Marcin Bylica

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Marcin Bylica (* 1433 probably in Olkusz , Poland , † 1493 in Buda , Hungary ) was a Polish astronomer and astrologer .

Life

Bylica had studied at the Cracow Academy . From around 1470 he was court astronomer of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus and from 1490 also for a short time his successor Vladislav II.

He became a close colleague and friend of the German Regiomontanus when he was working in Hungary between 1467 and 1471, and he supported him in the creation of various astronomical and trigonometric tables. These “tabulae directionum” were mainly for astrological use and were printed in eleven editions between 1490 and 1626.

Bylica bequeathed his legacy of books and astronomical instruments to his Krakow alma mater. This legacy was so extensive and significant for the time that on the day he arrived at the university, the rector gave all teaching staff, including the astronomer Leonhard von Dobschütz , and all students, including Nicolaus Copernicus , free lessons: everyone should have the opportunity to visit the Bylica estate. The estate included u. a. a Regiomontanus Codex, a work by the astronomer Georg von Peuerbach , the teacher of Regiomontanus, and a book by the Italian scholar and astronomer Giovanni de Dondi , the inventor and builder of one of the first astronomical clocks , the so-called "Astrarium".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Silvio A. Bedini, Francis R. Maddison: Mechanical Universe - The Astrarium of Giovanni de 'Dondi , in: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 56, Part 5, Philadelphia 1966

literature

  • Therein Hayton: Martin Bylica at the Court of Matthias Corvinus: Astrology and Politics in Renaissance Hungary , Centaurus, Volume 49, Number 3, August 2007, pp. 185–198
  • Lajos Bartha: A Renaissance celestial globe as an astronomical instrument: the Dorn-Bylica globe from 1480 . In: Der Globusfreund 38/39 (1990/91), pp. 37-44.
  • L. Birkenmajer: Marcin Bylica z Olkusza , Kraków 1892

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bylica, Marcin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bylica z Olkusza, Marcin; Bylica, Martin; Ilkus Marton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish astronomer and astrologer
DATE OF BIRTH 1433
PLACE OF BIRTH Olkusz , Poland
DATE OF DEATH 1493
Place of death Furnace , Hungary