Joachim Camerarius
Joachim Camerarius (12 April 1500 – 17 April 1574), the Elder, was a German classical scholar.[1] His critical abilities, his deep understanding of Greek and Latin, and his wide-ranging knowledge of the ancient world made him one of the foremost German scholars of his time.[2][3]
Life
Camerarius was born in Bamberg, in the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg. His family name was Liebhard, but he was generally called Kammermeister, previous members of his family having held the office of chamberlain (camerarius) to the bishops of Bamberg.[4]
He studied at
Five years later he was commissioned by Duke
In 1535 he entered into a correspondence with
He was the father of the physician Joachim Camerarius the Younger, and his grandson Ludwig Camerarius was a leading figure of the Thirty Years' War, as head of the Palatinate government in exile.
Works
He translated into Latin
He produced the first printed Greek edition of Ptolemy's astrology text, the
His edition of the comic playwright Plautus, published in Basel in 1552, was the first to draw on the oldest extant manuscripts, one of which is still known today as the codex vetus Camerarii ("Camerarius's ancient codex"). His text of the plays was not substantially improved until the work of Friedrich Ritschl in the 19th century.[1]
References
- ^ a b c Deufert 2012.
- ^ Sandys 1908, vol. II, pp. 266–267: "Camerarius was fully equal to his friend and exemplar Melanchthon in the wide extent of his attainments and in his thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin in particular, but he distinctly surpassed him in critical acumen, and in this respect holds one of the foremost places among the German scholars of the sixteenth century."
- ^ Pfeiffer 1976, p. 139: "Camerarius possessed a very wide knowledge of the ancient world, akin to the learned encyclopedism of the seventeenth century, but still more cultured, sympathetic, and human."
- ^ a b c d e Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Brosseder 2005, p. 561.
- ^ Robbins 1971, p. 13.
Bibliography
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Camerarius, Joachim (classical scholar)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 107. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Baron, Frank. (1978). Joachim Camerarius (1500–1574): Essays on the History of Humanism during the Reformation . Munich: W. Fink. ISBN 9783770513802
- Brosseder, Claudia. (2005). "The Writing in the Wittenberg Sky: Astrology in Sixteenth-Century Germany". Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct.), pp. 557–576.
- Bursian, Conrad. (1883). Geschichte der classischen philologie in Deutschland von den anfängen bis zur gegenwart. Munich: R. Oldenbourg. HathiTrust
- Deufert, Marcus. (2012). "Camerarius, Ioachimus", in Brill's New Pauly, Supplement I, Volume 6: History of classical Scholarship (English edition by C. M. Schroeder, 2014)
- Pfeiffer, Rudolf (1976). History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Robbins, F. E., ed. and trans. (1971). Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (Loeb edition). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
- Sandys, John Edwin. (1908). History of Classical Scholarship. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. HathiTrust