CHAPTER X. 



RUDOLPH'S PHYSICIANS. 



"With us was a doctour of physike ; 

 In al the world was ther non hym lyk 

 To speke of physik and of surgerye, 

 For he was grounded in astronomic. 

 He kept his pacient a ful gret del 

 In hourys by his magyk naturel; 

 Wei couth he fortunen the ascendant 

 Of his ymagys for his pacient." 



Chaucer. 



HE PHYSICIANS attached to Rudolph's court, had 

 great influence over the hypochondriacal Emperor ; 

 several of them were eminent botanists and some 

 were astrologers and alchemists who were ad- 



mitted to especial intimacy with their royal patient. 



When Rudolph succeeded his father Maximilian he in- 

 herited, as it were, the physicians of the dead Emperor, and 

 when he took up his residence in Prague they followed the 

 court. One of them, Pietro Andrea Matthioli, a Siennese by 

 birth, was skilled in botany and renowned for his commentary 

 on Dioscorides' work on materia medica, a book that passed 

 through many editions and was translated into several 

 languages; Matthioli died, however, within a year and was 

 succeeded by Adam Huber von Riesenbach. Another of 

 Maximilian's physicians, Dr. Johann Crato von Kraftheim, 

 liad an interesting history; he began his literary career as a 



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