Henricus Brucaeus

Henricus Brucaeus, known in German as Heinrich Brucaeus or Heinrich van den Brock, was a German physician, astronomer and mathematician, born in Aalst in Flanders in 1530 and dead on 4 January 1593. He studied at schools and universities in Ghent, Paris and Bologna, became a doctor of medicine and of philosophy at the University of Paris, lectured at the University of Leuven and served as professor of mathematics at the University of Rome. In 1565 he was physician to Maria of Braganza, and from 1567 he was professor of medicine and astronomy at the University of Rostock, where he was rector in 1569, 1575, 1581 and 1587 and also served as physician to the Duke of Mecklenburg. His De motu primo libri tres first appeared in 1573. He knew the work of Copernicus and respected him as a mathematician, though he rejected the heliocentric system, as most of his contemporaries did.