Achilles Gasser

Achilles Pirmin Gasser (1505 to 1577) was a German physician and astrologer, now remembered as a well-connected humanist scholar and a supporter of both Copernicus and Rheticus. Born in Lindau, he studied mathematics, history, philosophy and astronomy, and attended schools and universities at Selestat, Wittenberg, Vienna, Montpellier and Avignon. He took over the medical practice at Feldkirch in 1538, the practice of the father of Rheticus, and taught the younger man some astrology. When Rheticus printed the Narratio prima, the first published account of the Copernican system, he sent Gasser a copy, and Gasser then arranged the second edition of 1541 at Basel with his own introductory letter. He collaborated with the cartographer Sebastian Munster on the description of Germany, prepared the first edition of the Epistola de magnete of Pierre de Maricourt in 1558, wrote on comets, and belonged to a humanist circle devoted to recovering monastic manuscripts.