[Casparus Fraxinus Zegedinus]

The life and activities of a 16th century Hungarian physician, a humanist who had been educated at Padua and Venice, a professional working for an aristocrat's family and in the community of a late medieval city are impressively presented in this article. The essay is based on some unpublished letters of Fraxinus which were collected by István Botta, Tamás Grynaeus and Tivadar Vida in the municipal archives of Bratislava, Trnava, Sopron and the Hungarian National Archives at Budapest. These letters were not incorporated into the previous publication of Fraxinus's letters (Tamás Grynaeus, Tivadar Vida, eds., "Szerelmes Orsikám..." A Nádasdyak és Szegedi Korös Gáspár levelezése. Magyar Levelestár, Budapest 1988), and their main contribution is to put light on the years that Fraxinus had spent at Sárvár and Pozony. Grynaeus in his essay makes a thoroughful investigation of medical practice and academic interests of Fraxinus during the years when the doctor stayed at Sárvár, in the court of Count Ferenc Nádasdy, Palatinus of Hungary, acting as a private doctor to the count's family. Grynaeus, though concentrating on the cures and therapies which Fraxinus used in helping the count's family, gives an overall picture of the doctors activities and points out the pillars of his scientific, and humanist knowledge, comparing it always with the main trends of contemporary thought.