northern Hemisphere, led to the calculation of more accurate values for the distances to these bodies.
On his return to Paris two years later, in 1754, he resumed his post and taught at the school of Mazarin, continuing his work at the observatory of the College of Mazarini. Among his pupils was the great chemist Antoine Lavoisier. La Caille was a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a member of the Royal Society of London. His Coelum Australe Stelliferum ("Star Catalog of the Southern Sky") was published in 1763.
Bonetus de Latis or Jacob ben Emanuel Provenzale was a French physician and astrologer of Jewish origin.
Originally from Provence, France, he was a rabbi, and in Rome became physician to Pope Alexander VI and later Pope Leo X. Latis is known mainly as the inventor of the ring-shaped sundial, an astronomical circular dial that could be used to measure solar and stellar altitudes and determine the time with great accuracy both day and night. These clocks were portable and easy to use for navigation. Latis also wrote a treatise known among scholars about the astrolabe ring (1492-1493).
Antonio de San Román de Ribadeneyra, also San Román de Rivadeneira/Ribadeneira, was a Spanish Benedictine monk and historical writer.
He served at the monastery of San Zoil near Carrión de los Condes and wrote several historical books. In particular, an account of King Sebastião I's disastrous invasion of Morocco in 1578 and his death in battle entitled Jornada y muerte del Rey Don Sebastião de Portugal (1603). Antonio de San Román de Ribadeneyra also wrote A General History of Eastern India (1603). This historical work focuses on the Portuguese expeditions to Asia and the Americas, including a description of Christopher Columbus.
John Donne was a British preacher and poet, a major exponent of English Baroque literature.
His father was a wealthy merchant, and he was educated at Oxford, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn. Then began to write satires, which were willingly passed from hand to hand. The first three of Donne's famous satires date from 1593, and the others were written at various times before 1601. In 1594 he began his travels in Europe, accompanied the Earl of Essex on the capture of Cadiz in 1596 and on the expedition of 1597, and was in Italy and Spain.
In 1601. John Donne wrote his remarkable poem "The Progress of the Soul", in 1610 published his prose work against Catholics "Pseudo-Martyr", and in 1611. - an even harsher polemical treatise, Ignatius in Conclave. John Donne was also the author of many sonnets, love poems, elegies, epigrams, and religious sermons.
In 1621 John Donne was appointed rector of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and near the end of his life he became a popular eloquent preacher whose sermons were eagerly printed and published. 160 of his sermons have survived, including the most famous, Death's Duel, which he delivered in Whitehall before King Charles I on February 25, 1631, a few weeks before his own death.
Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, also known as Cardinal Richelieu or the Red Cardinal (French: l'Éminence rouge) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, aristocrat and statesman of France.
Armand Jean's father, François du Plessis, Signor de Richelieu, was the grand proclaimer (chief magistrate) of Henry III, but left his family devastated at his death. At the age of 22, Armand was ordained a priest and began to build a career. Thanks to his intellectual talents, he was soon appointed chaplain to the new Queen Anne of Austria, and in 1616 he was appointed Secretary of State for War and Foreign Affairs. Further events and a palace coup led to his exile, but he returned to Paris five years later.
The Duc de Richelieu became a cardinal in 1622, and from 1624 until his death in 1642 he was chief minister to King Louis XIII of France. His main goals were to establish royal absolutism in France and to end the Spanish-Habsburg hegemony in Europe. He made significant strides in reforming France, especially in terms of the administrative structure of the government.
The intrigues of his opponents accompanied the Duc de Richelieu throughout his political life. In the last years of his life he found himself involved in religious conflicts, in opposition to the pope in a struggle with the French church over the distribution of revenues intended to finance the war.
Richelieu possessed outstanding intellectual ability, willpower, and industriousness. He directed his own wealth to patronizing the arts and the University of Paris; he established the French Academy. Richelieu was also a talented playwright and musician.
Giorgio Duranti was an Italian painter and cleric of the Baroque period, mainly active in Brescia. An entry in Dandolo's study of the late Venetian Republic states a 1755 as year of death, and that many of his works were in the Royal Gallery of Turin, which was the nucleus of the Sabauda Gallery.
Timothy Dwight IV was an American clergyman, teacher, author, and satirical poet.
Dwight was the eldest son of farmer and merchant Timothy Dwight III. He graduated from Yale University, was a schoolmaster, a Massachusetts state legislator, and a chaplain in the Continental Army. In 1783 he opened a successful school in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he became pastor of the Congregational Church.
In Connecticut, Dwight began writing poetry, such as Greenfield Hill (1794), and epics, including The Conquest of Canaan (1785), an allegory of the conquest of Connecticut from the British. His works are characterized by moralizing and moralizing. Dwight was also the author of political satire, as well as a verse satire on Voltaire, "The Triumph of Infidelity." He and his brother Theodore were members of a group of writers known as the Hartford Witters, centered around Yale University.
From 1795 to 1817. Dwight served as president of Yale University and was extremely influential in modernizing the curriculum. He was an active and eloquent professor of theology; his sermons were published in Theology; Explanation and Defense, 5 volumes (1818-19).
Dwight was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an early member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Nathaniel Evans was an American colonial clergyman and poet.
Evans was born in Philadelphia in the family of a merchant, graduated from the William Smith Academy in that city. In 1765 he received a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In the same year he edited a collection of poems by his friend Thomas Godfrey. He also organized churches in Waterford and Gloucester, New Jersey.
Nathaniel Evans died of tuberculosis after living only 25 years, so his poetic talent remained undiscovered. But from a collection of a few of his poems published in 1772, we can tell that his mind was of a fine and refined stock, and his imagination was vivid.
Giovanni Battista Ferrari was an Italian Jesuit scholar, professor of Oriental languages and botanist.
Giovanni Ferrari had linguistic abilities and at the age of 21 knew Hebrew well, spoke and wrote Greek and Latin perfectly, and learned Syriac. He became professor of Hebrew and rhetoric at the Jesuit College in Rome and edited a Syriac-Latin dictionary in 1622.
Ferrari always showed great interest in the systematics and classification of fruits. He was appointed head of the chair of Hebraistics at the College of Rome and held this position for 28 years. In 1623, Ferrari became horticultural advisor to the family of Pope Urban VIII at the Palazzo Barberini, which soon became famous for its rare plants, including orange trees. Ferrari later wrote the first book on citrus trees, equating them to the mythical golden apples of the Hesperides conquered by Hercules. Orange trees became an important element of Baroque gardens, symbolizing the rewards earned by the magnanimous prince. The scientist also described the medicinal properties of citrus fruits.
In 1633, the first treatise on floriculture, De florum cultura, was published. In it, Ferrari describes garden layout with contemporary examples, flower specimens and their cultivation, and general horticulture.
Pierre Gassendi was a French Catholic priest, Epicurean philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and researcher of ancient texts.
He taught rhetoric at Diné and philosophy at Aix-en-Provence. Gassendi's Syntagma philosophicum, the result of his historical research and philosophical reflections, is a well-known work. Several of his works on astronomy, physics and mechanics were also published in the 17th century.
George Robert Gleig was a Scottish soldier, military writer and clergyman.
Gleig participated in the American War, taking part in five battles (Bladensburg, Baltimore, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Fort Bowyer), and was wounded three times. He subsequently became chaplain general of the troops. He has written numerous articles about his experiences in the war, which have been published in magazines or as books. Gleig is also the author of several historical novels.
Edward Everett Hale was an American clergyman, preacher and writer, abolitionist and pacifist.
Hale demonstrated outstanding literary ability from an early age. He went to Harvard College and became a minister and preacher. Grandnephew of Revolutionary hero Nathan Hale and nephew of orator Edward Everett, Hale worked for his father's newspaper, the Boston Daily Advertiser. And for 70 years he never stopped writing newspaper articles, historical essays, short stories, pamphlets, and sermons for the North American Review, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Christian Examiner. From 1870 to 1875 he published and edited the Unitarian magazine Old and New.
Hale wrote several novels, of which the most popular were East and West (1892) and In His Name (1873). Hale's most famous novel, A Man Without a Country, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1863, was written to evoke patriotism during the Civil War. It is a political fable about a man who renounces his American citizenship and greatly regrets it.
Many of Hale's 150 books and pamphlets were tracts in support of the ideas of Negro education, worker's housing, and world peace. The moralistic novel Ten Times One is Ten (1871) was the impetus for the organization of several youth groups.
In 1847, Hale was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society and remained a member for the rest of his life. A 10-volume collection of Edward Hale's writings was published between 1898 and 1900. In 1903 he was appointed chaplain of the United States Senate and joined the Literary Society of Washington. The following year he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Enos Hitchcock was an American clergyman, author, educator, and education advocate.
He graduated from Harvard College and soon began preaching. When hostilities between the colonies and Great Britain broke out in 1775, Hitchcock joined the army, serving as a chaplain in the Continental Army from 1779-1780. After the war ended, Rev. Hitchcock preached in various localities until he settled in Providence, NC, in 1783 as pastor of the First Congregational Church, becoming an active member of its benevolent society.
In 1788 Hitchcock received his doctorate from Brown University and maintained close ties with it thereafter. With the president of that university, James Manning (1738-1791), and other prominent citizens of Providence, he was active in educational matters, and by the time of his death had succeeded in establishing a public school system in Providence. In addition to these activities, Rev. Hitchcock was a member of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
Enos Hitchcock also wrote several epistolary works in which, among other things, he objected to the use of suicide as a plot point. His bullied rural heroes and heroines are ultimately rewarded for their virtue and courage.
Kim En Joong is a South Korean Dominican priest, painter, stained glass artist and renowned artist.
Representing abstract landscape painting, his non-figurative canvases, nourished by new technical notions of space and perspective, impose a change of scenery, the starting point of a quest for divine mystery.
In his pictorial works, what is striking is the impression of "liquidity" or "fluidity" of the pigments used. Thanks to delicate, pure and clear colours, Kim En Joong creates a fairytale-like spectacle by playing on the liveliness of the tones and the subtle contrasts.
Andrew Le Mercier was a clergyman, pastor of the French Huguenot Church in Boston in the 18th century, and writer.
Le Mercier completed his ecclesiastical training at the Geneva Academy and in 1716 arrived in Boston (Massachusetts Bay, then an English colony) and began working as a pastor. He was active in establishing a settlement for shipwrecked men on the infamous Sable Island. The pastor also sent provisions there, which saved many lives.
Andrew Le Mercier wrote The Ecclesiastical History of Geneva in Five Books, with a Political and Geographical Description of that Republic (Boston, 1732) and A Treatise Against Diminution (1733).
John Blair Linn is an American priest and poet.
Linn graduated from Columbia College and later became a priest. While in college, he published in magazines and newspapers, later writing a play and several collections of poetry and prose.
David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary, a dedicated explorer of Africa, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and a Correspondent of the Académie des Sciences de Paris.
He was brought up in a devout Scottish family, studied Greek, theology, and medicine in Glasgow, and earned his doctorate at Anderson University, where he studied medicine. In 1838 Livingstone was admitted to the London Missionary Society and arrived in Cape Town in March 1841, from where he began his missionary work and explorations, which ultimately had a formative influence on Western attitudes toward Africa. Livingstone spent the next thirty years traveling through the interior of southern and central Africa.
He quickly learned the languages of the local people and gained their respect. David Livingstone was the first European to cross the continent from west to east; he discovered the Zambezi River, Victoria Falls, and several major lakes in Central Africa. His publications about these explorations and the slave trade brought great fame. He established a reputation as a committed Christian, a courageous explorer, and an ardent fighter against slavery and the slave trade. His book Missionary Travels, published in London in 1857, was a great success with the public.
In 1865, the Royal Geographical Society commissioned Livingstone to find the source of the Nile River, and the brave scientist alone, not counting local helpers, made a huge journey. For several years there was no word from him, and the New York Times sent journalist Henry Stanley to find him. When they finally met on November 10, 1871, at Ujiji on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, Stanley greeted him with the now famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanley brought the necessary medicines, and soon the seriously ill Livingstone regained his strength. Together they still explored the shores of the lake, but to all entreaties Stanley to leave Africa with him, the selfless scientist refused.
David Livingstone died on May 1, 1873, his heart was buried in Ulala, and his body was transported to Great Britain and buried with honors in Westminster Abbey.
James Lyon was a clergyman and one of the first American composers.
James Lyon was one of the few composers in mid-eighteenth-century America. He earned a master's degree from the College of Philadelphia and became a Presbyterian minister. He is known to have begun writing music while still a student. While living in Philadelphia, Lyon published his Urania, or Select Collection of Psalms, Hymns, and Anthems, in 1761. It contained many English tunes as well as six original pieces by Lyon. Lyon is believed to be the author of the tune that eventually became the song "America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)."
He served the Congregational Church in Machias, Maine from 1771 until his death in 1794. James Lyon was an ardent and active patriot and even made George Washington a detailed proposal to conquer Nova Scotia.
Nathaniel Niles is an American lawyer and politician, a member of the House of Representatives from Vermont.
Niles attended Harvard College and the College of New Jersey, eventually becoming a preacher but also active in politics. Niles sat in the lower house of the Vermont legislature for eight terms. From 1784 to 1787 he was a member of the state supreme court.
In addition to his sermons, he published numerous theological articles. When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Niles enthusiastically supported the war against England. He even wrote his only work of poetry, an ode entitled "American Hero," to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was set to music and became quite popular among New England soldiers and militia.
Cornelius Nozeman was a Dutch church minister and ornithological naturalist.
Nozeman was the inspiration for the best Dutch work on ornithology of the 18th century. This long-term project took more than 60 years in total to complete. The work, entitled Nederlandsche Vogelen ("Birds of the Netherlands"), was begun in 1770 by two Dutch craftsmen. The famous engraver and painter Christian Sepp drew the illustrations, and Nozeman wrote the text for the first two volumes. After the death of Nozeman and Sepp, the work on the publication of the work was continued by their successor, physician and biologist Martinus Houttuyn. This voluminous and unique work was completed in 1830 by Christian Sepp's son Jan Christian, a natural history publisher, and his grandson Jan Sepp.
Each volume of this five-volume work of science and art contains 50 images of bird species, and each species is described on several pages.
Raymond of Penyafort (Spanish: San Raimundo de Peñafort) was a Spanish theologian, canonist, and Dominican friar who is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church.
Raimondo was an adviser and confessor to the Pope in Rome as well as to kings, particularly James I of Catalonia and Aragon. Together with King James of Aragon and St. Peter Nolasco, he founded the Order of Our Lady of Ransom. The monks of this Order devoted themselves to saving Christians captured by the Moors. One of Raimondo of Peñafort's main goals was the conversion of Jews and Muslims to Christianity, and to achieve this goal he ordered Arabic and Hebrew to be studied and taught in the higher schools run by the Dominicans. He was also among those who founded the Inquisition in Catalonia.
Raimondo died at the age of 100 in Barcelona in 1275 and was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in the same year.
Francesco Petrarca was an Italian poet, the founder of European humanism, and one of the greatest figures of the Italian Proto-Renaissance.
Petrarca studied at the University of Montpellier, then at the University of Bologna, in 1330 entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna as a chaplain. Then he made various pilgrimages, in 1353 settled in Milan at the court of Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, and carried out important diplomatic missions. Petrarca spent the last years of his life in the village of Arquà near Padua.
Since 1337 Petrarca began to write literary works: these were historical poems in Latin and lyric poems in Italian. In 1327 Francesco saw Laura for the first time, undivided love for which was the main source of his poetry. Laura was for him an object of adoration and pure platonic love. Despite the fact that they saw each other only a few times and were not really acquainted, Petrarca carried this feeling through his life.
Passionate about ancient culture, Petrarch deciphered and commented on the manuscripts of Cicero, Quintilian and others. He opposed medieval scholasticism interest in the earthly purpose of man, argued that the nobility of man depends not on the nobility of origin, but on his virtue. Petrarca highly valued the mind and creative abilities of man, and these humanistic ideas found vivid expression in his lyrics, revealing the inner world of man. Petrarca's work laid the foundation for the formation of Italian humanism. He also dreamed of the unification of Italy, the revival of the former greatness of Rome.
Francesco Petrarca had one of the richest libraries of his time, where ancient Roman writers, poets, historians, philosophers were represented. He was one of the brightest representatives of the culture of the Renaissance. Petrarca's works are characterized by perfection of form and musicality of verse, which played a significant role in the development of European poetry. Among his works are the poem "Africa" about the Second Punic War in Latin, allegorical pastoral eclogues "Bucolics" (1346/1357), a book of songs "My Italy", "Noble Spirit", sonnets, etc.
Giovanni Vincenzo Petrini was an Italian priest and theologian, philosopher, mathematician, and expert in mineralogy.
Along with Scipio Breislacus, Petrini was one of the founders of Italian volcanology. He taught philosophy and mathematics, theology, but specialized in mineralogy and created the Mineralogical Cabinet in Nazareth. This museum was famous in Europe and was visited, among others, by Emperor Joseph II, who gave him rare specimens from the lands of the Empire and especially from Hungary.
Giovanni Petrini was the author of the catalog Gabinetto mineralogico del Collegio Nazareno ("The Mineralogical Cabinet of the Nazarene Collegium, described by external features and distributed by component parts" (Rome, 1791-1792). The specimens in it are classified according to a standard structure: salts, earths, bitumens, combustibles, and metals. There is also a section on gemstones.
Giuseppe Piazzi was an Italian astronomer, mathematician and priest.
Around 1764 Piazzi became a Theatine priest, in 1779 he was appointed professor of theology in Rome, and in 1780 - professor of higher mathematics at the Academy of Palermo. Later, with the assistance of the Viceroy of Sicily, he founded an observatory in Palermo. There he compiled his great catalog of the positions of 7,646 stars and showed that most stars move relative to the Sun. There, on January 1, 1801, Piazzi also discovered the asteroid Ceres.
Giuseppe Piazzi's merits were appreciated: he was a member of the Royal Society of London, a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. A crater on the Moon is named in his honor.
Plutarch, full Roman name Lucius Mestrius Plutarch, was an ancient Greek writer, historian and philosopher of the Roman era.
Plutarch came from a wealthy family, received a good home education, then studied in Athens with the Platonic philosopher Ammonius. In his youth he traveled a lot, twice visited Rome, where he gave public lectures, visited Alexandria, the cities of Balkan Greece. But most of his life Plutarch spent in his native Cheronea, where he was engaged in public and educational activities. At the age of about 50, he became a priest of Apollo at Delphi, as well as an honorary Athenian and Roman citizen.
Some of Plutarch's writings are devoted to various philosophical, didactic, and historical topics. These include "Moral Essays" or "Moralia", "Platonic Questions", "On Monarchy, Democracy and Oligarchy", "Instructions on State Affairs" and others. Plutarch wrote a lot of biographical works, among them "On the Fortune and Valor of Alexander the Great". The greatest popularity enjoyed "Comparative biographies", in which Plutarch recreated the images of prominent political figures of Greece and Rome. In total, 46 paired and 4 single biographies have survived.
A lot of Plutarch's publications are devoted to family and human values in general, which he considers in great detail. Plutarch's humane writings were popular during the Roman Empire, retained their importance in the Byzantine period, and with the beginning of the Renaissance became an integral part of humanistic European culture.
John Ray was a British clergyman, naturalist, botanist and zoologist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
He came from a poor family, but through his persistence in acquiring knowledge he achieved recognition as a scientist. Ray published important works on botany, zoology, and natural history. His classification of plants in Historia Plantarum was an important step toward modern taxonomy (the scientific study of naming, defining, and classifying groups of biological organisms based on common characteristics). John Ray was the first to provide a biological definition of the term "species."
Vincenzo Renieri, born Giovanni Paolo, was an Italian priest, astronomer and mathematician.
Renieri was a member of the Olivetan Order and traveled throughout Italy. In 1633 in Siena, he met the already blind Galileo, who, appreciating his knowledge, instructed him to update his astronomical tables of the motion of the satellites of Jupiter, adding new ones. Rainieri later met the astronomer and scientist Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703), with whom he worked for many years, continuing Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons.
Renieri was also professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa and taught Greek there. In 1639 he published his work Tabulae Mediceae secundorum Mobilium Universales in Florence. One of the lunar craters is named after Renieri.
Christian Friedrich Schwarz was a German Lutheran missionary to India, a polyglot and diplomat.
Schwarz knew many languages, including Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Very young, he set out on a mission to India in early 1750 and was very successful. Schwartz was favorably received by Indian royalty, he taught Raja Serfoji of Tanjore, and was greatly respected by the local people for his good works.
The results of Christian Schwartz's missionary work exceeded all expectations. Schwartz founded several schools in India and had a significant impact on the establishment of Protestant Christianity in southern India. He lived in India until the end of his life and was buried with honors at St. Peter's Church in Maharnonbuhavadi, Thanjavur.
Heinrich Jacob Sivers was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian and scholar, poet and writer, naturalist and collector.
Sifers studied law and theology at the University of Kiel, and received his doctorate at the University of Rostock, where he lectured and wrote various works. He wrote many poems, sermons and ceremonial speeches in German, Swedish and Latin.
Heinrich Sivers also studied geology, traveled extensively in Scandinavia, and compiled his own mineral collection. In 1737 he sold many of his minerals, as well as a cabinet of Roman coins to Count Carl Gillenborg, today they can be seen at Lund University.
John Skelton was an English poet and writer of the Tudor period.
He was educated at the University of Cambridge, followed by degrees in rhetoric at Oxford, in the Netherlands, and at Cambridge. He was also a translator of ancient Greek and Roman authors. In 1488 Skelton was appointed court poet to Henry VII and then tutor to the Duke of York (later Henry VIII). In 1498 he took holy orders.
Skelton was known as a poet and satirist on both political and religious subjects. His best-known works include the moralizing play Magnyficence (1516), the humorous poem The Tunning of Elinor Rumming (1520), and numerous satirical poems in which he ridiculed both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. His reputation was confirmed by Erasmus of Rotterdam himself, who spoke highly flatteringly of Skelton.
Hugo Spechtshart von Reutlingen, also Hugo von Reutlingen or Hugo Spechtshart, was a German chronicler, educator and priest.
A member of a wealthy family in Reutlingen, Hugo Spechtshart was dean and later chaplain at Marienkapelle. He is known as the author of a chronicle from Roman times to the 14th century in Latin verse. The museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, has his chronicle manuscript with Geisslerlieder melodies sung in the plague year of 1349.
Charles Stearns was an American clergyman and doctor of philosophy.
Rev. Charles Stearns graduated from Harvard College and served the Congregational Church in Lincoln from late 1781 until his death. Several of his sermons were printed in the early 19th century.
In addition, Stearns was principal of the Liberal School, which opened in early 1793, a relatively progressive coeducational institution. While working at the school, Stearns wrote and published a number of works related to education, including Dramatic Dialogues for the Use of Schools (1798), a collection of thirty original plays that were performed by students.
Jonathan Swift was a British-Irish writer, essayist, philosopher, and author of the world-famous satirical novel Gulliver's Travels.
Swift also wrote numerous works, including The Tale of the Barrel (1704), An Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity (1712), and A Modest Proposal (1729). Almost all of Swift's satirical works were published anonymously, giving the author wide latitude in expressing his talent as a satirist.
Swift was a clergyman, made a career in London, became the chief pamphleteer and political writer of the Tories and headed the Tory journal "The Inspector", and then returned to Ireland, where he created his major life's work.
The four-part novel Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift's greatest satire, was first published in 1726 and has since been reprinted hundreds of times in many languages around the world. The author describes in an engaging style the different races and societies that Gulliver encounters on his travels to ridicule the many errors, follies, weaknesses and vices to which people and society at large are subject. The author's boundless imagination, bitter irony, keen intellect and brilliant language give this work a world-class scope.
Joseph Vaill, Jr. was an American clergyman.
Vaill graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, was appointed pastor of the Hadlyme Congregational Church in 1780, and served for 58 years. Rev. Joseph Vaill also engaged in missionary work and published his sermons.
André Valladier was a French Jesuit, theologian and writer.
Valladier served as abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Arnoux and worked as professor of rhetoric at Avignon. He published about ten works on various subjects. The first of these was The Royal Labyrinth, a book describing the visit of King Henry IV and his new wife, Maria de' Medici, to the city of Avignon. This illustrated book was a great success and went through many editions.
Frans van Sterbeeck or Johannes Franciscus van Sterbeeck was a Flemish clergyman, botanist and mycologist, painter, architect and historian.
In addition to his work as a priest, van Sterbeeck had a passion for botany and corresponded with prominent botanists of his time, including John Ray. In particular, he made a serious study of fungi and as a result produced a work entitled Theatrum fungorum oft het tooneel der Campernoelien, published in Antwerp in 1675. This richly illustrated book in Dutch describes the edible and poisonous species of mushrooms.
Frans van Sterbeeck also designed the main altar of the Antwerp Preaching Church and the portal of the Beguinage Church in 1680, and wrote two works on historical subjects.
Jan Verkade, birth name Johannes Sixtus Gerhardus Verkade, later changed to Willibrord Verkade, was a Dutch and German Benedictine monk, Post-Impressionist and Symbolist painter.
Jan was captivated by art from his youth and began studying painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, later in Paris he met Paul Gauguin, Paul Sérusier and other Symbolists, which played a major role in his worldview. In the last years of the 19th century, Verkade joined the Nabis (Les Nabis), a group of Symbolist artists. Fascinated by esoteric mysticism, the Kabbalah and Eastern magical teachings, he, however, adhered to the canons of Christianity.
In 1893 Verkade went to a Benedictine monastery in Boiron, Germany, painted churches and monasteries, and in 1902 he became a priest and changed his name to Willibrord Verkade. He continued to paint until 1927, but was no longer able to reach the level of his French period, considered his best period. However, he made a significant contribution to the Beuron school of art, which was founded by a confederation of Benedictine monks in Germany at the end of the 19th century. Up until his death in 1946, Verkade led a reclusive life, writing several religious, historical, and scientific linguistic works over the years.
Johann Zahn (German: Johann or Johannes Zahn) was a German scientist and philosopher, optician and astronomer, mathematician and inventor.
Zahn studied mathematics and physics at the University of Würzburg, was professor of mathematics at the University of Würzburg, and served as a canon of the Order of Regular Canon Premonstratensians. His other activities were optics as well as astronomical observations.
In 1686 Johann Zahn invented and designed a portable camera obscura with fixed lenses and an adjustable mirror, which is the prototype of the camera. In his treatise on optics, Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus (1702), Zahn gives a complete picture of the state of optical science of his time. He begins with basic information about the eye and then moves on to optical instruments. The book is aimed at eighteenth-century microscope and telescope enthusiasts and includes all the necessary details of construction, from lens grinding to drawings.