Guillaume de Harsigny

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Guillaume de Harsigny or d'Harcigny (* around 1300 or 1310 in Vervins , near Laon; † July 10, 1393 in Laon ) was a successful French doctor whose tomb heralded a significant change in style in the history of European visual arts .

Life

Harsigny studied medicine in Paris , where he also obtained his doctorate. He then went on extensive trips to the centers of medical learning at the time, such as the Schools of Salerno and Cairo . After expanding his knowledge in this way, he returned to his homeland, Picardy , where, in the course of the plague epidemics of the Black Death , he achieved the reputation of one of the best doctors in France. So he became the personal physician of the powerful feudal lord Enguerrand VII. De Coucy .

When King Charles VI. in August 1392 near Le Mans , during a campaign against Brittany , suffered a nervous breakdown, unexpectedly attacked his own companions, killed some of them and even fell into a coma , he has already been abandoned by his doctors. Only under the care of the aged Harsigny did the king recover. This unexpected healing represented the climax of Harsigny's medical career. He died a few months later.

meaning

Transi by Guillaume de Harsigny

Harsigny's marble image on his grave slab in Laon Cathedral represents the first known example of a transi . The deceased was no longer depicted, as was previously the case, as praying, resting or sleeping, in appropriate clothes, in the prime of his life ( see: Gisant ), but as a naked corpse with all the signs of age and decay. His example was soon followed by Cardinal Jean de La Grange († 1402 in Avignon ) and the alchemist Nicolas Flamel († around 1413 in Paris). This fashion spread particularly among high church dignitaries in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries.

See also

literature