Nicolaus Kratzer

Nicolaus Kratzer, 1528

Nicolaus Kratzer (* 1487 in Munich , † after August 3, 1550 in Oxford ?) Was a German humanist, mathematician and astronomer.

Life

From 1506, Kratzer studied at the University of Cologne and at the University of Wittenberg , where he probably made the acquaintance of the important humanist Christoph von Scheurl , who seems to have had a lasting influence on him. Returning to Cologne, he finished his studies as a baccalaureate in 1509 , presumably to move on to Vienna. It is believed that he worked there with sundials .

At the end of 1517 he went to England as a professor of mathematics, where he joined Henry VIII in 1519 . For him he worked as a court astronomer and had to take care of the procurement of the royal clocks. With the permission of his employer, Kratzer was able to hold lectures on the geometry of Euclid at Oxford University and erected a sundial there in 1520. During his time there he also met Albrecht Dürer , whom he met again in Antwerp with Erasmus von Rotterdam in 1520.

He was present when Erasmus was painted by Dürer, and Dürer also made a picture of him, which is now considered lost. Afterwards, the highly regarded astronomer undertook a trip through Germany on a diplomatic mission for his employer. When he returned to England, the mathematician and clockmaker Henry VIII also advised on technical issues. Today nothing of the equipment he made has survived. Only the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger gives us an impression of their shape today.

Fonts

• Canones Horopti , 1520
• Nicolai Krazeri liber de compositione horologiorum
• Astrolabii alierumque instrumentorum mathematoricorum, figuris perquam illustratis

Web links

Commons : Nicolaus Kratzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

• Gudula Metze: Nikolaus Kratzer . In: Jürgen Wurst, Alexander Langheiter (Ed.): Monachia . Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-88645-156-9 , p. 53.
• Gerd Unverfetern: I saw a lot of delicious things: Albrecht Dürer's trip to the Netherlands . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, p. 44. ISBN 3-525-47010-X
• Max Maas .:  Kratzer, Nicolaus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 364-368.
• Adolf Wißner:  Kratzer, Nicolaus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 678 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Kratzerus, Nicolaus. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 15, Leipzig 1737, column 1777 f.