Nicholaus Steno was born Nicholaus Stensen ("son of Sten") in January of 1638 in Copenhagen, Denmark to the Lutheran parents Anne Nielsdatter and Sten Pedersen, a successful goldsmith. Pope Gregory XIII had instituted the Gregorian Calendar in the sixteenth-century to correct problems that had allowed the Julian Calendar to creep out of phase with the solar year, and the exact date of his birth was recorded differently by the Lutherans and Catholics. Nicholaus published his scientific work under the Latinized name Nicolai Stenonis, today abbreviated to Steno. (He also corresponded in French and Italian, signing his name as Nicolas Stenon and Niccolo Stenone respectively, adding to the confusion.)
Steno was born at a time when universities founded in the Middle Ages were seen as places "not so much to create new knowledge as to preserve old knowledge. This meant that knowledge, almost by definition, came from books. Whatever you saw with your own eyes didn't qualify. Even if it were true, it wasn't knowledge," writes Cutler. "But scholars, if they had even the mildest curiosity about these materials of the earth, generally contented themselves with what they could glean from the pages of Aristotle or other texts. To dirty one's hands with the things themselves was beyond the pale for academics."
Steno's parents practiced a very bleak form of Lutheranism. As a child, Steno was confined to their home with illness until the age of six, so he spent much of his early childhood listening to the religious discussions of his parents and their friends. Steno developed a great interest in both science and religion at a young age. One of his early teachers at the Lutheran academy Vor Frue Skole was Ole Borch, who had studied medicine as well as training to enter the clergy. Borch, who ultimately held university professorships in poetry, philology, chemistry, and botany, as well as a medical practice, "preached to his students the gospel of nature's book, putting on scientific demonstrations and organizing nature hikes," writes Cutler.
Cutler emphasizes that the twin themes of religion and science were not unusual during the seventeenth-century.
