Johannes Matthaeus Wacker von Wackenfels was an active diplomat, scholar and author, with an avid interest in history and philosophy. A follower of Neostoicism, he sought to resolve the doubts he still had about his conversion to Catholicism, according to STUDIA RUDOLPHINA - Bulletin of the Research Center for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II.
He was born in Konstanz in 1550 in a Lutheran Protestant family and studied in Strasbourg, Geneva and Padua. He was supported and promoted by Johannes Crato von Krafftheim, who put his way into the circle of Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe in Breslau. On Crato's and Hubert Languet's recommendation, he became tutor in noble houses. In 1574 he traveled from Vienna to Italy, where he met Jakob Monau and Fabier Ien de Dohna. In 1575 he received his doctorate in Padua. As a steward, he accompanied the son of Nicholas of Rhediger on the Grand Tour. In 1576 he returned to Breslau and became the confidant of bishop Andreas von Jerin. In 1591 Wackenfels was Chancellor of the Upper Silesian provincial team. In 1583 he married Sophie Poley in Dresden, a sister of Wroclaw businessman and gentleman on animal garden Christoph Poley.