Jofrancus Offusius (also Ioannes or Johannes Francus Offusius) (c. 1505 – c. 1570), was a German astronomer-astrologer and scholar. Historians of science have become interested in Offusius since he has been identified as the author of a set of annotations appearing on various exemplars of

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated ...

's book ''

De Revolutionibus ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book ...

''. He published in Paris a book ''De divina facultate astrorum in larvatam astrologiam'' (in 1570). His work is mentioned by Tycho Brache,

Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws o ...

and

Gerolamo Cardano Gerolamo Cardano (; also Girolamo or Geronimo; french: link=no, Jérôme Cardan; la, Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501– 21 September 1576) was an Italian polymath, whose interests and proficiencies ranged through those of mathematician, ...

. His use of

Platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...

s to explain features of the solar system has also been of modest interest for historical research. Very little is known about Offusius himself. It has been conjectured that he came from

Oberhausen Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

. He does not seem to have been affiliated to a University or attached to a princely court and he seems to have wandered across Europe. He presents himself as "German philomath" and shows little respect for established professors (calling them in a preface "asses and

sycophant In modern English, sycophant denotes an "insincere flatterer" and is used to refer to someone practising sycophancy (i.e., insincere flattery to gain advantage). The word has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens. Most legal cases o ...

s").

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...

recalls meeting "Offhuysius" sometime in 1552 in Paris where a group of students apparently had formed around him.

Pontus de Tyard Pontus de Tyard (also Thyard, Thiard) (c. 1521 – 23 September 1605) was a French poet and priest, a member of " La Pléiade". Life He was born at Bissy-sur-Fley in Burgundy, of which he was ''seigneur'', but the exact year of his birth is ...

met "Jofranc Offusien" a few years later, around 1556, in

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newha ...

. Offusius claimed to have conducted thousands of astronomical observations and published a book of ephemerides for 1557. ''De Divina facultate'' presented an astrological system where the distances to planets are connected with Plato's solids.Stephenson, ''loc. cit.'', pp.47-74 He mentions two other books of his in his known writings.

Works

*''Ephemeridis anni salutis humanae 1557 ex recenti theoria eiusque tabulis supputatae'' *''De divina facultate astrorum in larvatam astrologiam'', Typographia Johannis Royerii (Paris) 1570

Works

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References

Further reading