Everything about Joachim Vadian totally explained
Joachim Vadian (
November 29,
1484 –
April 6,
1551), born as
Joachim von Watt, was a
Swiss Humanist and
scholar and also
mayor and
reformer in
St. Gallen.
Vadian was born in
St. Gallen into a family of wealthy and influential
linen merchants. After having gone to school in St. Gallen, he moved to
Vienna at the end of
1501, where he took up studies at faculty of arts the
university, in particular under
Conrad Celtis. In Vienna, he changed his name to "Joachimus Vadianus"; like so many other humanists, he preferred a Latin name to express his admiration for the classic masters. He evaded the outbreak of the
bubonic plague of
1506/
07 by moving to
Villach where he worked as a teacher and studied music. A study trip through northern
Italy brought him to
Trent,
Venice, and
Padua, where he met the
Irish scholar
Mauritius Hibernicus.
In
1509 completed his studies with the degree of
Master of Arts and returned for a short while to St. Gallen, where he studied the scriptures in the library of the
abbey of St. Gall. He returned to Vienna, where he'd some success as a writer. From
1512 on, he held the chair of
poetry at the university of Vienna—he had gained some reputation as the author of
Latin poems. In
1513, he visited
Buda, and the following year, he was named
poeta laureatus by
emperor Maximilian I. In
1516, he was even named a
Dean of the University of Vienna.
In the following years, Vadian studied
medicine and sciences, in particular
geography and
history under
Georg Tannstetter called Collimitius. In
1517, he was graduated as a
doctor of medicine, and subsequently moved back to his hometown, St. Gallen. On that voyage, he visited also many of his humanist acquaintances in
Leipzig,
Breslau, and
Kraków. In
1518, he climbed the
Pilatus mountain near
Lucerne, the first documented ascent to its top.
In St. Gall, he was appointed city physician and on
August 18,
1519, he married Martha Grebel, the sister of
Conrad Grebel who would later become a leading figure of the
Anabaptist movement. In
1521, he succeeded his father Leonard, who had died on
December 20,
1520, as a member of the city council. The beginning of the
Reformation in Switzerland (he was a friend of
Huldrych Zwingli) made him, who had never had a theological schooling, study ecclesiastic texts. From
1522 on, he sided with the new, reformed interpretation and henceforth was its most important proponent in St. Gallen. When he was elected
mayor of the city in
1526, he led the conversion of St. Gallen to
Protestantism, and managed to maintain that new state even after the victory of the
Catholic cantons in the
Second war of Kappel. Vadian wrote several theological texts after 1522, helping disseminate the reformatory views.
In his testament, he donated his large private library to the city. His collection became the nucleus of the cantonal library of
St. Gallen, which is named
"Vadiana".
Selected works
- Vadian: De poetica et carminis ratione liber, Vienna 1518. A comprehensive work on the history of literature.
- Vadian: Grosse Chronik der Äbte des Klosters St. Gallen, St. Gallen 1529. A history of the abbots of the abbey of St. Gallen.
- Vadian: Epitome trium terrae partium, Asiae, Africae et Europae..., Zurich 1534. A world atlas (one of the first to include America).
- Vadian: Aphorismorum de consideratione eucharistiae libri VI, St. Gallen 1535. A theological treatise arguing for the reformed interpretation of the eucharist as a symbolism.
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