Heinrich Steinhowel
Encyclopedia
Swabia
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.-Geography:Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined...
n author, 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...
, and translator who was much inspired by the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
. His translations of medical treatises and fiction had a marked impact on Germans coming out of the Dark Ages.
Biography
Heinrich studied at the University of ViennaUniversity of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
in 1429, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree on July 13, 1432, and eventually his Master's Degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in 1436. He moved to Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
in 1438 and studied canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
, but later devoted himself to medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. He graduated in 1440. In 1442 he was an academic rector in Padua, and in 1444 he taught at the University of Heidelberg as rector magnificus.
In 1449 Heinrich was a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
in Esslingen and a year later in Ulm
Ulm
Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...
. Sometime after 1460 he became the personal physician of Eberhard I, Duke of Württemberg
Eberhard I, Duke of Württemberg
Eberhard I of Württemberg . From 1459 till 1495 he was Count Eberhard V. From July 1495 he was the first Duke of Württemberg. He is also known as Eberhard im Bart ....
.
Heinrich's fame comes, however, from translating a legendary biography description of the life of Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
and Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
which he put into a Latin-German encyclopedic version called "Ulmer Aesop" first published in Ulm in 1476. In 1477-78 he published in Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
from Günther Zainer
Günther Zainer
Günther Zainer was the first printer in Augsburg, where he worked from 1468 until his death; he produced about 80 books including two German editions of the Bible and the first printed calendar. He came to Augsburg from Strassburg and printed in 1472–76 three large works of moral instruction...
a large edition of Aesop's Fables with many woodcuts. In 1480 he published a German translation of Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
based on fables of Avianus
Avianus
Avianus, a Latin writer of fables, generally placed in the 5th century, and identified as a pagan.The 42 fables which bear his name are dedicated to a certain Theodosius, whose learning is spoken of in most flattering terms. He may possibly be Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, the author of...
, Babrius
Babrius
Babrius was the author of a collection of fables written in Greek. He collected many of the fables that are known to us today simply as Aesop's fables .Practically nothing is known of him...
, Romulus
Romulus (fabulist)
Romulus is the author, now considered a legendary figure, of versions of Aesop's Fables in Latin. These were passed down in Western Europe, and became important school texts, for early education. Romulus is supposed to have lived in the 5th century....
, and Alfred which inspired other translations of later centuries in various languages worldwide.
Heinrich also translated many works of Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
and Bocaccio
Bocaccio
The bocaccio rockfish is a variety of fish found on the western coast of the United States and Canada.Bocaccio may also refer to:*USS Charr , originally designated as Bocaccio...
. In 1473 he published a translated version of Bocaccio's De mulieribus claris
De mulieribus claris
De mulieribus claris is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, first published in 1374. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature...
printed by Johann Zainer in Ulm.
He also translated stories based on material of the works of Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini
Poggio Bracciolini was an Italian scholar, writer and humanist. He recovered a great number of classical Latin texts, mostly lying forgotten in German and French monastic libraries, and disseminated manuscript copies among the educated world.- Biography :Poggio di Duccio was...
and Petrus Alphonsi
Petrus Alphonsi
Petrus Alphonsi was a Jewish Spanish writer and astronomer, and polemicist, who converted to Christianity....
. His material was popular not only in Germany but in England, France, and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Heinrich was the center of a circle of German humanists
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...
.
Primary sources
- Apollonius of Tire, 1471
- German Chronicle, 1473
- Mirror of human life (Rodriguez Sanchez de Arevalo), 1472
- Booklet from the pestilence, ("regimes Pestilentiae"), 1473
- Guiscardo and Sigismunda (translation of Boccaccio), 1473
- Griseldis (translation of the Latin of Boccaccio after Petrarch), 1473
- History of the cruise Gottfried Duke (translation of R. Monachus), 1461
- Of the sinnrychen erluchten Wyben (after Boccaccio's De mulieribus clarisDe mulieribus clarisDe mulieribus claris is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, first published in 1374. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature...
), 1473 - Esopus (fables of Aesop and Petrus Alfonsi and Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini), 1476–80