Thomas Linacre

Thomas Linacre
A likely portrait of Thomas Linacre
Born	c. 1460 Brampton, Chesterfield, in Derbyshire
Died	20 October 1524
Nationality	English
Other names	Lynaker
Occupation	humanist scholar, physician, clergyman

Thomas Linacre (or Lynaker) (c. 1460 – 20 October 1524) was a humanist scholar and physician, after whom Linacre College, Oxford and Linacre House The King's School, Canterbury are named.

Linacre was more of a scholar than a scientific investigator. It is difficult to judge his practical skill in his profession, but it was highly esteemed in his own day. He took no part in political or theological questions, but his career as a scholar was characteristic of the critical period in the history of learning through which he lived.

He was one of the first Englishmen to study Greek in Italy, and brought back to his native country and his own university the lessons of the "New Learning". His teachers were some of the greatest scholars of the day. Among his pupils was one—Erasmus—whose name alone would suffice to preserve the memory of his instructor in Greek, and others of note in letters and politics, such as Sir Thomas More, Prince Arthur and Queen Mary I of England. John Colet, William Grocyn, William Lilye and other eminent scholars were his intimate friends, and he was esteemed by a still wider circle of literary correspondents in all parts of Europe.

He was born at Brampton, Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, descended from an ancient family recorded in the Domesday Book. He received his early education at the Canterbury Cathedral school, under the direction of William Tilly of Selling, who became prior of Canterbury in 1472. It was from Selling that Linacre must have received his first incentive to the study of Classics. Linacre entered Oxford in about 1480, and in 1484 was elected a fellow of All Souls College. Shortly afterwards he visited Italy in the train of Selling, who was sent by King Henry VII as an envoy to the papal court. Linacre accompanied his patron as far as Bologna. There he became the pupil of Angelo Poliziano, and shared the instruction which Poliziano imparted at Florence to the sons of Lorenzo de Medici. The younger of these princes became Pope Leo X, and later remembered his old companionship with Linacre. Among his other teachers and friends in Italy were Demetrius Chalcondylas, Hermolaus Barbarus, Aldus Romanus the printer of Venice (of whose New Academy Linacre was a member), and Nicolaus Leonicenus of Vicenza. Linacre took the degree of doctor of medicine with great distinction at Padua.