Johannes Hertelius

Bust of Johannes Hertelius (1591) at the University of Padua

John Hertelius also Hertel (* 1565 in Cluj , † 1612 in Cluj) was a Transylvanian physicians, royal physician to Sigismund Báthory in White Castle and town doctor of Cluj.

Life

He was born in Cluj in 1565 as the youngest son (of four known children) of the Protestant theologian Franz David Hertel . His father was a Protestant reformer and founder of the anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) Church of Transylvania and its first superintendent. After the loss of his parents and his older brother David Hertelius (1560–1582), Johannes lived in the care of the Oderhell royal judge Farkas Kornis in Homoródszentpál .

Hertelius studied at the Law University of Padua, which he left on November 29, 1586 to continue his study trip to Basel. His theological disputation with the Calvinist theologian Johann Jakob Grynaeus appeared in print in 1587. On September 15, 1587 he was matriculated at the Calvin University in Heidelberg. In 1589 Hertelius returned to Padua to study medicine there. There he held high academic positions (Procurator and Syndicus) of the German student nation, to which a. a. Hungarians and Transylvanians also belonged. In 1591 Hertelius received his doctorate in philosophy and medicine and was highly regarded. His memorial bust and a plaque in the Palazzo del Bo of the ancient university bear witness to this.

Hertelius was interested in botany and was in contact with well-known humanists and botanists of his time, such as Gian Vincenzo Pinelli and Carolus Clusius, and sought the position of head of the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua, where he worked alongside for about half a year in 1592/93 Professor Giacomo Antonio Cortusi / Cortuso (1513-1603) worked as assistant and supervisor of the botanical garden. However, the position he coveted was given in 1593 by the university to the Venetian doctor and well-known botanical researcher Prospero Alpini (1553-1617). During this time he stayed temporarily in Vienna.

During his Paduan years he was also in close contact with the well-known mathematician, geographer and astrologer Giovanni Antonio Magini (1555-1617), to whom he had current and reliable information about the geography, geology, flora and fauna as well as the culture and history of his homeland posed. These details were fully adopted by Magini in his new edition of the Geographiae Universae tum veteris tum novae absolutissimum opus by Claudius Ptolemy (Venice 1596) - with details of their origin. Hertelius thus contributed indirectly to the dissemination of knowledge about Transylvania in the scientific literature of the early modern period. The highly esteemed geography compendium Geographia by Ptolemy had at least 20 editions and was widely used worldwide.

Johannes Hertelius probably returned home in 1594/95 and was accepted as a personal physician at the court of the Transylvanian Prince Sigismund Báthory in Weißenburg ( Alba Iulia ). In recognition of his medical and diplomatic services, he was enfeoffed for life by his employer in 1598 with the Transylvanian-Saxon village of Gergeschdorf in Weissenburg County . After the prince abdicated (1600), Hertelius lived in his hometown of Cluj (1601 at the latest). Here he was elected to succeed the city doctor (city physician) Bernard Jacobinus (Jekel) and soon afterwards also to the "Hundertmann" (city councilor). He was married, but nothing is known about his Klausenburger years or his medical, botanical and possibly literary activities.

Works

• Didaskalia de nobili dicto Davidis: Justus ut palma florebit: tanquam Cedrus in Libano crescet (discussion of the famous Psalm of David [92,13]: The righteous will green like a palm tree; he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon), University of Basel 1587.

literature

• Pál Mátyás [Binder]: Kolozsvári orvosdoktorok a XVI.-XVII. század fordulóján [Klausenburger medical doctors in the 16th-17th centuries Century]. In: Orvostörténeti közlemények / Communicationes de Historia Artis Medicinae 28 (1982, 28), 4, pp. 61-68.
• Paul Binder: Medicii clujeni din secolul al XVI-lea [Klausenburger doctors from the 16th century]. In: Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Cluj-Napoca 30 (1990-1991), pp. 203-206.
• Robert Offner: The Klausenburger physician Johannes Hertelius (1565-1612) and his contribution in the description of Transylvania in Giovanni Antonio Magini's work: Geographiae Universae tum Veteris tum Novae Absolutissimum Opus (1596). In: Orvostörténeti Közlemények / Communicationes de Historia Artis Medicinae 200-201 (2007), pp. 103–125.
• Robert Offner: A previously unknown letter from the Transylvanian doctor Johannes Hertelius to the Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius of February 8, 1593. In: Orvostörténeti közlemények / Communicationes de Historia Artis Medicinae 206-209 (2009), 1-4, pp. 225–242 .
• Robert Offner / Lore Poelchau / Tim Roder: Description of Hungary and Transylvania in the Geographia of Claudius Ptolomäus, edited by Giovanni Antonio Maginini, in: Zeitschrift für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde 33 (104th) year (2010), issue 2, pp. 193-217 .