Johannes Crato von Krafftheim

Johannes Crato von Krafftheim (1519 to 1585), born Johannes Krafft, was a humanist and court physician to three Holy Roman emperors. The son of an artisan and council leader of Breslau, he was supported by the city council there in a university education because of his prodigious talent. From 1535 he studied theology at Wittenberg and lived six years in the household of Martin Luther, came to know Philipp Melanchthon, and took his master's degree in 1542. He kept a diary of those years that served as a source for Johannes Aurifaber's edition of Luther's Table Talk. On Luther's advice, since Luther thought him ill suited to theology, he turned to medicine and studied at the University of Padua from 1546 under the professor Johannes Baptista Montanus, who shaped his first works, and he took his doctorate there. After a tour of Italy and brief practice in Verona he returned to Breslau in 1550 and was named second town physician. He proved his value in the plague epidemic of 1554, having written a plague ordinance in 1553. He had a close friendship with Joachim Camerarius the Younger.