Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation

(Bozica Vekic) #1

Renaissance (Bergamo, Italy: Minerva italica, 1975); Mar-
jorie O’Rourke Boyle, Petrarch’s Genius: Pentimento and
Prophecy (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press,
1991); Charles E. Trinkaus, The Poet as Philosopher: Pe-
trarch and the Formation of Renaissance Consciousness
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979).


Petri, Olaus (Olof Petersson) (1493–1552) and
Laurentius (Lars Petersson) (1499–1573) Swedish
reformers
The brothers were born at Örebro, and Olaus studied at
Wittenberg (1516–18), where he was taught by LUTHER
and Philipp MELANCHTHON. He returned to Sweden as a
teacher, supported the breach with Rome in 1527, and
helped to produce the first Swedish New Testament
(1526) and liturgies (1529, 1531). He became a favorite of
King Gustavus Vasa and was made chancellor (1531–33)
but he fell out with the king and in 1540 was condemned
to death for treason. This sentence was commuted to a
fine. He later became pastor of the principal church (the
Storkyrkan) in Stockholm.
Laurentius became the first Protestant archbishop of
Uppsala in 1531. He and Olaus were chiefly responsible
for the Swedish Bible (the Gustavus Vasa Bible) of 1541.
Laurentius’s book on church order (1571) helped to make
the Swedish church less subject to the state than other
Lutheran churches.


Petrucci, Ottaviano (1466–1539) Italian music printer
Petrucci was probably educated at the court of
Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino. Around 1490 he went to
Venice and in 1498 the doge granted him the exclusive
right to print measured music. Until then only chant had
been printed in Germany and Italy, but Petrucci’s new
method meant that polyphony could be printed from type;
in his first publication, Harmonice musices odhecaton A
(1501), a collection mainly of French chansons, the new
process is used. This entailed three impressions—one of
staves, one of notes, and one of the text. In 1507 Petrucci
published lute tablature. In 1511 he returned to his native
Fossombrone and continued to print music, obtaining a
privilege from Pope Leo X to print mensural music and
organ tablature in the Papal States. Back again in Venice
from 1536 he printed Latin and Italian classical texts.
Petrucci’s success meant that the works of composers such
as Josquin DES PRÉSand Jacob OBRECHTwere widely dis-
seminated in their day.


Peurbach, Georg (1423–1461) Austrian mathematician
and astronomer
Educated in Vienna and Italy, Peurbach began his career as
court astrologer to Ladislaus V of Hungary. He was ap-
pointed later to the chair of mathematics and astronomy
at Vienna. Much of Peurbach’s short life was devoted to
the study of the Almagest (see PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM). With


Cardinal BESSARIONhe planned to obtain an accurate copy
of the Greek text, but died before he could even begin the
project. He did succeed in drafting the first six chapters
of his Epitoma in almagestum Ptolemei, a work completed
by his pupil REGIOMONTANUS, and managed to finish his
Theoricarum novarum planetarum; this elementary survey
of planetary astronomy served as a popular textbook
throughout the 16th century. His Tabulae eclypsium, prob-
ably completed in 1459, were also used for many years;
the first printed edition appeared in 1514 in Vienna.

Peutinger, Konrad (1465–1547) German humanist
scholar
Between 1482 and 1488 Peutinger traveled in Italy, where
he met POLITIANand PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, and became
deeply imbued with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance.
He remained in correspondence with his Italian teachers,
published extracts from their lectures, and copied Pom-
ponio Leto’s ROMAN ACADEMYin the foundation of his So-
dalitas Literaria Augustana in his native Augsburg. As
town clerk of Augsburg (1497) Peutinger was on terms of
friendship with Emperor Maximilian I. He published
Roman inscriptions, and among his collection of antiqui-
ties was the map known as the Tabula peutingeriana, a
13th-century copy of the late Roman original depicting
military roads, which he inherited (1508) from Konrad
CELTIS.

pharmacopoeia A standard list of drugs with informa-
tion on their preparation and use. In antiquity scholars, of
whom Dioscorides is the best known, produced materia
medica devoted almost exclusively to the medicinal prop-
erties of plants. The tradition persisted throughout the
medieval period with Albucasis, a 10th-century Arab
physician and other scholars, adding to the classical her-
itage. Albucasis’s work, the Liber servatoris, first published
in the West in 1471, became well known to Renaissance
physicians. Thereafter the modern pharmacopoeias began
to appear. Initially they began as local collections repre-
senting the medical wisdom of a particular area. The first
appeared in Florence (1498) and was followed by similar
items from Nuremberg (1546), Augsburg (1564), Cologne
(1565), and London (1618). One feature of the pharma-
copoeias was their growing willingness to accept the
chemical remedies proposed by PARACELSUSand his fol-
lowers. Thus, though absent from early issues of the Augs-
burg pharmacopoeia, they were introduced into the 1613
edition.

Philip II (1527–1598) King of Spain (1556–98)
He was born at Valladolid, the son of Emperor CHARLES V
and Isabella of Portugal. Philip’s first wife, Maria of Portu-
gal, died in 1545. During his second marriage (1554–58),
to MARY Iof England, he was joint sovereign of her realms.
His third marriage, to Elizabeth of Valois (1559–68), pro-

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