Vita clarissimi viri D. Iosiae Simleri Tigurini, S. Theologiae in Schola Tigurina Professoris fidelissimi

A decorative initial letter 'S'They had their seat and home, as well as their possessions and wealth, in Risnau, which is a small town under the common jurisdiction of the Swiss. It is famous and illustrious for its antiquity, as it is believed the Romans once had their camps there against the Alamanni, as well as for the very ancient monastery of the Benedictine order located on an island in the Rhine, although today one may see that it is not very well maintained in terms of its buildings. His mother was Verena Husera, a chaste and religious woman, and very liberal and generous toward the poor and needy. She came from an honorable and ancient family: for the Huseras have long been, and still are today, in great esteem and authority in Vitodurum, a very ancient town in the Zurich territory. In this same town, the brother of Simler’s mother, Verena, by the name of Johannes, performed the duties of Consul—they call it Schultheß magistrate/mayor there—with great praise. Since she had lived piously and harmoniously with her husband, the father of our Josias, for many years, and had most faithfully performed all marital and due duties and observances, she exchanged life for death, or rather death for life, on the twelfth of March in the year of our salvation 1555. Born to these parents, who were adorned with every kind of virtue, he showed himself to be very obedient and well-mannered toward them from his early age as long as they lived. They, in turn, performed the duty and office of pious parents, sparing neither labor nor expense so that their son, cultivated in good morals and letters, might finally be able to serve Christ and the church, to whom they had consecrated him immediately from his birth. They indeed became excellently successful in this most beautiful vow of theirs, and, while still surviving, they received the most beautiful fruits of their labors and expenses with the incredible joy and pleasure of their souls. They were all the more prompt and eager for such a liberal education of their son because more signs of good character and talent were shining forth in him even as a boy. For they understood wisely that just as neglected and uncultivated fields, the more fertile they are, are all the more ravaged by thorns, briars, and the roughness of wild plants: so too, when minds are not cultivated by a liberal education, the clearer their nature is, the more they are infected and imbued with more and more hideous vices. And they themselves were the first of all to set their hands to this most excellent work, that is, the pious and honest instruction of their son, among whom he lived for 14 continuous years after his birth. In this holy purpose of theirs, this convenience and opportunity was divinely offered to them, because at that time that school in Kappel, first instituted by Wolfgang Joner, the last abbot, and later restored in its entirety by the father of our Josias, was still in a flourishing state, from which as if from