Antonio Musa Brassavola

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Antonio Musa Brasavola.jpg

Antonio Musa Brassavola , also Brasavola (born January 16, 1500 in Ferrara , † July 6, 1555 ibid) was an Italian doctor and botanist .

Life

There are different statements about Brassavola's date of birth. One source mentions the year 1490, others speak of January 16, 1500. A birth as early as 1490 appears unlikely, however. His parents, Count Francesco Brassavola and Margherita Maggi, presumably had appointed him doctor from birth. Brassavola studied under Niccolò Leoniceno and Manardi and made a name for himself at an early age in his hometown of Ferrara as well as in Padua and Bologna .

At the age of 25 he was appointed personal physician to Ercole II. D'Este , the future Duke of Ferrara. In his wake he made a trip to France , where he noticed King Francis I , who awarded him the Order of St. Michael and allowed him to use the French lilies in his coat of arms . As a result, various high-ranking personalities entrusted themselves to his medical skills, including, in addition to kings Francis I and Henry VIII, the Popes Paul III. , Leo X. , Clemens VIII. And Julius III.

With his patron, Prince Ercole II. And his father, Duke Alphonso , whose unreserved trust he had, he made various other trips. As a professor at the University of Ferrara , he taught natural philosophy and studied botany at the same time . One of his students was Gabriele Falloppio . For study purposes he put together an unusually large collection of dried plants for the time and cultivated a large number of rare herbs in his garden.

Antonio Musa Brassavola died in 1555 at the age of 55, but chroniclers disagree about this year and thus about the exact age of Brassavola, because some call 1554 as the date of his death.

Work and successes

Brassavola was a great scholar of his time who was widely recognized during his lifetime. He was a connoisseur of the writings of Hippocrates and Galen , whose works he commented knowledgeably. His medical practice was based primarily on pharmaceutical knowledge and he successfully experimented with various medicinal plants , whose use in medicine he researched and consolidated. However, he was also a successful surgeon who performed the first recorded and documented tracheal incision in European medicine. In his honor the Scottish botanist Robert Brown named the orchid genus Brassavola after him in 1813 . This is likely, but not entirely certain.

Fonts (excerpt)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EHF Meyer: History of Botany. Volume 4. P. 238 ( online )
  2. ^ Giammaria Mazzuchelli: Gli scrittori d'Italia. P. 2023 ( online )
  3. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Brassavola, Antonio Musa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brasavola, Antonio Musa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian doctor and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1500
PLACE OF BIRTH Ferrara
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1555
Place of death Ferrara