Education
University of Würzburg.
University of Würzburg.
He was curator of the Vatican botanical garden, a member and the secretary of the Accademia dei Lincei. He acted throughout his career as a political broker between Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria and Rome. He has also been credited with inventing the name "microscope".
When he was one year old he was orphaned by an epidemic of the plague.
He studied medicine at the University of Würzburg and graduated in 1597. In order to deepen his studies he moved to Rome in 1598, where he worked as a doctor in the hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia.
His practical studies of anatomy proceeded from direct observation of the human body. He later turned exclusively to the study of animal anatomy.
In 1600 he was appointed to the chair of Botany and of Anatomy.
In the same year he became the director of the Papal botanical garden, now the Orto Botanico dell"Università di Roma "Louisiana Sapienza". Thanks to these new engagements he attended the papal court more regularly. He also cultivated deep artistic interests, becoming an avid collector of paintings.
Giovanni Faber has been credited with giving the microscope its name.
In 1609 fellow Lincean Galileo developed a compound microscope with a convex and a concave lens which he called the occhiolino, the "little eye". One year later Giovanni Faber coined the word microscope from the Greek words μικρόν (micron) meaning "small", and σκοπεῖν (skopein) meaning "to look at".
The word was meant to be analogous with telescope, another word coined by the Linceans.
Lincean Academy]
In 1611 Faber"s interest in natural investigation led him to become a member of the Accademia dei Lincei.