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Conrad Celtes | |
|---|---|
 Epitaph of Conrad Celtes,woodcut byHans Burgkmair, 1507 | |
| Born | 1 February 1459 Wipfeld (present-dayLower Franconia) |
| Died | 4 February 1508(1508-02-04) (aged 49) |
| Nationality | German |
| Other names | Conradus Celtis Protucius |
| Education | University of Cologne (B.A., 1479) University of Heidelberg (M.A., 1485) Jagiellonian University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | History |
| Institutions | University of Ingolstadt University of Vienna |
Conrad Celtes (German:Konrad Celtes;Latin:Conradus Celtis (Protucius); 1 February 1459 – 4 February 1508) was aGermanRenaissance humanist scholar and poet of theGerman Renaissance born inFranconia (nowadays part ofBavaria). He led the theatrical performances at the Viennese court and reformed the syllabi.
Celtis is considered by many to be the greatest of German humanists and thus dubbed "the Archhumanist" (Erzhumanist). He is also praised as "the greatest lyric genius and certainly the greatest organizer and popularizer of German Humanism".[1][2][3][a]
Born atWipfeld, nearSchweinfurt (present-dayLower Franconia) under his original nameKonrad Bickel orPyckell (modern spellingPickel), Celtes left home to avoid being set to his father's trade ofvintner, and pursued his studies at theUniversity of Cologne (1477–1479; B.A., 1479) and at theUniversity of Heidelberg (M.A., 1485). While at Heidelberg, he received patronage and instruction fromDalberg andAgricola.[4] As customary in those days for humanists, heLatinized his name, to Conradus Celtis. For some time he delivered humanist lectures during his travels toErfurt,Rostock andLeipzig. His first work was titledArs versificandi et carminum (The Art of Writing Verses and Poems, 1486). He further undertook lecture tours to Rome, Florence,Bologna and Venice.
The electorFrederick of Saxony approached the emperorFrederick III, who named Conrad CeltesPoet Laureate (Honored Poet) upon his return. At this great imperial ceremonial gathering inNuremberg,[4] Celtes was at the same time presented with adoctoral degree. Celtes again made a lecturing tour throughout the empire.
In 1489–1491, he stayed inKraków where he studied mathematics, astronomy and the natural sciences at theJagiellonian University (at which he enrolled in 1489),[5] and befriended many other humanists such asLorenz Rabe andBonacursius. He also founded a learned society, based on theRoman academies. The local branch of the society was calledSodalitas Litterarum Vistulana (the "Literary Society on the Vistula River").
In 1490 he once again went throughBreslau (Wrocław) toPrague, capital of theKingdom of Bohemia.Hartmann Schedel used Celtis' descriptions of Breslau in theSchedelsche Weltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle). In Hungary, Celtis formed theSodalitas Litterarum Hungaria ("Hungarian Literary Society"), later asSodalitas Litterarum Danubiana to be based inVienna. He made stops atRegensburg,Passau andNuremberg (and probablyMainz). At Heidelberg he founded theSodalitas Litterarum Rhenana ("Rhineland Literary Society"). Later he went toLübeck andIngolstadt. At Ingolstadt, in 1492, he delivered his famous speech to the students there, in which he called on Germans to rival Italians in learning and letters. This would later become an extremely popular address in sixteenth-century German nationalistic sentiment.
In 1494, Celtes rediscovered Hrosvitha's works written in Latin in the monastery of St. Emmeram in Regensburg.[6] His friendWillibald Pickheimer introduce him to AbbessCaritas Pickheimer. He wrote her in Latin and called her the "newHrotsvitha".[7]
While the plague ravaged Ingolstadt, Celtes taught at Heidelberg. By now he was a professor. In 1497 Celtes was called to Vienna by the emperorMaximilian I, who honored him asteacher of the art of poetry and conversation with an imperialPrivilegium, the first of its kind. There he lectured on the works of classical writers and in 1502 founded theCollegium Poetarum, a college for poets.[4] His invitation to Vienna came about greatly at the influence of his friend and fellow scholarJohannes Cuspinian.
Celtes died in Vienna a few years later ofsyphilis.[8]
According to Richard Unger, Celtes was a large scale book thief who walked around episcopal palaces and monastic libraries stealing books for his emperor and himself.[9] He justified his behaviours on the basis of patriotic intentions, claiming that he only wanted to protect German patrimony from "damaging weather, dust, mold... insects", as well as Italians. Emily Abu writes that Celtis,Peutinger and their emperor took particular interest in cultural legacies that could provide connection between their German Roman Empire and the ancient Roman imperium. In the case of the Peutinger map (mentioned below), both Celtis and Peutinger made sure that any record of where Celtis found it as well as clues to the map's first three centuries were erased.[10]
Conrad Celtes' teachings had lasting effects, particularly in the fields ofclassical languages andhistory. He brought systematic methods to the teaching of Latin and furthered the study of theclassics. He was also the first to teach the history of the world as a whole.[11] Celtes was the first early modern humanist who introduced the term "topography" as a critical appraisal of the Ptolemaic dichotomy betweencosmography andchorography, which was becoming insufficient to reflect the rapidly changing contours of Europe.[12]
He was the foremost cartographic writer in German lands. He worked on the large-scale cosmographic and cartographic projectGermania Illustrata, of which the core — among them the treatiseGermania generalis, four books of love elegies, andDe origine, situ, moribus et institutis Norimbergae libellus ("On the origins, site, habits and institutions of Nuremberg") — was published under the titleQuatuor libri amorum secundum quatuor latera germanie in Nuremberg (1502).[13]
In 1493, he discovered the writings ofHroswitha of Gandersheim in the monastery of St. Emmaram. He then stole the manuscript and had it mass-printed across the Empire in 1501.[14][4] Also in 1501, he received a privilege from the ImperialAulic Council for the printing of his edition of her dramas. This was one of the earliest recorded privileges regarding copyrights granted by the Imperial government.[15] Celtes also discovered a map showing roads of the Roman Empire, theTabula Peutingeriana, orPeutinger Table. Celtes collected numerous Greek and Latin manuscripts in his function as librarian of the imperial library that was founded by Maximilian, and he claimed to have discovered the missing books ofOvid'sFasti in a letter to the Venetian publisherAldus Manutius in 1504.[16] The purported new verseshad actually been composed by an 11th-century monk and were known to theEmpire of Nicaea according toWilliam of Rubruck, but even so, many contemporary scholars believed Celtes and continued to write about the existence of the missing books until well into the 17th century.[17] Hisepigrams, edited by Kark Hartfelder, were published in Berlin in 1881.[4]
Conrad Celtes was more of a free-thinking humanist and placed a higher value on the ancient pagan, rather than the Christian ideal. His friendWillibald Pirckheimer had blunt discussions with him on that subject. As early asOde ad Apollinem (1486), he began to style himself as an Apollo-Priest. The most important earthly Phoebus to him was Maximilian, whose symbiotic relationship with the scholar (and thus their double glory) was often reflected in Celtis's literary works.[18]
The Celtis-Gymnasium inSchweinfurt was named after Conrad Celtis.
