The book is significant in the history of science because it promoted an awareness of up-to-date scientific journalism.īrowne's last publication during his lifetime were two philosophical Discourses which are closely related to each other in concept. A sceptical work that debunks a number of legends circulating at the time in a methodical and witty manner, it displays the Baconian side of Browne-the side that was unafraid of what at the time was still called " the new learning". In 1646 Browne published his encyclopaedia, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenents, and commonly Presumed Truths, the title of which refers to the prevalence of false beliefs and "vulgar errors". The expurgation did not end the controversy: in 1645, Alexander Ross attacked Religio Medici in his Medicus Medicatus (The Doctor, Doctored) and, in common with much Protestant literature, the book was placed upon the Papal Index Librorum Prohibitorum in the same year. An authorised text appeared in 1643, with some of the more controversial views removed. It surprised him when an unauthorised edition appeared in 1642, since the work included several unorthodox religious speculations. 1641 – 1650īrowne's first literary work was Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician) which was circulated as a manuscript among his friends. Lady Dorothy Browne and Sir Thomas Browne, by Joan Carlile, c.
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She bore him ten children, six of whom died before their parents. In 1641, he married Dorothy Mileham (1621–1685), of Burlingham St Peter, Norfolk. He settled in Norwich in 1637 and practised medicine there until his death in 1682. He graduated from Oxford in January 1627, after which he studied medicine at Padua and Montpellier universities, completing his studies at Leiden, where he received a medical degree in 1633. Browne was chosen to deliver the undergraduate oration when the hall was incorporated as Pembroke College in August 1624. In 1623, he went to Broadgates Hall of Oxford University. īrowne was sent to school at Winchester College. Browne's father died while he was still young, and his mother married Sir Thomas Dutton (1575–1634), of Gloucester and of Isleworth, Middlesex, by whom she had two daughters. Browne's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, was daughter of Henry Birkenhead, Clerk of the Green Cloth to Queen Elizabeth I and Clerk of the Crown for the counties of Cheshire and Flintshire. The Browne family lived at Upton for several generations, "evidently people of some importance" who "intermarried with families of position in that neighbourhood", and were armigerous. 4 Portraits and influence in the visual artsīrowne was born in the parish of St Michael, Cheapside, in London on 19 October 1605, the youngest child- having an elder brother and two elder sisters- of Thomas Browne, a silk merchant from Upton, Cheshire, and Anne Browne, the daughter of Paul Garraway of Lewes, Sussex.Although often described as suffused with melancholia, Browne's writings are also characterised by wit and subtle humour, while his literary style is varied, according to genre, resulting in a rich, unique prose which ranges from rough notebook observations to polished Baroque eloquence. His writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry and are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality.
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Sir Thomas Browne ( / b r aʊ n/ 19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. Religio Medici, Urne-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Christian Moralsįrancis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Paracelsus, Montaigne, Athanasius Kircher, Della Porta, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Fortunio Liceti, Arthur DeeĮdward Browne (physician), Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Herman Melville, William Osler, Jorge Luis Borges, W. Pembroke College, Oxford, University of Padua, University of Leiden