Severinus [Sorensen], Petrus [Peder]

1. Dates

Born: Ribe, Jutland, 1542 [or 1540]

Died: Copenhagen, Jul 1602

Dateinfo: Birth Uncertain

Lifespan: 60

2. Father

Occupation: Magistrate

Alderman Soeren Jessen.

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: Ribe, Jutland, Denmark

Career: Copenhagen, Denmark

Death: Copenhagen, Denmark

4. Education

Schooling: Copenhagen, M.A.; Padua; Unknown, M.D., P.D.

He attended the University of Copenhagen, where he lectured on Latin poetry before he was twenty. He received an M.A. (1563). I assume a B.A.

He was officially appointed Professor paedagogicus and, with the offer of financial support from the university, he set out with Johannes Pratensis to study abroad. 1565-71, he traveled through Germany, France and Italy. He matriculated at Padua, but took his Ph.D. and M.D. in France (I have not discovered where).

5. Religion

Affiliation: Lutheran (assumed)

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Iatrochemistry, Medicine

He was Denmark's leading adherent to Paracelsianism. Only two of his writings, which he tended not to finish, were published, Idea medicinae philosophicae (1571), the first major synthesis of Paracelsianism, and Epistola scripta Theophrasto Paracelso (1572), which reached a large audience.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Academia, Patronage, Medicine

Secondary: Personal Means

1563, Frederik II gave him a canonry in Viborg; the canonry was intended for a physician, and thus he was required to study medicine.

1564. Professor paedagogicus at the Univ. of Copenhagen.

1565, appointed to empty professorship. He resigned as professor paedagogicus.

During his traveling years he was professor at the University of Copenhagen. He evidently also had a successful medical practice for a time in Venice.

1571, upon his return to Denmark, he was appointed Canon of Roskild (so that he might have the income) and he became personal physician to Frederick II, a post which he held until his death, continuing under Christian IV. This position carried a high salary.

He also received endowments of landed property from the king.

He married into one of Denmark's richest bourgeois families; his wife was the daughter of Reinhardt Thorsmede of Flensburg.

8. Patronage

Type: Court Official

Frederick II, king of Denmark, (followed by Christian IV) was Severinus's patron his entire life, from the dedication of his first book, Idea medicinae philosophicae (1571) until his death.

By 1577, however, Severinus was complaining about the burdens of court life, in a letter to Tycho (see Thoren, p. 116).

9. Technological Involvement

Type: Medical Practice

He reintroduced paracelsianism to much of Europe.

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None known

However, he corresponded with a number of leading Paracelsians, such as Zwinger, Gohory, and Moffet.

For a time he was friendly with Tycho, but they fell out in 1576, and they became enemies.

Sources

1. A. Hirsch, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Voelker (3rd ed., Munich, 1962), 5: 350-1.
2. Gordon Norrie, "Soerensen," in Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, l4, 329-30.
3. Eyvind Bastholm, ed., Petrus Severinus og hans "Idea medicinae philosophicae," En dansk paracelsist, Odense Universitetsforlag, 1979). Victor E. Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe, (Cambridge, 1990), p. 116 and passim. Jole Shakelford, "Paracelsianism and Patronage in Early Modern Denmark," in Moran, ed. Patronage ands Institutions: Science, Technologyu, and Medicine at the European Court, 1500-1750, (Rochester, NY, 1991), pp. 83-109.

Not Available and Not Consulted

1. Kurt Sprengel, Versuch einer pragmatischer Geschichte der Arzneikunde, (Halle, 1800-3), 3 (1801), 408-13.
2. Eyvind Bastholm, "Petrus Severinus (1542-1602), A Danish Paracelsist," Proceedings of the XXI International Congress of History of Medicine (Siena, 1968), 1080-5.
3. Eyvind Bastholm, "Petrus Severinus (1542-1602). E dansk paracelsist," Särtryck ur Sydsvenska medicinhistoriska sällskapets ärsskrift (1970), 53-72.

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

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