Achilles Gasser Explained

Birth Place:	Lindau, Holy Roman Empire
Birth Date:	3 November 1505
Death Place:	Mixed Imperial City of Augsburg, Holy Roman Empire
Known For:	Comet observations, research on European history and geography

Achilles Pirmin Gasser^[1] (3 November 1505 – 4 December 1577) was a German physician and astrologer. He is now known as a well-connected humanistic scholar, and supporter of both Copernicus and Rheticus.

Life

Born in Lindau, he studied mathematics, history, and philosophy, as well as astronomy.^[2] He was a student in Sélestat under ;^[3] he also attended universities in Wittenberg, Vienna, Montpellier, and Avignon.^[4]

In 1528, German cartographer Sebastian Münster appealed to scientists across the Holy Roman Empire^[5] to assist him with his description of Germany. Gassar accepted this and was later recognized by Münster as a close collaborator for his cartography of the country.^[6]

Rheticus lost his physician father Georg Iserin in 1528 when he was executed on sorcery charges. Gasser later took over the practice in Feldkirch, in 1538; he taught Rheticus some astrology, and helped his education, in particular by writing to the University of Wittenberg on his behalf.^{[4] [7] [8]}

When Rheticus printed his Narratio prima—the first published account of the Copernican heliocentric system—in 1540 (Danzig), he sent Gasser a copy. Gasser then undertook a second edition (1541, Basel) with his own introduction^[9] in the form of a letter from Gasser to Georg Vogelin of Konstanz.^[4] The second edition (1566, Basel) of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium contained the Narratio Prima with this introduction by Gasser.^[10]

Works

He prepared the first edition (Augsburg, 1558) of the Epistola de magnete of Pierre de Maricourt.^[2]

Other works include:

• Historiarum et Chronicorum totius mundi epitome (1532)
• Prognosticon (1544) dedicated to ^[11]
• Edition of the Evangelienbuch of Otfried of Weissenburg. His edition did not appear until 1571, under the name of Matthias Flacius who had taken over.^[12]
• Observations on comets^[13]

Gasser belonged with Flacius to the humanist circle around, concerned with the recovery of monastic manuscripts. Others in the group were John Bale, Conrad Gesner, Joris Cassander, Johannes Matalius Metellus, and Cornelius Wauters.^[14]

References

• Jack Repcheck (2007), Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began
• Karl Galle, Scientist of the Day - Achilles Pirmin Gasser^[15]

Further reading

• (1970), Achilles Pirmin Gasser, 1505-1577. Arzt u. Naturforscher, Historiker und Humanist. (3 volumes.)
• Karl Heinz Burmeister, Achilles Pirmin Gasser (1505-1577) as Geographer and Cartographer, Imago Mundi Vol. 24, (1970), pp. 57–62; https://www.jstor.org/stable/1150458

External links

• • CERL page
• Old dictionary entry

Notes and References

1. Also Gassar, Gasserus, Gassarus.
2. Web site: Archived copy . 22 September 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110929004254/http://www.theiet.org/about/libarc/archives/biographies/peregrinus.cfm . 29 September 2011 .
3. Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas Brian Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: a biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation (2003), Volume 3, p. 196; Google Books.
4. .
5. Burmeister. Karl Heinz. 1970. Achilles Gasser as Geographer and Cartographer. Bregenz. Imago Mundi. 24. 57.
6. Burmeister. Karl Heinz. 1970. Achilles Gasser (1505-1577) as Geographer and Cartographer. Imago Mundi. Bregenz. Imago Mundi, Ltd.. 24. 57–58. 10.1080/03085697008592350. JSTOR.
7. http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Rheticus.html MacTutor page on Rheticus
8. Repcheck, pp. 113–4.
9. Book: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Nicolaus Copernicus. 2019. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
10. Web site: NICOLAUS COPERNICUS THORUNENSIS - the history of the editions of de revolutionibus.
11. Anthony Grafton, Cardano's Cosmos: the worlds and works of a Renaissance astrologer (1999), p. 56; Google Books
12. https://am4wuhz3zifexz5u.tor2web.org/Library/English/MISC/A_pile_of_files_to_be_sorted/Dictionaries%20early%20europe.pdf Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe (PDF)
13. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1981JHA....12...95K Kokott, W., The Comet of 1533
14. Kees Dekker and Cornelis Dekker, The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries (1999), p. 21; Google Books.
15. Web site: Galle. Karl. 3 November 2021. Scientist of the Day - Achilles Pirmin Gasser.