• He is born in Switzerland in 1499.
• His father dies when he is a baby. His mother does not keep him with her. He is sent to aunts.
• At the age of 10, he starts travelling across Germany with a cousin and other students. He spends a lot of time begging for money or food, and does not study much.
• He becomes a friend of Myconius who is a close friend of Zwingli.
• He gets married and opens a school.
• He works with the printer Hervagius, and then he opens his own prinitng shop with three associates, and then alone.
• After several years, he starts a new carrer as director of a school in Basel.
• At the age of 72, he writes his biography which is very interesting because he gives many pratical details.
• He dies in 1582.

Summary Of The Life Of Thomas Platter

• In 1499, birth of Thomas Platter in a house near the town of Granges, in the region of Valais, in Switzerland. His father is Anthoni Platter. His mother is Amilli Summermatterin.
• His mother cannot feed him. He drinks milk of cows.
• His father gets sick of the plague and dies when Thomas Platter is a baby. His mother takes a new huband, Heintzman am Grund.
• An aunt, Margret, takes care of him.
• Aged 6, he moves to the home of another aunt who has a farm. He has to watch the goats. The steep slopes of the Alps are dangerous for a little child and his goats.
• He works for a peasant, as a cow boy.
• Aged 9 or 10, his aunt wants him to become a priest, and gives him to the cares of a priest who beats him. He doesn't stay for a long time with him.
• He travels with a cousin, Paulus, who is older than him. He has to beg for him. They go to Zurich, where they stay for about 8 weeks, and where he had to beg and is sometimes beaten by bad people or by his cousin. Then, with six or seven other students, they travel to Naumburg, then to Breslau which is a rich city of Silesia, then to Dresden.
• In München, he and his cousin live in the house of Hans Schrall who is making soap.
• Circa 1514, they go back to switzerland. Platter's mother who has been a widow again, has taken a new husband, Thoman an Gärsteren. His aunt Fransy takes care of him.
• With his cousin Paulus, and another boy, they go to Ulm. Platter does not yet know how to read, because his older friends prefer to see him beg in the streets than go to school.
• He flies away from his cousin. He travels to Passau, Freising, Ulm, Meersboug, Zurich.
• With a friend from the region of Valais, they go to Strasbourg and Selestat, where he can study for six months. Then he goes back home.
• He goes to Zurich. The new master of the school is Myconius who is a good teacher and a friend of Zwingli. He becomes a friend of them, and occasionally carries their letters. He still is very poor and has to take any job he finds.
• He is the private teacher of the two sons of Heinrich Werdmiller. He is himself learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He is copying the book of his teacher when they are asleep. In order to stay awaken, he keeps in his mouth cold water, turnips, or sand.
• He learns how to be a ropemaker, but his teacher has no hemp, so he has to buy some with his own money. Then, he works for a severe master. With his salary he buys candles so that he can study at night.
• A schoolmaster called Oporinus asks him to give lessons in Hebrew, and he teaches the gammar of Munster.
• Following the advice of Myconius, he marries his maid. She is poor but she earns extra money by spining cotton at night.
• He resides in Viege, in Valais, where he opens a school. His first child is a girl.
He and his wife and daughter move to Basel, where is provisor.
• He is the servant of a physician of the Bishop in Porrentruy. His daughter dies. The physician gets ill, and dies. Platter copies his book of remedies.
• For four years, he is co-rector i.e. manager, in the printing shop of Hervagius in Basel.
• With three associates, he opens a printing shop. But, there are quarrels between them. They have many debts.
  In 1536, Platter publishes Calvin's Christianae Religionis Institutio.
  From 1536 to 1538, 24 books signed by Thomas Platter and Baltasar Läsius are published.
  From 1538 to 1543, 13 books signed by Platter alone are published.
• He left his job as a printer and is the new director of the school, paid 200 pounds a year. Some people of the university don't like the subjects or the way some subjects are being taught, nevertheless he stays at his post of director/professor.
• In 1549, he buys a house in the countryside.
• January 1572, Platter writes his autobiography in two weeks for his son, Felix.
• In 1572, death of his wife, with whom he had four children, but only his son Felix survived. He takes a second wife, Hester Gross, with whom he has six new children.
• In 1578, he retires from his job at the school.
• 26 January 1582, death of Platter.