Sambucus, Johannes (1531–1584)

Hungarian historian and classical scholar. He lived for some time in the Netherlands, where he became friends with Christopher Plantin, who published his popular Emblemata 1564. In the same year, he was called to Vienna as imperial historiographer to Maximilian II and, later, Rudolph II.

Sambucus was educated in Germany (by Philip Melanchthon), France, and Italy (graduating in medicine from Padua). His publications also included commentaries on the early Christian theologians known as the Fathers of the Church, and editions of the work of an early Hungarian humanist, Janus Pannonius.