Jacobus Theo Tabernaemontanus | |
|---|---|
| Jakob Dietrich | |
 | |
| Born | ± 1522 |
| Died | August , 1590 (aged 67–68) |
| Nationality | German |
| Known for | physician, botanist, and herbalist |
Jacobus Theodorus (Jacob Diether), called Tabernaemontanus (1525 – August 1590) was a physician and an early botanist and herbalist, one of the "fathers of German botany" whose illustrated Neuw Kreuterbuch (Frankfurt, 1588) was the result of a lifetime's botanizing and medical practice. It provided unacknowledged material for John Gerard's better-known Herball (London, 1597) and was reprinted in Germany throughout the 17th century. His Latinised name is a compressed form of the Latinized name Tabernae Montanae of his home town of Bergzabern in the Palatinate. Tabernaemontanus began as a student of two of the pioneers of Renaissance botany, first of Otto Brunfels and later of Hieronymus Bock.
The career of Tabernaemontanus was supported in the usual manner of his time: by a series of places as court physician to German nobles. In 1549 he was the private physician to Philip II, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken and later (from 1561 on) to Marquard von Hattstein, bishop of Speyer. Later he also served as city physician (Stadtarzt) to the free imperial city of Worms, Germany. Johannes Posthius and William Turner (Bad Bergzabern) were friends of Tabernaemontanus.
In 1562, Tabernaemontanus enrolled as a student at Heidelberg University. In the same city he spent the last decades of his life as physician to his liege lord, the Prince-Elector. He died in Heidelberg, having been three times married and the father of eighteen children. He is commemorated in the pan-tropical genus of flowering shrubs and small trees Tabernaemontana; the French botanist Charles Plumier erected the genus, as a compliment to Tabernaemontanus, and it was adopted by Linnaeus.
