Chapter 3 Lorenz Gryll (d. 1560): a Traveller in the Service of Medical Training

Thomas Haye

1 Introduction

That any aspiring physician should, as part of his training, undertake an edu- cational journey, planned systematically and providing ample opportunity to obtain knowledge as well as skills by way of autopsy – i.e. through personal observation and experience – is a principle that no other German doctor of the early modern age has postulated as emphatically as Lorenz Gryll.1 Born in Altsheim near Landshut in 1524, Gryll embarks upon his academic career at an unknown point in time studying artes in Vienna. He later trans- fers to Ingolstadt where we find him a student of philosophy, classified as a ‘pauper’, since the winter semester of 1541/1542, and subsequently to Tübingen where he continues these studies from 1544 to 1546. Gryll then decides to study the healing arts, allegedly because of his own weak constitution and frequent illnesses. Reading first with Jakob Scheck and Leonhard Fuchs at Tübingen, he transfers once more to Ingolstadt where he studies with the medical doc- tors Johannes Ammonius Agricola (Bäuerle / Peurle; 1496–1570) and Johannes Feldmüller (d. 1561) from 1546 to 1548. Referred to Johann Jakob Fugger (1516– 1575) by the local law professor Nikolaus Eberhard (1495–1570), he receives a travel grant funded by the merchant, permitting him to embark on an extensive study tour through Italy, France (with a brief detour to England), the area which is present-day Belgium, as well as , during the years 1548 to 1555.2 In accordance with the explicit purpose for which he received

1 Regarding his personal details, cf. Melchior Adam, Vitae medicorum Germanorum (Heidelberg, Johannes Georgius Geyder: 1620) 117–118; Obermeier R., Antrittsrede des Professors der Medizin Lorenz Gryll an der Universität Ingolstadt am 10. Januar 1556, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Oberen Apotheke zu Ingolstadt (Ingolstadt: 1959) 3–4. An image of Gryll can be found in Pantaleon Heinrich, Prosopographia heroum atque illustrium virorum totius Germaniae 3 (Basel, Brylinger: 1566) 391 (digital version available under: www.staatliche-bibliothek-passau.de/staadi/psn/106.html). 2 The most significant places on his travel route are: Venice, Padua, Aponia, Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples, Puteoli, Pisa, Genoa, Marseille, Montpellier, Avignon, once

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004401068_005 76 HAYE the grant, Gryll not only undergoes theoretical as well as practical training by Europe’s famous physicians and apothecaries, but also per autopsiam studies the respective regional plants, spas, herb gardens and mines. Upon his return in 1555, Gryll for some time works at the Fuggers’ hospi- tal in Augsburg. But already at the end of that year, he is appointed professor of medicine at Ingolstadt University (inaugural lecture on 10 January, 1556) by Duke Albert (Albrecht) V of (1550–1579). In addition to his academic activities, from that point on, he also appears as a physician: his most famous patient is Emperor Charles V, who is treated by him for gout. The therapy ap- pears to have been successful, as the ruler sends him a gold cup filled with coins. However, the large investment made by the Fuggers did not pay off in the long run: only 36 years old, Lorenz Gryll dies – a mere four years after his appointment – on the 4th of March, 1560.3 Although the specialist literature produced by Gryll is modest in terms of quantity,4 his inaugural lecture at Ingolstadt has elicited a lot of response by medical historians. This Oratio de peregrinatione studii medicinalis ergo suscepta […] remained unpublished during the author’s lifetime, and only appeared – without indication of place – in the year 1566, both as a separate publication5 and as an appendix (with its own title page and foliation) to Gryll’s work De sapore dulci et amaro which was published in Prague in the

more Marseille, Valences, Vienne, Lyon, once more Montpellier, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Toulouse, Ayen, Saintes, Poitiers, Tours, Orléans, , Rouen, Dieppe, London, Calais, Bruges, Antwerp, Leuven, Brussels, Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Amsterdam, , Lübeck, Lüneburg, Brunswick, , Magdeburg, , , Eisleben, , Leipzig, Torgau, Meissen, Dresden, Freiberg, Chemnitz, Joachimsthal, Karlsbad, Augsburg, Innsbruck, Hall, Augsburg. 3 The year 1561, often quoted in literature, appears to be wrong; cf. Obermeier, Antrittsrede 4 on this matter. 4 His only extant work appears to be the treatise De sapore dulci et amaro (Prague, Georgius Melantrichus ab Aventino: 1566). Beyond this, the treatises De componendis medicamentis and De thermis as well as a started but unfinished commentary on Dioskurides are men- tioned – without evidence – in older literature. The Disputatio de principe totius corporis humani parte (VD16 H 4480), published in Ingolstadt in 1591, is not by this (older) Lorenz Gryll, but by his nephew of the same name; on this, cf. Blech W., Die Schrift des Lorenz Gryll: Disputatio de principe totius corporis humani parte (Diss. Erlangen-Nürnberg: 1972) 4. 5 Oratio de peregrinatione studii medicinalis ergo suscepta deque summa utilitate eius medici- nae partis, quae medicamentorum simplicium facultates explicat, Autore Laurentio Gryllo, Medicinae Doctore et Professore. Anno 1566 (without indication of place and printer) (= VD16 ZV 7044; here, the imprint reads: ‘Ingolstadt: Weißenhorn, Alexander II. und Weißenhorn, Samuel’). Cf. e.g. the copy held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, available in digi- tal form from google books, sign.: M. med. 1242a (all following quotes have been taken from this edition). A German translation of the text (with some notes on the matter), although not always reliable, can be found in Obermeier, Antrittsrede.