David Frolich

* Késmárk, 1595 – † Levoca, 24 April 1648 / geographer, astronomer, mathematician, calendar maker, supporter of the Copernican heliocentric world view, author of the first systematic Hungarian geography book ; ; Several sources list Leibitz, located in the immediate vicinity of Késmárk, as his birthplace. He completed his studies in Frankfurt on the Oder and spent a total of twelve years traveling abroad. He gained such fame, especially with his calendars in Hungarian, German and Latin, that Ferdinand III awarded him the title of “imperial and royal mathematician” and granted him a pension. After his return home, he lived in Késmárk and, in addition to his literary work, gave private lessons in mathematics and history. However, his fame was not due to his science, but to the fact that he was the first to climb the peaks of the High Tatras, in 1615. He went to the Késmárki peak with students from Késmárki. He himself describes this event in two of his works, the Medulla Geographiae ("Handbook of Practical Geography") published in 1639, and the CynosuraViatorum published in 1644. This is interesting not primarily because we get to know him as an early alpinist, but because the descriptions of his observations on this occasion present him as a true natural scientist in an era when it was much more customary to revive the wild speculations of old literature than to report on his own experiences. Among other things, he is talking about the change in air pressure with geographical altitude, which he noticed much earlier than Torricelli, Pascal or others were recorded in universal physics history writing. In his work, however, we also find the superstitions of the previous century or even earlier eras, alongside the ideas that were considered the most modern at the time. He was the most prolific calendar author of his time, who from 1623 onwards published his works annually under the title Fasti or Ephemeris in Latin, in Hungarian as “Fröhlich Dávid Késmárki Astronomus Kalendáriumá”, and perhaps the largest number of his German-language “Schreibkalenders”: “Almanachs” or “Tagebuch”. In these he also reported on interesting astronomical and meteorological observations. ; ; His main works: ; Anatome revolutionis mundanae, 1632, ; Medulla geographiae practicae…, 1639, ; Bibliotheca seu Cynosaura Peregrinantium, 1644, ; Hemerologium Historicum, 1644, ; Gnomologia metrica, 1646.