Adam of Łowicz was a professor of medicine at the University of Krakow, its rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 in 1510–1511, a humanist

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

, writer and philosopher.

Life

Adam studied in the Department of Liberal Arts at the University of Krakow, earning a baccalaureate in 1488 and a master's degree in 1492. He then studied medicine in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. Returning to Poland, he served as court physician to Kings Jan I Olbracht, Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon...

 and Zygmunt I. In 1510 and 1511 he was twice elected rector of the University of Krakow. He opposed the clergy's dominance over the secular estate. An unconventional thinker, he hypothesized the immortality of humankind.

In the early sixteenth century, Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 had become a model for philosophy in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, especially in Medicean

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. In some ways he was represented in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 by Adam of Łowicz, author of Conversations about Immortality.

Works

• Fundamentum scienciae nobilissimae secretorum naturae (1489; natural science and medicine).
• Dialogus... de quattuor statuum... immortalitatem contentione (Conversations... about Immortality, ca. 1507).

See also

• Physician writer
• List of Poles
• History of philosophy in Poland