opper engraving of Michael Maier, from Symbola avreae mensae dvodecim nationvm by Matthäus Merian, 1617.
School period
College/University
Gallery of Michael Maier
University of Rostock, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Michael Maier in 1587 he was studying at the University of Rostock.
Gallery of Michael Maier
Viadrina European University, Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg, Germany
Since July 1592 Michael Maier was preparing at Alma Mater Viadrina (now Viadrina European University) in Frankfurt an der Oder for the master's exam, which he passed in October 1592.
Gallery of Michael Maier
University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
On December 4, 1595, Maier enrolled the University of Padua. Maier left Padua abruptly after getting involved in a fight, injuring the other party, and being arrested.
Gallery of Michael Maier
University of Basel, Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland
Michael Maier earned his doctorate in 1596 at the University of Basel with theses de epilepsia.
Viadrina European University, Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg, Germany
Since July 1592 Michael Maier was preparing at Alma Mater Viadrina (now Viadrina European University) in Frankfurt an der Oder for the master's exam, which he passed in October 1592.
On December 4, 1595, Maier enrolled the University of Padua. Maier left Padua abruptly after getting involved in a fight, injuring the other party, and being arrested.
(One of the finest alchemical emblem books and unique in i...)
One of the finest alchemical emblem books and unique in its own right.Michael Maier's work is richly illustrated with original prints by M. Merian; each of the 50 emblems presented consists of a motto, print, epigram, and a three-part musical setting of the epigram, followed by an exposition of its meaning.
A Subtle Allegory: Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy
(Michael Maier is one of the foremost names within the cor...)
Michael Maier is one of the foremost names within the corpus of alchemical literature. This short tract, written in the late 17th century, proposes a short story regarding the phoenix as the answer to the riddle of alchemy. Instructing the reader thus through metaphor and veil, Maier hopes to allow those with the wisdom to understand the content to practice this art for spiritual and medicinal purposes. The occult trappings of this work are quite fantastical.
Michael Maier was a German doctor, alchemist, epigrammist, and amateur composer. He was a physician and counselor to Rudolf II Habsburg.
Background
Michael Maier was born in 568, in Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. According to various versions Michael Maier was either the son of a specialist in beadwork in embroidery named Peter Maier or the son of Johann Maier, an official of the duchy of Holstein.
Education
Michael Maier studied languages and rhetoric as well as medicine, namely from 1587 to 1591. He studied first in either Rensburg or Kiel, and in 1587 he was studying at the University of Rostock. He owed his career to a relation of his mother’s, Severin Goebel, a well-known physician of Gdańsk and Königsberg, who financed his studies. In 1589 Maier was in Nuremberg, and he was in Padua with the son of Goebel from 1589 to 1591. Since July 1592 he was preparing at Alma Mater Viadrina (now Viadrina European University) in Frankfurt an der Oder for the master's exam, which he passed in October 1592. In the next two years, Matthias Carnarius (1562-1620) introduced the young doctor to the life practice of the medical profession. The only 33-year-old paternal friend recommended him to undertake a trip in the summer of 1595 "in the Baltic Provinces" before finishing his education in Padua, to better know the medicinal plants known as Simplicia. Where exactly Maier was when he entered the "ancient nature path", is not known.
On December 4, 1595, Maier enrolled the University of Padua. Maier left Padua abruptly after getting involved in a fight, injuring the other party, and being arrested. Michael Maier earned his doctorate in 1596 at the University of Basel with theses de epilepsia.
Michael Maier began practicing surgery in 1590 without an academic degree. It seems that before 1600 he was a courtier of Rudolf II and a writer in the German chancellery.
In 1601 Maier was in Königsberg, and on 11 September entered his name on the university rolls as “Michael Meierus Philosophiae et Medicinae Doctor Honoris Gratia,” apparently in an attempt to obtain the status of professor of extraneus at this university. Obviously, this did not occur, for in December 1601 he went to Gdańsk, where in the White Horse Inn he started a medical practice, advertising his own remedies, such as frogs dried and then soaked in vinegar.
Around 1609 Maier returned to Prague as a doctor. He became physician-in-ordinary to Rudolf II, although probably only in an honorary capacity since his name does not figure in the court accounts. Around this time, Maier published an extremely limited print run of De Medicina Regia et vere Heroica, Coelidonia (1609), including in it his autobiography. The interest of the emperor in the occult was the reason of his high esteem for Maier. However, by April 1611, Rudolf's political position had substantially deteriorated, and he was more or less imprisoned in his castle in Prague. Maier left the city that month.
In 1611 Maier was in various cities of Saxony-Torgau, Leipzig, and Mühlhausen - where he met the landgraves Maurice of Hesse and Christian of Anhalt, both of whom shared his passionate devotion to music. During the period 1612-1614 Maier was in England, where he met Robert Fludd, William Paddy, Thomas Smith, and Francis Anthony and translated into Latin a treatise by Thomas Norton under the title of Crede mihi seu ordinale. Maier was not favorably impressed by England, as he stated in Symbola aureae mensae.
After his return to Germany, Maier helped to organize the publication of the works of Fludd in Frankfurt am Main. He became court physician to Landgrave Maurice, without, however, giving up his private practice. In 1618 he traveled to Stockhausen, where he attended a wealthy nobleman named von Eriedesel. Maier had a house in Frankfurt am Main, where his wife lived, and he bought alchemical works for the landgrave’s library at the Frankfurt book fairs. In 1618 Maier moved to Magdeburg to become the physician of Duke Christian Wilhelm. He died there four years later.
A devout Lutheran all his life, Michael Maier had a strong influence on Sir Isaac Newton. Maier was an ardent alchemist, a follower of Paracelsus and neo-Hermetic ideas. He was an implacable enemy of the Roman Catholic church, a defender of the Rosicrucian movement, and probably had a hand in the publication of the Fama fraternitatis (1616). Many of his works are written in a very Rosicrucian spirit.
Politics
As a count palatine Michael Maier was a political agent of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.
Views
All of Maier’s treatises are written with great erudition and display substantial knowledge of mythology and ancient history. They are classic examples of the neo-Hermetic manner, having no clear chemical sense. Yet there appear in his writings sentences and considerations that are sometimes astonishing, as in Viatorum…de montibus planetarium, in which he deliberates why lead and copper weigh more after being roasted (as Lazarus Ercker had observed). In Examen fucorum pseudochymiorum Maier gives examples of the possibility of alchemical fraud and states that it is possible to estimate transmutation truly only by means of docimasy, that is, chemical analysis.
The writings of Maier were highly valued and popular among alchemists. In the history of chemistry, they represent a certain regression, however, for Maier was a fervent believer in the transmutation of metals, which was for him a synonym of the word “chymia.”
Membership
Brothers of the Rose Cross
,
Holy Roman Empire
Personality
Maier was an extremely puzzling figure, both in his works and in his very unsettled life.
Connections
Michael Maier was married. He and his wife had a house in Frankfurt am Main.