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Austrian humanist, cartographer and historian From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wolfgang Laz, better known by his Latinized name Wolfgang Lazius (October 31, 1514 – June 19, 1565),[1] was an Austrian humanist who worked as a cartographer, historian, and physician.
Lazius was born in Vienna, and first studied medicine, becoming professor in the medical faculty at the University of Vienna in 1541.[1] He later became curator of the imperial collections of the Holy Roman Empire and official historian to Emperor Ferdinand I. In that capacity, he authored a number of historical works, in research for which he traveled widely, amassing (and sometimes stealing) documents from numerous monasteries and other libraries.[2] He also produced maps of Austria, Bavaria, Hungary, and Greece, now considered important in the history of cartography.[1] His Typi chorographici provinciarum Austriae (1561) bears some early elements of a historical atlas, though it serves more as a celebration of the Habsburg monarchy than as a true historical work.[3]
It is thought that Giuseppe Arcimboldo's painting The Librarian is of Lazius.[4]