Jan Jesenius

Jan Jesenius
File:Jan Jesenius.jpg D(ominus) Iohan(nes) Iessenius a Iessen olim Vitenberg, nunc Carolinae Prag(ae) Acad(emiae) rector purpuratus. A contemporary copperplate by Matthäus Merian, 1617
Born	December 27, 1566 Breslau
Died	June 21, 1621 (aged 54) Prague
Doctoral advisor	Hieronymus Fabricius
Doctoral students	Daniel Sennert

Jan Jesenius (also written as Jessenius or Ján Jesenský in Slovak or Jeszenszky János in Hungarian; December 27, 1566, Breslau – June 21, 1621, Prague) was a Slovak, Polish, Bohemian or German physician, politician and philosopher. He was from an old Hungarian (magyar) noble family, House of Jeszenszky. He presented himself in his own works as eques Ungarus ("Hungarian knight"). He is renowned rather for his tragic fate than for his work in the field of anatomy and surgery.

Jesenius was born in Breslau (Wrocław), where he studied at the Elisabeth gymnasium. From 1583 he studied at the University of Wittenberg, from 1585 at the University of Leipzig, and from 1588 at the University of Padua.

Medical achievements

From 1593 Jesenius was the physician of Prince of Saxony, and from 1594 professor of anatomy at the University of Wittenberg. After 1600 he settled down in Prague as professor and anatomical consultant for Rudolf II, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor; in 1617 he was elected rector of the Charles University of Prague.

In 1600 he attracted considerable public interest by performing a public autopsy in Prague. (His notes on the autopsy were published in 2005 by Karolinum, a publishing house of the Charles University of Prague.)

Political career

He was also a diplomat and orator, and after the dethroning of Habsburgs in the Crown of Bohemia, he took several diplomatic missions for Bohemian estates and for the newly elected king Frederick of the Palatinate.

In 1618, Jesenius was arrested in Pressburg (today: Bratislava, Slovakia) after being sent as a deputy by the Bohemian estates, and was held in a prison of Vienna. In December, he was released in exchange for two Habsburg captives. There is a legend that before his release, he wrote an inscription IMMMM on the wall of his prison cell. Ferdinand explained this as Imperator Mathias Mense Martio Morietur (Latin for "Emperor Mathias will die in the month of March"), and he wrote another prophecy next to it: Iesseni, Mentiris, Mala Morte Morieris ("Jesenius, you lie, you will die a horrible death").

Both predictions came true: Emperor Mathias died in March 1619, and Jesenius was arrested after the defeat of King Frederick of Bohemia by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1620 (Battle of White Mountain) and executed, along with 26 other Bohemian estates leaders, on the Old Town Square in 1621.

His most important philosophical work was Zoroaster (1593), a work of universal philosophy which attempted to recover the lost wisdom of the ancients.

See also

• House of Jesenský
• Bohemian Revolt

References

• sk: Doktor Jesenius, Szlovákiai Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó-Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Bratislava(Pozsony)-Budapest, 1958. (Hungarian)
• Ľudo Zúbek: Doktor Jesenius, Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1966. (Hungarian)
• Ruttkay László: Jeszenszky (Jessenius) János és kora 1566-1621, Semmelweis Orvostörténeti Múzeum és Könyvtár, Budapest, 1971. (Hungarian)