Josias Simmler
Josias Simmler | |
---|---|
Zürich | |
Occupation(s) | Theologian, humanist scholar |
Josias Simmler (Josiah Simler;
Life
In 1552 he was made professor of
Contributions to Swiss studies
About 1551 he conceived the idea of making his native land better known by translating into Latin parts of the great Chronik of Johann Stumpf. With this view he collected materials, and in 1574 published a specimen of his intended work in the shape of a monograph on the Canton of the Valais. He published in the same volume a general description of the Alps, as the Introduction to his projected work on the several Swiss Cantons. In this treatise, entitled De Alpibus commentarius, he collected all that the classical authors had written on the Alps, adding a good deal of material collected from his friends and correspondents. This Commentarius is the first work exclusively devoted to the Alps, and sums up the knowledge of that region possessed in the 16th century.
It was re-published by the Elzevirs at Leiden in 1633, and again at Zürich in 1735, while an elaborate annotated edition (prepared by Mr Coolidge), with French translation, notes and appendices, appeared at Grenoble in 1904. Another fragment of his vast plan was the work entitled De Helvetiorum republica, which appeared at Zürich in 1576, just before his death. It was regarded as the chief authority on Swiss constitutional matters up to 1798. In 1566 he wrote a biography of his friend Conrad Gessner, shortly after his death the previous year.[1][2][3]
Works
- De aeterno Dei filio. Zürich, 1568 (VD 16 S 6498).
- De Republica Helvetiorum Libri duo. Zürich: Christoph Froschauer, 1576 (VD 16 S 6510).
- De Republica Helvetiorum Libri duo. Zürich, 1577 (VD 16 S 6511).
- Regiment Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft. Zürich, 1576 (VD16 S 6512)
- Simler, Josias (1566). Vita clarissimi philosophi et medici excellentissimi Conradi Gesneri Tigurini a Josia Simlero Tigurin. Item epistola Gesneri de libris a se editis (VD16 S 6520). Tiguri: C Froschoverum.
- Vallesiae descriptio, libri duo: de alpibus commentarius. Zürich, 1574 (VD16 S 6519).
References
- ^ a b c Wellisch 1975.
- ^ Backus 2016.
- ^ Simler 1566.
Bibliography
- Backus, Irena (2016). "3: Zurich lives in the latter part of the sixteenth century - The biography of Gesner by Simler". Life Writing in Reformation Europe: Lives of Reformers by Friends, Disciples and Foes. ISBN 978-1-317-10518-3.
- Wellisch, Hans (Hanan) (June 1975). "Conrad Gessner: a bio-bibliography". Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. 7 (2): 151–247. .
- Marabello, Thomas Quinn (2023) "The Origins of Democracy in Switzerland," Swiss American Historical Society Review, Vol. 59: No. 1, Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol59/iss1/4. See Pg. 97-99.
External links
- Bruno Schmid: Josias Simmler in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
- Georg von Wyß (1892), "Simmler, Josias", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 34, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 355–358
- "Josias Simmler". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German).
- Works of Simmler in the Munich Digitization Center
- Coolidge, William Augustus Brevoort (1911). "Simler, Josias". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 123. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the