Tilemann Stella

Tilemann Stella (about 1525 to 1589), born Tilemann Stoltz in Siegen, was a German mathematician and mapmaker. He studied at Wittenberg, Marburg and Cologne, was taught by Johannes Dryander and Erasmus Reinhold, and became a close student of Philipp Melanchthon, who asked him to prepare maps for biblical studies. He made maps of the Holy Land, the route of the Exodus and Germany. From 1552 Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg funded his work, and he mapped Mecklenburg, made a celestial globe in 1555, and from 1560 served as court mathematician and librarian at Schwerin. He also planned and supervised a canal between Dömitz and Wismar, charted Mansfeld and Luxembourg for the Counts of Mansfeld, and after 1576 worked for the courts of Saxony and Brandenburg-Ansbach and later headed the court library of Duke John I of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.