Genus Nierembergia

For Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595–1658), Spanish Jesuit born of German parents, author, mystic, and first professor of natural history at Madrid. He studied the classics at the Royal Court, science at the University of Alcalá, and canon law at the University of Salamanca. He became a Jesuit in 1614 and a lecturer on scripture at the Jesuit seminary until his death. He authored a number of books that, at the time, were published in many languages but are now largely forgotten. His treatise De la Hermosura de Dios y su Amabilidad (In God’s Beauty and Kindness) (1649) is regarded as a classical manifestation of mysticism but cloyingly ‘sugary sweet’ when compared with, say, the enraptured vision of St Theresa.