Otto Brunfels | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byHans Baldung, c. 1534 | |
| Born | 1488 |
| Died | 23 November 1534 |
| Education | University of Mainz |
| Church | Lutheran |
| Writings | Catalogi virorum illustrium Herbarum vivae eicones |
Otto Brunfels (also known asBrunsfels orBraunfels) (believed to be born in 1488 – 23 November 1534) was a Germantheologian andbotanist.Carl von Linné listed him among the "Fathers of Botany".
After studyingtheology andphilosophy at theUniversity of Mainz, Brunfels entered aCarthusian monastery in Mainz and later resettled to another Carthusian monastery at Königshofen nearStrasbourg. In Strasbourg he got in contact with a learned lawyerNikolaus Gerbel (they met in person in 1519). Gerbel drew Brunfels' attention to the healing powers of plants and thus gave the impetus to the further botanical investigations.
After the conversion to Protestantism (supported byFranz von Sickingen andUlrich von Hutten), upon the insistence of the Dean of Frankfurt Johann Indagine, Brunfels became a minister at Steinau an der Straße (1521) and later, in Neuenburg am Rhein. After that he served for eight years as the head of aCarmelite school inStrasbourg. In the list of most important heretics published by the order of the Emperor by theUniversity of Leuven (1550), Brunfels was listed first.
In one of his works he defended Ulrich von Hutten againstErasmus of Rotterdam and published the manuscripts from theJan Hus heritage. Brunfels'Catalogi virorum illustrium 1527 is considered to be the first book on the history ofevangelical Church.
After his friend Ulrich von Hutten had died (1523), Brunfels' religious views brought him into a controversy withMartin Luther andHuldrych Zwingli. Later on he began to studymedicine at theUniversity of Basel, (MD 1532). In 1532 Brunfels became acity physician (Stadtarzt) inBern, where he stayed till the end of his life.
Besides of his numerous theological works, Brunfels published treatises onpedagogics,Arabic language,pharmaceutics,entomology[1] andbotany. He is often called afather of botany, because, in his botanical writings, he relied not so much on the ancient authors as on his own observations and described plants according to the latter. In hisHerbarum vivae eicones (1530 and 1536, in three parts) andContrafayt Kräuterbuch (1532–1537, in two parts), the German plants he himself found during his botanical studies are represented with woodcuts (byHans Weiditz) under theirGermanvernacular names. However, Duane Isely attributes much of Brunfels' popularity to Weiditz, whose woodcuts set a new standard technically, and were done from life, rather being copied from previous works. Brunfels also introduced information about German plants not found inDioscorides, and described them independently of their medical values, although the descriptions are often poorly written.[2][3][4][5]
A plant genusBrunfelsia (Solanaceae) is named after him.
