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Bonaventura Vulcanius of Bruges (1538-1614). A leading personality in Dutch humanism of the 16th and 17th century.

• studying medicine at Louvain University at Leuven
• travel to Spain
• secretary to the Archbishop of Burgos 1959-1466
• secretary to the brother of Archbishop of Burgos in Toledo until 1570
• After living for some time in Geneva and Basle he returned to his native Flanders and became rector of the Latin school at Antwerp
• secretary to the leading Calvinist Marnix van Sint-Aldegond
• at 1581 he arrived in Leyden when for 30 y he 'taught the future elite of the Dutch Republic' amng them: Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius
• professor of Greek at Leyden University

• He gett access to silver on purple codex and in 1597 published the text, the first publication of a Gothic text altogether. He called the manuscript Codex Argenteus from the name of silver.

"Vulcanius was a versatile scholar: he edited both Latin and Greek texts (nearly always with his own Latin translation), with an emphasis on Hellenistic and Byzantine works. He also had a keen interest in more recent work, as his editions of the Dutch historiographer Cornelius Aurelius and of the poets Janus Secundus and his two brothers evince. In addition to his work as a scholar, translator and teacher Vulcanius was also a poet in his own right: some of his occasional poetry is found in the scholarly works published by his contemporaries. Much more of his poetry is still unpublished, dating both from his ‘Spanish’ period and from his later life. From his poetry –and from poetry addressed to him, in manuscript and print– Vulcanius emerges as a leading personality in Dutch humanism of the 16th and 17th century."