János Zsámboky

János Zsámboky or János Zsámboki or János Sámboki, (with his humanist name Latin: Johannes Sambucus, or Johannes Pannonicus Sambucus; June 1, 1531 - June 13, 1584) was a Hungarian humanist scholar: physician, philologist and historian.
Zsámboky was born in Trnava. He was the composer of the most renowned Hungarian Emblemata book: Emblemata cum aliquot nummis antiqui operis (1564). Sambucus' emblem book was edited five times and it was translated into French and Dutch. He also wrote the Icones veterum aliquot ac recentium Medicorum Philosophorumque in 1574, published in Antwerpen. He died, aged 53, in Vienna.

Life and Work

Johannes Sambucus was born in 1531 in Trnava, Nagyszombat, then in Hungary, now Trnava in the Slovak Republic.

In Vienna in 1542 he graduated, and went on to study philology, ancient languages, law, history, and philosophy in Leipzig, Wittenberg, Ingolstadt, Strasbourg, and Paris where he obtained a master's degree in philosophy in 1551. From 1558 to 1564 he traveled to Venice, Padua, Genoa, Naples, Milan, Ghent, and Antwerp . At the University of Padua, he turned to the study of medicine, becoming the Medical Licentiate in 1555. In 1560 he returned to Vienna, settling down as a physician and leading exponent of scientific and cultural knowledge.

1564 saw the first edition of his "Emblemata"; within a short time followed by five more. These works won him international renown as a master of this form of literature. He was the first Hungarian writer whose works were translated into French.

1581 saw the publication of the first edition of Sambucus' Corpus Iuris Hungarici. The principles contained therein, based on legal strictures of antiquity, contributed to the foundations of the modern day Hungarian legal system.

Sambucus was appointed the court physician of Emperor Maximilian II, as well as the Imperial Council and Hofhistoriograf . From this he obtained a considerable fortune, with which he amassed the largest private library in the world. The library contained numerous previously unknown ancient and contemporary Greek and Latin manuscripts, for instance: Janus Pannonius and Antonio BONFINI, whose texts he partially edited or through his influence supplied patronage to. He also published several maps and geographical descriptions, e.g. "Hungaria", "Transilvaniae Descriptio" and "Illirium", and sometimes wrote Latin poems. Along with his library, he had a large coin and art collection.

Sambucus influenced numerous personalities of the humanistic spirit of his time, many by letter correspondence. He died on June 13, 1584 in Vienna. A plaque commemorates his life at his residence, Singer street in the 1st, House No. 3.

Sambucus' collection of books, maps, coins, and art formed the basis for the manuscript collection of the Austrian National Library .