Note 508 — CXL.—To Joachim Wadian.[508]

Joachim Wadian, Burgomaster of Saint Gall, one of the most learned men of the 16th century. Educated at the University of Vienne, he there distinguished himself by an extraordinary aptness in the cultivation of literature and the sciences, and cultivated with equal success, poetry, eloquence, medicine, and mathematics; he travelled the principal countries of Europe, and returning to Saint Gall his native country, corresponded with some of the most illustrious persons of his time who honoured his genius and his virtues. United by the ties of friendship to the Swiss and German Reformers, he powerfully contributed to the establishment of the Reform in his country. An upright magistrate, a conciliatory theologian, an able statesman, he formed the connecting link of important negotiations between the different Swiss Churches, and died in 1550, leaving an illustrious name and revered memory. His books and his manuscripts, carefully preserved in his native town, form the principal basis of the Town Library of Saint Gall, called sometimes after his name, the Library of Wadian. See Melchior Adam, Vitæ Germanorum Medicorum. Edit. 1706, p. 24.