Christoph Scheiner
Scheiner was born in Markt Wald near Mindelheim in Swabia, earlier margravate Burgau, possession of the House of Habsburg.
At the local seminary, he served his biennial novitiate (1595–1597) under the tutelage of Novice Master Father Rupert Reindl SJ.
He took his first vows before Father Melchior Stör, SJ and received the minor orders from the Augsburg suffragan bishop Sebastian Breuning.
From 1603 to 1605 he taught humanities: his years as a Latin teacher at the Jesuit grammar school in Dillingen earned him the title of Magister Artium.
On 18 April 1609, he received his major orders from suffragan bishop Lyresius in Eichstätt, from where he went to Ebersberg to serve his tertianship with Father Johannes Pelecius S.J.
Scheiner took his remaining vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and loyalty before the Pope on 31 July 1617 in the town of Ingolstadt under Father Johannes Manhart S.J.
Father General Mutio Vitelleschi sent him a letter, however, telling Scheiner he had better stay in Europe and persevere with his mathematical studies.
After November 1614, Archduke Maximilian III summoned Scheiner to Innsbruck several times to discuss astronomical and mathematical questions.
Scheiner added a third lens, thus manufacturing a terrestrial telescope which allowed Maximilian to see the beautiful stretches of his country while standing upright.
After the death of Maximilian III in 1618, Archduke Leopold V was appointed imperial representative of Tyrol and of the Upper Provinces.
Scheiner's "Oculus hoc est: Fundamentum opticum," containing many new insights into the physiological nature of the eye, was published in Innsbruck in 1619.
Craftsmen began to work on the roof in July 1624, but September saw a sudden collapse of the middle part of the gallery and the sidewall facing the street.
In Rosa Ursina sive Sol, he wrote that he had been sent to Rome "ad summum pontificem, ob certa peragenda negotia" (Latin meaning "to the pontifical summons...").
Other theories, contending that Scheiner had been summoned to Rome as an expert astronomer because of Galilei, or that he felt his transfer to Neisse was a punishment, have not been confirmed.
This was similar to Scheiner's own work (unsurprisingly, since both were observing at the same time) but led to allegations from both of plagiarism by the other, and to a deep enmity between the two scientists.
In 1629 and 1630, Scheiner observed a series of mock suns (parhelia) and haloes, including a complex display on 24 January 1630.
In Vienna, Scheiner was forced to confront the insecure funding for his book Rosa Ursina sive Sol.
He died there, and his obituary from 1650 maintains that Scheiner had to stay in Vienna because of the war, that he had had to flee from Neisse with all his astronomical instruments, that he usually got up early, to write or read, take care of the garden and plant trees with his own hands.
The town museum in Ingolstadt shows an oil painting (after 1732), also the Studienbibliothek Dillingen a fresco (painter Ignaz Schilling, 1702–1773).
