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Nicolas Steno
Sign in to saveAlso known as Niels Steensen, Nicolaus Stenonius, Nicholas Steno
Pioneer in anatomy and geology, bishop (1638–1686)
OverviewAI-generated
Nicolas Steno, born Niels Stensen in Copenhagen, was a Danish anatomist, paleontologist, physician, and geologist. He was educated at the University of Copenhagen and worked in Münster and Florence. A member of the Accademia della Crusca, Steno held positions as a titular bishop and auxiliary bishop within the Catholic Church. He is recognized as blessed.
Steno resided in Copenhagen and was of Danish ethnic origin. He was buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. His work focused on anatomy, and he is associated with five works. He died in Schwerin in 1686.
Synthesized by Vinony from 26 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Wikiquote, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- Classification of Surgical Complications
· 2004 · cited 28,250x
- The ERA5 global reanalysis
· 2020 · cited 24,255x
- Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis
· 2022 · cited 13,923x
- End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers
· 2020 · cited 13,509x
- Enrichr: a comprehensive gene set enrichment analysis web server 2016 update
· 2016 · cited 10,462x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “Beautiful is what we see, More Beautiful is what we know, most Beautiful by far is what we don't.”
- “There are those among us who would have us say that the mysteries of the brain are completely solved and little needs to be added to its knowledge. It is as if these fortunate persons had been present when this magnificent organ was created.”
- “We need only view a Dissection of that large Mass, the Brain, to have ground to bewail our Ignorance...We admire...the Fibres of every Muscle, and ought still more to admire their disposition in the Brain, where an infinite number of them contained in a very small Space, do each execute their particular Offices without confusion or disorder.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Key facts
- See
- Titiopolis
- Appointed
- 21 August 1677 , by Pope Innocent XI
- Term ended
- 25 November 1686
- Predecessor
- Valerio Maccioni
- Successor
- Friedrich von Tietzen
- Other post
- Titular Bishop of Titiopolis
- Previous post
- Auxiliary Bishop of Münster (1680–1683)
- Ordination
- 13 April 1675
- Consecration
- 19 September 1677, by Saint Gregorio Barbarigo
- Born
- Niels Steensen , ( 1638-01-01 ) 1 January 1638, [ NS : 11 January 1638 ] , Copenhagen , Denmark-Norway
- Died
- 25 November 1686 (1686-11-25) (aged 48), [ NS : 5 December 1686 ] , Schwerin , Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
- Buried
- Basilica of San Lorenzo , Florence , Duchy of Florence
- Denomination
- Lutheran (1638–1667), Roman Catholic (1667–1686)
- Parents
- Father: Steen Pedersen Mother: Anne Nielsdatter
- Occupation
- Scientist: anatomy , paleontology , stratigraphy , geology Bishop: Apostolic Vicar for Scandinavia and Northern Germany
- Feast day
- 5 December
- Venerated in
- Roman Catholic Church (Denmark & Germany)
- Title as saint
- Bishop
via Wikipedia infobox
~20 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Niels Steensen (Danish: Niels Steensen; Latinized to Nicolas Steno or Nicolaus Stenonius; 1 January 1638 – 25 November 1686 [NS: 11 January 1638 – 5 December 1686]) was a Danish scientist, a pioneer in both anatomy and geology who became a Catholic bishop in his later years. He has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
Steensen was trained in the classical texts on science; however, by 1659, he seriously questioned accepted knowledge of the natural world. Importantly he questioned explanations for tear production, the idea that fossils grew in the ground and explanations of rock formation. His investigations and his subsequent conclusions on fossils and rock formation have led scholars to consider him one of the founders of modern stratigraphy and modern geology. The importance of Steensen's foundational contributions to geology may be gauged from the fact that half of the twenty papers in a 2009 miscellany volume on The Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment focus on Steensen, the "preeminent Baroque polymath and founder of modern geologic thought".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Nicolas Steno” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.