STOFLER (John)

, a German mathematician, was born at Justingen in Suabia, in 1452, and died in 1531, at 79 years of age. He taught mathematics at Tubinga, where he acquired a great reputation, which however he in a great measure lost again, by intermeddling with the prediction of future events. He announced a great deluge, which he said would happen in the year 1524, a prediction with which he terrified all Germany, where many persons prepared vessels proper to escape with from the floods. But happily the prediction failing, it enraged the astrologer, though it served to convince him of the vanity of his prognostications.—He was author of several works in mathematics, and astrology, full of foolish and chimerical ideas; such as,

1. Elucidatio Fabric. Ususque Astrolabii; fol. 1513.

2. Procli Sphæram Comment. fol. 154.

3. Cosmographicæ aliquot Descriptiones; 4to, 1537.