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

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

physician and Renaissance humanist

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

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

travel literature The genre of travel literature or travelogue encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. History Early examples of travel literature include the '' Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' (generally considered a ...

. He was the first distinguished representative of a prominent

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

academic family.

Life and work

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

in 1526. His mother was Christina Herbster, the sister of Johannes Oporinus (Herbster) the famed humanist printer. After Zwinger's father's death, Christina married the noted humanist Conrad Lycosthenes (Wolffhart). Zwinger studied at the Universities of

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

before taking a doctorate in medicine at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

with Bassiano Landi, the successor of Johannes Baptista Montanus. In Paris he studied with the iconoclastic philosopher Petrus Ramus. 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 Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. H ...

, in his later career he took an interest in Paracelsian medical theory for which he experienced some hostility. He associated with Paracelsians such as Thomas Moffet, Petrus Severinus and

Claude Aubery Claude Aubery, Claude Auberi or Claudius Alberius Triuncurianus (circa 1545, Seuil-d'Argonne, Triaucourt, Meuse (department), Meuse - April 1596, Dijon) was a French Reformed tradition, Reformed Protestant physician, philosopher and theologian. Hi ...

. 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 books 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 , better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...

'' of

Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...

Personal life

He seemed to have a difficult to read handwriting and Casiodoro de Reyna once would have liked to travel from Frankfurt to Basel in order for Zwinger to read de Reyna his own letters. The house he resided in, is named Zwingerhouse in his memory. 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 An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

* ''Morum philosophia poetica ex Veterum utriusque linguæ poetarum thesauris cognoscendæ veritatis et exercendæ virtutis'', Basel, 1575
vol. 1
(books 1 to 4)
vol. 2
(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
Works by Theodor Zwinger in Internet Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zwinger, Theodor 1533 births 1588 deaths 16th-century Swiss physicians Physicians from Basel-Stadt Academic staff of the University of Basel University of Paris alumni

Life and work

Personal life

Works

References

Further reading

External links