Petrus Severinus

Peder Sørensen, widely known by his Latinized name, Petrus Severinus (1542–1602), was a Danish physician, and one of the most significant followers of Paracelsus. His works include the major treatise Idea medicinae philosophicae (Ideal of Philosophical Medicine) (1571), which asserted the superiority of the ideas of Paracelsus to those of Galen. Severinus was a member of Denmark's intellectual elite. His education was supported by the Danish crown and his eventual appointment as royal physician conferred status and authority to his work and opinions. He was a contemporary and intellectual and personal associate of Tycho Brahe who likewise is associated with the evolution of chemistry during the seventeenth century. Daniel Sennert, a professor at Wittenberg wrote in 1619 that most chemical physicians followed the lead of Severinus and even referred to a “Severinian School” of medical theory, which was based on the philosophy of Paracelsus. Scholars including Jole Shackelford and Hiro Hirai (Le concept de semences dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance, 2005) have claimed that Severinus was an important predecessor of both Johann Baptista von Helmont and Pierre Gassendi.

Peder Sørensen, later known by his Latinized name Petrus Severinus, was born in the Danish town of Ribe on the west coast of Jutland in either 1542 or 1540. Both years are cited in seventeenth century texts. Ribe was a flourishing town on a major trade route between the farmers of Jutland and their markets to the south. It was also a harbor town that supported regular trade with Holland, England, and other port towns of the Frisian coast. Ribe was also an administrative center with the cathedral at Ribe governed by one of the most important sees in sixteenth century Denmark.

Severinus’ parents were probably prosperous and well-positioned and like other sons of the well to do, Severinus probably enrolled in Ribe’s Latin or cathedral school before moving on to universities abroad or the university at Copenhagen. After the Reformation, the Catholic hierarchy was replaced with Lutheran masters and administrators, but the curriculum is unlikely to have changed much. The cathedral at Ribe was administered by some of the greatest humanist reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Hans Tausen, Peder Hegelund, and Jens Dinesen Jersin providing Severinus with the best education available in Denmark at the time.

...
Wikipedia