Janus Cornarius

Janus Cornarius (also: Cornarus, actually Simon Haynpol; * 1500 in Zwickau, † March 16, 1558 in Jena ) was a German humanist, physician, author, philologist, translator and university teacher.

Life

Cornarus initially enrolled in the University of Leipzig in 1517, operating mainly medical studies and acquired on September 13, 1518 at Peter Mosellanus the degree of bachelor. On May 30 1519 he moved to the University of Wittenberg and earned on January 24, 1521 the degree of Master of Arts. In the same year he took over at the Faculty of Philosophy Professor of Latin and Greek grammar. On December 9, 1523 he earned a licentiate in medicine and was admitted to the Senate of the medical faculty. He made a name for himself by clear translations of Greek authors into Latin, particularly in the medical field. Soon, however, he left the Wittenberg faculty and began a steady journey of life.

After Cornarius received his doctorate in Italy as a doctor of medicine, traveled and taught, among others, in the Netherlands, where he met Erasmus of Rotterdam, also in France, England and Livonia ( the Baltic States ). From 1542 to 1546 he was a professor in Marburg (Lahn ), and went in 1557 to the newly founded ( Protestant ) University of Jena, where he became the first dean of the medical faculty. As an important representative of the philological medicine he translated numerous ancient Greek manuscripts into Latin. He amassed almost all of the medical knowledge of his time and made it available for the training of students.

Accordingly, his works had a great influence on the then medicine, which relied mainly on the ancient authorities Galen and Hippocrates, as well as the medieval scholar Avicenna and Averroes. Contemporary scholars such as Vesalius and Paracelsus less attention, probably, however, the study of botany and its medicinal herbs.

A large part of Cornarius ' publications was printed in Basel, where he had friends with Erasmus. The philosophy was Cornarius by a translation of Aristotle commentary of Pachymeres that appeared in a complete edition with writings of a Platonist 1553 in Paris.

Works

• Aetii Medici Graeci Contractae ex Veteribus Medicinae Sermones XVI. Venetiis. Gryphius, 1549 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Dusseldorf