The father of Paracelsus was a doctor, and the bastard son of a German nobleman: having intelligence and education but no endowment. Although he was brought up in poverty in the countryside of Switzerland, Paracelsus was exposed from an early age to the erudition, and to the library, of his father.

http://hermetic.com/sabazius/paracelsus.htm

-=-=-=-=-

illegitimate member of the old and noble Bombast family of Swabia