Olaus Magnus
| The Most Reverend Olaus Magnus | |
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Uppsala Primate of Sweden | |
| Church | Roman Catholic |
| Archdiocese | Uppsala |
| Appointed | 4 June 1544 |
| Term ended | 1 August 1557 |
| Predecessor | Johannes Magnus |
| Successor | Laurentius Petri |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Olof Månsson October 1490 Skänninge, Sweden |
| Died | 1 August 1557 (aged 66) Rome, Papal States |
| Buried | Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome |
Olaus Magnus (born Olof Månsson; October 1490 – 1 August 1557) was a Swedish writer, cartographer, and Catholic clergyman.
Biography
Olaus Magnus (a Latin translation of his Swedish birth name Olof Månsson) was born in Linköping in October 1490. Like his elder brother, Sweden's last Catholic archbishop Johannes Magnus, he obtained several ecclesiastical preferments, among them a canonry at Uppsala and Linköping, and the archdeaconry of Strängnäs. He was furthermore employed on various diplomatic services after his mission to Rome in 1524, on behalf of Gustav I of Sweden (Vasa), to procure the appointment of Olaus Magnus' brother Johannes Magnus as archbishop of Uppsala. He remained abroad dealing with foreign affairs and is known to have sent home a document that contained trade agreements with the Netherlands. With the success of the Reformation in Sweden, his attachment to the Catholic church led him to stay abroad in Poland for good, along with his brother.[1] They were both exiled and Magnus' Swedish belongings were confiscated in 1530.
Settling in Rome in 1537, he acted as his brother's secretary. At the death of his brother Johannes in 1544, Pope Paul III issued him as Johannes's successor as Archbishop of Uppsala; admittedly nothing more than a title, as Sweden was not Catholic anymore and Olaus was banished. In 1545, Pope Paul III sent him to the Council of Trent where he attended meetings until 1549. Later, he became canon of St. Lambert's Cathedral in Liège. King Sigismund I of Poland offered him a canonry at Poznań and he spent the remainder of his life with the monastery of St. Brigitta in Rome, where he subsisted on a pension assigned him by the Pope.[1] He died on 1 August 1557 at the age of about 67.[2][3]
Name
His original Swedish name was Olof Månsson (his last name meaning "son of Måns"; Magnus is a Latinized version of his patronymic second name, and not the literal personal epithet meaning "great").[2][4]
Works
He is best remembered as the author of the famous Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (A Description of the Northern Peoples), printed in Rome in 1555, a patriotic work of folklore and history which long remained for the rest of Europe the authority on Swedish matters. This text on dark winters, violent currents and beasts of the sea amazed the rest of Europe. It was translated into Italian (1565), German (1567), English (1658) and Dutch (1665), and not until 1909 into Swedish. Abridgments of the work appeared also at Antwerp (1558 and 1562), Paris (1561), Amsterdam (1586), Frankfort (1618) and Leiden (1652). It is still today a valuable repertory of much curious information in regard to Scandinavian customs and folklore.[1] A translation of the Latin title page goes: "Olaus Magnus Gothus', the Uppsala Archbishop's, history of the Nordic people's different manners and camps, also about the wonderful differences in customs, holy practices, superstitions, bodily exercises, government and food keeping; further on war, buildings and wonderful aids; further on metals and different kinds of animals, that live in these neighbourhoods (...)".
Olaus had already earlier written Carta marina et Descriptio septemtrionalium terrarum ac mirabilium rerum in eis contentarum, diligentissime elaborata Anno Domini 1539 Veneciis liberalitate Reverendissimi Domini Ieronimi Quirini, which translates as "A Marine map and Description of the Northern Lands and of their Marvels, most carefully drawn up at Venice in the year 1539 through the generous assistance of the Most Honourable Lord and Patriarch Hieronymo Quirino".[5] The Italian title translates to "A little book, that more closely explains a map of the Nordic cold, beyond the Germanic sea located country, which presents its extremely peculiar, previously known neither to Greeks or Latins, wonders of nature." It included a map of Northern Europe with a map of Scandinavia, which was rediscovered by Oscar Brenner in 1886 in the München state library and shown to be the most accurate depiction of its time. The map is referred to as "carta marina", and consists of 9 parts, and is remarkably large: 125 cm tall and 170 cm wide.
Following the death of his brother, he also saw to the publication of historical works that his brother had written.[3]
Present day oceanographers rediscovered Olaus Magnus' eye for detail (disregarding elements like the sea monsters) and a series of scientific publications followed on Olaus' truthful depiction of currents between Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
See also
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Olaus Magnus — Swedish historian and geographer, b. at Skeninge, Sweden, 1490; d. at Rome, 1 Aug., 1558 [or perhaps 1557 — Ed.]. He belonged to the old and noble family of Store (i.e. great, magnus), and pursued his studies from 1510 to 1517 in Germany. He was then, like his brother John Magnus, taken into the higher ecclesiastical service, and made cathedral provost at Strengnas. In 1523 King Gustave I named John Archbishop of Upsala, and sent Olaus to the pope to have the appointment confirmed. After vain efforts to prevent the king from introducing the new doctrines into Sweden, John went to Rome in 1537, and Olaus accompanied him as secretary, having by his fidelity to Catholicism lost his property in the confiscation of church goods. When John died in 1544, Olaus was appointed his successor in Upsala, but never entered into office, spending the rest of his life in Italy, for the most part in Rome. From 1545 to 1549 he attended the Council of Trent, having been commissioned to that duty by Paul III. He was buried by the side of his brother in St. Peter's.
His works, which mark him as one of the most important geographers of the Renaissance period, were published in Italy. His knowledge of the North, which was so extensive that he was the first to suggest the idea of a north-east passage, enabled him to produce after years of labour a great map of the lands in the North. It appeared at Venice in 1539 with the title "Carta marina et descriptio septentrionalium terrarum ac mirabilium rerum", and included the area from the south coast of Greenland to the Russian coasts of the Baltic, including Iceland, the northern isles, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. In this map we have the first general fairly definite representation of the North, surpassing every attempt contained in the Ptolemaic editions. The work was regarded for a long time as lost, and a single copy, procured in the sixteenth century and preserved in the Royal and National library, Munich, was only found in 1886 by Oscar Brenner. The Munich University library has a rough copy done by hand. Niccolò Zeno, the younger, in 1558, used the exact data given by the map to publish an account of a northern journey supposed to have been undertaken by his ancestors in 1400. This work created a sensation, and not until some time later recognized as a fiction. Sebastian Münster, Gastaldi, and Ortelius also turned the map to good account. Olaus Magnus likewise compiled an important work dealing with history, geography, and natural history: "Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus" (Rome, 1555; Antwerp, 1558; Basle, 1567; Frankfort, 1618, Translations: German (Strasburg and Basle, 1567); Italian (Venice, 1565); English (London, 1658); Dutch, (Amsterdam, 1665). It is divided into twenty-two books, and deals picturesquely and successively with the manners and customs, the commercial and political life of northern nations, the physical proportions of the land and its minerals and zoology. Olaus also published a life of Catharine, daughter of the Swedish St. Bridget, "Vita Catharinae", as well as another work, "Vita abbreviata S. Briggitae". He edited the following works of his brother John: "Historia Gothorum librls XXIV" (Rome, 1554), and the "Historia Metropolitana, seu Episcoporum et Archiepiscoporum Upsaliensium" (Rome, 1557).
BRENNER, Die achte Karte des Olaus Magnus vom Jahre 1539 nach dem Exemplar der Munchener Staatsbibliothek in Christiana Videnskabs-Selskas Forhandlinger (1886), no. 15; SCHUMACHER, Olaus Magnus u. die altesten Karten der Nordlande in Zeitschr. der Gesellsch, f. Erdkunde zu Berlin XXIII (1893), 167-200; METELKA in Sitzungsber, der k. bohmischen Gesellsch. der Wissenschften, Philol.- hist. Klasse (1896), in Bohemian; AHLENIUS, Olaus Magnus och hans framstellning af Nordens geografi (Upsala, 1895); NIELSEN, Kirkeleksikon for Norden (Aarhus, 1909).
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Back to citation occurrence 1.2 Chisholm 1911.
- Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Description of the Northern Peoples. 1996. pp. xxvi–xxxvi.
- Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Salvadori, Pierre-Ange (2021). Le Nord de la Renaissance: La carte, l'humanisme suédois et la genèse de l'Arctique. Paris: Classiques Garnier. doi:10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-10702-6. ISBN 978-2-406-10702-6.
- Back to citation Nordisk familjebok (in Swedish). Vol. 12. 1888. pp. 168–169. Retrieved 2011-12-24. article Olaus Magni
- Back to citation Lynam, Edward (1949). The Carta marina of Olaus Magnus. Tall Tree Library. p. 3.
External links
- Drømmen om hjemlandet The dream about the country of origin
- Works by Olaus Magnus in digital library Polona
- Carta Marina James Bell Ford Library, Minnesota
- Carta Marina satellite images The Plymouth Marine Laboratory Remote Sensing Group webpage on correlations with current oceanography.
- Otto Hartig (1913). "Olaus Magnus". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.