Nicolas Houël
Nicolas Houël (* probably 1524 ; † 1587 in Paris ) was a French pharmacist , writer and founder of an orphanage with a pharmacy school in Paris.
Life
Houël, about whose early years nothing is known, had been running a pharmacy near Place de Grève for around three decades when, in 1576, at the age of 50, he asked Henry III. asked to be allowed to use his assets to found an institution for the poor, sick and orphans with a medicinal herb garden , where they could also learn about pharmaceuticals and how to produce them in order to give their products to the poor.
The king privileged the foundation, which Houël gave the name Maison de la Charité chrétienne ("House of Christian Love"). The move from the first house to the larger, former syphilis hospital in Faubourg Saint-Marcel soon took place . In 1579 buildings and gardens were devastated by a flood of the Bièvre . Houël organized and financed the reconstruction and purchase of a higher site, the Terrain des Vieux Fossés , which later became the facility's headquarters. This continued to exist with changing focus areas, names and offices - today as Faculté de pharmacie de Paris part of the Paris Descartes University .
For his charitable work, Houël benefited from his poetic talent and his good relationships with the court and with Parisian artists and intellectuals such as Germain Pilon . As early as 1563 he wrote the Histoire de la Reine Arthémise in rhyming individual scenes with illustrations by Antoine Caron , imaginatively combined from the biographies of the ancient rulers Artemisia I and Artemisia II , a homage to Queen Caterina de 'Medici and a source of inspiration for a genre of for decades Tapestry series such as the Hildesheim Artemisia tapestries . In 1584 the Procession de Louise de Lorraine was created , also rhymed and with pictures, in it the representation of his dream of the ideal hospital with pharmacy and healing garden. He also published several works on medicine.
Houël was married three times and widowed twice.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Maurice Bouvet: Les trois mariages de Nicolas Houel
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Houël, Nicolas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French pharmacist, writer, orphanage and school founder |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1524 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1587 |
| Place of death | Paris |