Quick Facts
Biography
Erasmus Oswald Schreckenfuchs (1511–1579) was an Austrian humanist, astronomer and Hebraist.
Life
He was born in Merckenstein, near Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria, and studied in Vienna, Ingolstadt and Tübingen. He became a student and friend of Sebastian Münster. Together they translated (into Latin) the Form of the Earth of Abraham bar Hiyya, with work of Elijah ben Abraham Mizrahi.
He taught at Freiburg, where the Maltese mathematician Joannes Myriti was a student.
In 1551 he produced a commentary to the Almagest of Ptolemy. He published a targum for the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes (1553).
His Commentaries on George Peurbach's New Theories of the Planets of 1556 were voluminous and broad-minded, considering an eclectic mix of astronomical theories, including those of Copernicus. The approach, however, was little concerned with scientific truth. Schreckenfuchs taught at Nuremberg, and found a follower in Christian Wursteisen.
Other works were Primum mobile (Basel, 1567), and a commentary on the De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco of 1569.