Johannes Magirus Explained

Johannes Magirus (c. 1560 – 1596) was a German physician and natural philosopher. He was born at Fritzlar about 1560; his background was Lutheran.^[1] He studied at the University of Padua, and took a medical degree at the University of Marburg in 1585.^[2]

Works

• Physiologiae Peripateticae libri sex (1597). This was a textbook treatment of Aristotelian philosophy, and was still in use 50 years later.^[3] It was employed to teach physics in the early years of Harvard College.^[4] Isaac Newton was introduced to natural philosophy by this work of Magirus and one of Daniel Stahl.^[5] It used the works of: Hermolao Barbaro, Gasparo Contarini, Thomas Erastus, Philipp Melanchthon, Arcangelus Mercenarius, Francesco Patrizzi, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Jakob Schegk, Johannes Velcurio, Francesco Vimercato, and Jacopo Zabarella.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler (editors), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (1991), p. 825;Google Books.
2. Lorraine Daston, Michael Stolleis, Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe: jurisprudence, theology, moral and natural philosophy (2008), p. 117; Google Books.
3. Schmitt et al. p. 801; Google Books.
4. [Cotton Mather]
5. S. Ducheyne, Newton's Training in the Aristotelian Textbook Tradition: From Effects to Causes and Back, History of Science, vol. 43, p.217-237; Online.
6. Lorraine Daston, Michael Stolleis, Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe: jurisprudence, theology, moral and natural philosophy (2008), p. 118; Google Books.