Theodor Zwinger the Elder (2 August 1533 – 10 March 1588) was a Swiss physician and

Renaissance humanist Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

. He made significant contributions to the emerging genres of reference and

travel literature The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern pe ...

. He was the first distinguished representative of a prominent Basel academic family.

Life and work

Zwinger was the son of Leonhard Zwinger, a furrier who had become a citizen of

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

in 1526. His mother was Christina Herbster, the sister of

Johannes Oporinus Johannes Oporinus (also Johannes Oporin; Latinised from the original German name: ''Johannes Herbster'' or ''Hans Herbst'') (25 January 1507 – 7 July 1568) was a humanist printer in Basel. Life Johannes Oporinus, the son of the painter Hans ...

(Herbster) the famed humanist printer. After Zwinger's father's death, Christina married the noted humanist

Conrad Lycosthenes Conrad Lycosthenes (8 August 151825 March 1561), born Conrad Wolffhart, was an Alsatian humanist and encyclopedist. Deacon of Saint Leonard in Basel, professor of grammar and dialectics, Lycosthenes had a passion for the study of nature and geop ...

(Wolffhart). Zwinger studied at the Universities of

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

before taking a doctorate in medicine at the

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...

with Bassiano Landi, the successor of

Johannes Baptista Montanus Johannes Baptista Montanus (; 1498 – May 6, 1551) is the Latinized name of Giovanni Battista Monte, or Gian Battista da Monte, one of the leading Renaissance humanist physicians of Italy. Montanus promoted the revival of Greek medical texts a ...

. In Paris he studied with the iconoclastic philosopher

Petrus Ramus Petrus Ramus (french: Pierre de La Ramée; Anglicized as Peter Ramus ; 1515 – 26 August 1572) was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Early life ...

. He joined the faculty of the University of Basel as a member of the ''consilium facultatis medicae'' from 1559. At Basel he held successively chairs in Greek (1565), Ethics (1571), and finally theoretical medicine (1580). While originally hostile to Paracelsus, in his later career he took an interest in

Paracelsian Paracelsianism (also Paracelsism; German: ') was an early modern History of medicine, medical movement based on the theories and therapies of Paracelsus. It developed in the second half of the 16th century, during the decades following Paracelsu ...

medical theory Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...

for which he experienced some hostility. He associated with Paracelsians such as Thomas Moffet,

Petrus Severinus Peder Sørensen (1542–1602), widely known by his Latinized name, ''Petrus Severinus'', was a Danish physician, and one of the most significant followers of Paracelsus. His works include the major treatise ''Idea medicinae philosophicae'' (Ideal o ...

and Claude Aubery. Zwinger was the editor of the early encyclopedia ''Theatrum Humanae Vitae'' (editions 1565, 1571, 1586, 1604). The work is considered "perhaps the most comprehensive collection of knowledge to be compiled by a single individual in the early modern period." He was able to draw on the knowledge base of his stepfather Conrad Lycosthenes in compiling the ''Theatrum Humanae Vitae''. A Catholicized version of the ''Theatrum'' entitled the ''Magnum theatrum vitae humanae'' (1631) by Lawrence Beyerlinck was one of the largest printed

commonplace book Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are simi ...

s of the early modern era. These two works "may fairly be described as the early modern ancestors of the great ''dictionnaire raisonné'' of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the ''

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

'' of Diderot." Zwinger's son, Jakob Zwinger, briefly served as his successor as editor of the ''Theatrum''. His descendant Theodor Zwinger the Younger (1597–1654) was a prominent preacher and theology professor.

Works

Theodor Zwinger Methodus Apodemica 1577 title page

* Lycosthenes, Conrad; Zwinger, Theodor
''Theatrum vitæ humanæ''
Basel, 1565, 1571, 1586, 1596 et 1604, 5 vol. totalling 4376 pages (on line: the 1586 edition) — an early encyclopedia * ''Morum philosophia poetica ex Veterum utriusque linguæ poetarum thesauris cognoscendæ veritatis et exercendæ virtutis'', Basel, 1575
vol. 1
(books 1 to 4)

(books 5 to 18) — oetical philosophy
''Methodus apodemica in eorum gratiam, qui cum fructu in quocunq[ue] tandem vitæ genere peregrinari cupiunt''
Basel, 1577 — an early example of travel literature

References

External links

Latin biography by Melchior Adam, 1620

at the

Munich Digitization Center Munich Digitization Center ( German ''Das Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum'' (MDZ)) is an institution dedicated to digitization, Online publication and the long-term archival preservation of the holdings of the Bavarian State Library The B ...

Works by Theodor Zwinger in Internet Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zwinger, Theodor 1533 births 1588 deaths 16th-century Swiss physicians Physicians from Basel-Stadt University of Basel faculty

Life and work

Works

References

Further reading

External links