Background
Smet was the son of Robert Smet (d 1540) and initially studied with John Otho in Ghent (1552-1554).
lyricist philologist physician
Smet was the son of Robert Smet (d 1540) and initially studied with John Otho in Ghent (1552-1554).
He studied medicine at Leuven, Rostock and Heidelberg and took his doctorate in 1561 in Bologna.
He met several students there that like him would eventually make a name for themselves in the world of letters. Barely fifteen, he translated the Gnomae Pythagorae ac Phocylidis the Batrachomyomachia of Homer and the Historia Susannae from Latin and also displayed skill in the Latin poetry. He established a medical practice in Antwerp.
He then moved to Lemgo and was the court physician of the Count of Lippe.
In 1574 he moved to Heidelberg and became court physician to the Elector Palatine, Frederick III. After 1579 he entered the service of Count Palatine Johann Casimir and began to give medical lectures in the Casimirianum in Neustadt. He returned to the University of Heidelberg with the rest of the medical faculty in 1585 after Johann Casimir became the regent of the Palatinate.
Besides medicine, he was interested in philology and poetry. He compiled a dictionary of Latin words, which was so successful that it was frequently reprinted throughout the seventeenth century.
Many letters from Smet from the period 1585-1593 are preserved in the archive of the University of Heidelberg.
Smet married Johanna van den Corput in 1562, sister of the humanist and pastor Hendrik van den Corput.