Bonaventura Vulcanius

Bonaventura Vulcanius of Bruges (1538 - 1614) was a leading personality in Dutch humanism of the 16th and 17th century. He was the secretary to the Archbishop of Burgos (1459-1466) and the secretary to the brother of Archbishop of Burgos in Toledo until 1570. He was later the secretary to the leading Calvinist Marnix van Sint-Aldegond. He had access to the silver-on-purple codex containing the surviving portion of the ancient Gothic translation of the Bible by Bishop Wulfila or Ulphilas, and in 1597 he published the text, the first publication of a Gothic text altogether. He gave the manuscript the name by which it is still known, "Codex Argenteus", from the Latin word for silver.

Vulcanius studied medicine at the University of Leuven (Louvain). In 1581 he arrived in Leyden when for 30 years he 'taught the future elite of the Dutch Republic', among them Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius. He was a professor of Greek at Leyden University. His publications include a scholarly edition of the "Historia Alexandri" of Arrian (Geneva, 1575), incorporating a new Latin translation; for this he had the co-operation of Henri Estienne, who published the work.

After living for some time in Geneva and Basle, he returned to his native Flanders and became rector of the Latin school at Antwerp.