Giorgio Biandrata

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giorgio Biandrata

Giovanni Giorgio Biandrata , also Blandrata (* around 1515 in Saluzzo , Piedmont ; † around 1590 in Transylvania ) was an Italian doctor, diplomat and one of the founders of the Unitarian churches in Poland ( Polish Brothers ) and Transylvania ( Unitarian Church Transylvania ).

Live and act

Giovanni Giorgio Biandrata was the third child of the noble Bernardino Biandrata of San Fronte. The family looked back on a long tradition as opponents of the Catholic Church, but also as supporters of heretics. Biandrata attended first schools in his hometown Saluzzo, then he went to Montpellier to study medicine, where he graduated on November 15, 1533. In 1534 he studied further in Pavia and in 1538 in Bologna and specialized in gynecology . In 1539 he became known because he had published a partial work by Aristotle and Ludovico Bonaccioli , which was entitled Gynaeceorum ex Aristotele et Bonaciolo a Georgio Blandrata medico Subalpino noviter excerpta de fecundatione, gravitate, partu et puerperio . This book was dedicated to the Polish Queen Bona Sforza , who came from Italy, and her daughter Isabella Jagiellonica , the wife of Johann Zápolya , the ruler of Transylvania and King of Hungary .

Relations with the Polish court were mediated by a certain Fridericus Hunnandinus Transylvanus . In 1540 Biandrata was called to the Polish court of Sigismund I in Cracow as Queen Bona Sforza's personal doctor. He stayed there until 1544, then he moved on to Alba Iulia , where the young widow Isabella and her son Hans Sigismund resided. He stayed there until 1552 as a personal physician and personal advisor. In 1551 the queen had to leave Transylvania. Giorgio Blandrata did not follow the queen to Poland, but returned to Milan and Mestre via Vienna in the summer of 1552 . In 1553 he was called to Vienna to testify at the trial for the murder of Cardinal Georg Martinuzzi on December 17, 1551, which was led by Nunzius Girolamo Martinengo . Then he settled in Pavia.

In 1556 he went to Geneva to be able to live his religious views more freely. There he became a follower of John Calvin . On November 4, 1557 received citizenship. Because he fell out with Calvin over his anti-Trinitarianism , he fled in 1558 via Bern , Zurich and Basel to Pińczów in Poland, where some like-minded people lived and worked. Since Calvin had him chased there, he moved to Transylvania in 1563 to see Prince Johann Sigismund Zápolya , who made him his personal physician , whereby Biandrata acquired a fortune. Here he achieved that the Unitarians were allowed to practice their worship freely, was promoted to privy councilor and gained significant influence, which he retained after 1571 under Johann Sigismund's Roman Catholic successor Stephan Báthory .

According to some reports, Biandrata was returning to communion with the Roman Catholic Church at that time. In any case, it was he who, after a few unsuccessful mediation attempts by Fausto Sozzini, accused the radical anti-Trinitarist Franz Davidis of heresy, who then died in prison.

The Jesuit Jacob Wujek reports that Biandrata was strangled in his sleep by his nephew Giorgio, son of Alfonso, in May 1588.

Within Unitarianism, Biandrata, together with Fausto Sozzini, represented a theologically moderate line and, unlike the Nonadoranten around Franz Davidis, did not reject the worship of Christ . His works include an anti-Trinitarian creed, some theological treatises and socinian pamphlets.

Works

  • Gynaeceorum ex Aristotele et Bonaciolo a Georgio Blandrata medico Subalpino noviter excerpta de fecundatione, gravitate, partu et puerperio , Argentinae 1539.
  • Vincenzo Malacarne: Commentario delle opere e delle vicende di GB nobile saluzzese , Padua 1814, p. 79 f .: Consultatio de promovenda fecundidate et de cura graviditatis, puerperii et primae natorum infantiae; Cimezia muliebria; Aenneas Bonacioli compendiata a Georgio Blandrata .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Arnold Huttmann with co-author Robert Offner: doctors at the Transylvanian Fürstenhof in the 16th century , in: Arnold Huttmann: Medicine in Ancient Transylvania , Hora Sibiu / Sibiu 2000, pp 176-188.
  2. ↑ Antonio Rotondo: Biandrata, Giovanni Giorgio , Dictionnaire Biografico degli Italiani, Vol 10 (1968).
  3. ↑ Lorenz Hein: Italian Protestants and their influence on the Reformation in Poland during the two decades before the Sandomir Consensus 1570 , Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 978-9-00403-893-6 , pp. 21 ff.
  4. ^ Carlos Gilly : Biandrata, Giovanni Giorgio. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
personal data
SURNAME Biandrata, Giorgio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blandrata (Latin); Biandrate; Biandrà
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian doctor, diplomat and founder of the Unitarian churches in Poland and Transylvania
DATE OF BIRTH around 1515
PLACE OF BIRTH Saluzzo , Piedmont
DATE OF DEATH around 1590
Place of death Transylvania