Hans Jakob Ammann

Hans Jakob Ammann (born July 31, 1586 in Thalwil ; † September 3, 1658 ibid) was a Swiss surgeon , traveler to Egypt and travel writer .

Ammann was introduced to the art of wound medicine by his father. For further training he traveled through Germany, Italy and “other countries”. Stays are documented for Strasbourg, Rome (1608) and Vienna. As a personal physician , he accompanied the imperial Austrian ambassador Andreas Negroni to Constantinople in 1612 . Ammann continued the journey, accompanied by Turkish merchants, via Anatolia to Jerusalem and Egypt . On his onward journey along the historic caravan route to Cairo , Ammann was then accompanied by his Dutch friend Pieter Dircksz Graeff and two Italians. Ammann finally returned home from Alexandria via Rome on a Sicilian merchant ship . There he came to prominence as a surgeon and received citizenship of Zurich in 1614 . However, Ammann was not docile in religious views and came into conflict with the clergy. In 1634 proceedings were initiated against him for denigrating important churchmen, but this remained without consequences. Ammann was married twice: his marriage to Barbara Huber (d. 1635) remained childless, and his marriage to his second wife Barbara Treichler resulted in seven daughters and three sons. Around 1652 Ammann retired to Thalwil. There he devoted himself to viticulture and family history until his death.

Works

His family tree and his report on the reproduction of the root vine have been lost since the 18th century. Ammann wrote the book Reiss in the Promised Land (first printed in 1618) about his pilgrimage . This travelogue shows its author as an unorthodox and unusually open-minded reporter, who also had a good eye for architectural questions and whose interest in everything medical was never flagged. The work is laid out as an itinerary, divided into three major chapters: 1. Journey to Constantinople, 2. Journey to Jerusalem, 3. Return via Egypt. Only from Constantinople, Jerusalem and Cairo does he report in more detail; in the pure travel passages he remains largely formulaic and imprecise. In the second version, 1630, Ammann adds passages that are intended to emphasize his Christian sentiments on the one hand, but also the religious tolerance in the Ottoman Empire on the other. The additions are probably a reaction to the conflicts with the clergy in Zurich.

source

• Titus Tobler:  Amman, Hans Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 400.
• Bohländer, Michael: Amman, Hans Jakob (called <Thalwyler Schärer>) [Art.], In: The German literature between 1450 and 1620, edited by Wilhelm Kühlmann (et al.), Volume 2, pp. 556–559, Stuttgart 2001 (= DDL Die Deutsche Literatur, Biographisches und Bibliographisches Lexikon, Series II)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ammann, Hans Jakob (1586–1658): Tear in the Promised Land
2. ↑ Bruno W. Fritzsche: History of the Canton of Zurich: Vol. 2. Early modern times - 16th to 18th century. Werd, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-85932-159-5 , p. 296.