Achilles Pirmin Gasser[1] (3 November 1505 – 4 December 1577)[2] was a German physician and astrologer. He is now known as a well-connected humanistic scholar, and supporter of both
Copernicus and
Rheticus.
In 1528, German cartographer
Sebastian Münster appealed to scientists across the
Holy Roman Empire[6] 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.[7]
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.[5][8][9]
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[10] in the form of a letter from Gasser to
Georg Vogelin of
Konstanz.[5] The second edition (1566, Basel) of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium contained the Narratio Prima with this introduction by Gasser.[11]
Works
Title page of the De magnete in the 1558 edition by Gasser
He prepared the first edition (Augsburg, 1558) of the Epistola de magnete of
Pierre de Maricourt.[3][12]
Other works include:
Historiarum et Chronicorum totius mundi epitome (1532)
^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.
^Kees Dekker and Cornelis Dekker, The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries (1999), p. 21;
Google Books.
References
Jack Repcheck (2007), Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began
Karl Galle, Scientist of the Day - Achilles Pirmin Gasser[1]
Further reading
Karl Heinz Burmeister [
de] (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