Maciej Miechowita
Polish academic
Maciej Miechowita (also known as Maciej z Miechowa, Maciej of Miechów, Maciej Karpiga, Matthias de Miechow; 1457 – 8 September 1523) was a Polish Renaissance scholar, professor of Jagiellonian University, historian, chronicler, geographer, medical doctor (royal physician of king Sigismund I the Old of Poland), alchemist, astrologer and canon in Kraków.
Life
He studied at the Jagiellonian University (also known that as the Cracow Academy), obtaining his master's degree in 1479. Between 1480 and 1485 he studied abroad. Upon his return to the country, he became a professor at the Jagiellonian University, where he served as a rector eight times (1501–1519), and also twice as a deputy chancellor of the Academia. He lived in the Długosz House from 1514 to 1516.
His Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis (Treatise on the Two Sarmatias) is considered the first accurate geographical and ethnographical description of Eastern Europe. It provided the first systematic description of the lands between the Vistula, the Don and the Caspian Sea. This work also repeated after Jan Długosz and popularised abroad the myth of Sarmatism: that Polish nobility (szlachta) are descendants from the ancient Sarmatians.
His Chronica Polonorum ("Polish Chronicle") is the developed, larger treaty about Polish history and geography. Contra pestem sevam regimen and Conservatio sanitatis are his two printed medical treaties, about how to combat epidemics and on benefit of sanitation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maciej Miechowita” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.