Editing Conrad Celtes

{{short description|German Renaissance humanist scholar and poet (1459–1508)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=September 2021}}
{{Use American English|date=June 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2019}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name          = Conrad Celtes
| image         = Conrad-Celtis.jpg
| alt           = 
| caption       = Epitaph of Conrad Celtes, [[woodcut]] by [[Hans Burgkmair]], 1507
| birth_name    = 
| birth_date    = 1 February 1459
| birth_place   = [[Wipfeld]] (present-day [[Lower Franconia]])  
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1508|2|4|1459|2|1|df=yes}}
| death_place   = [[Vienna]], [[Archduchy of Austria]]
| nationality   = German
| other_names   = Conradus Celtis Protucius
| fields        = [[History]]
| education     = [[University of Cologne]] (B.A., 1479)<br>[[University of Heidelberg]] (M.A., 1485)<br>[[Jagiellonian University]]
| workplaces    = [[University of Ingolstadt]]<br>[[University of Vienna]]
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = 
}}

'''Conrad Celtes''' ({{langx|de|Konrad Celtes}}; {{langx|la|Conradus Celtis (Protucius)}}; 1 February 1459 – 4 February 1508) was a [[Germans|German]] [[Renaissance humanist]] scholar and poet of the [[German Renaissance]] born in [[Franconia]] (nowadays part of [[Bavaria]]). 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".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eire |first1=Carlos M. N. |title=Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650 |date=28 June 2016 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22068-1 |page=223 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3g8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA223 |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kallendorf |first1=Craig W. |title=A Companion to the Classical Tradition |date=15 April 2008 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-7202-8 |page=174 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HqrdIi7DZRcC&pg=PA174 |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=GermanicReview>{{cite book |title=The Germanic Review |date=1951 |publisher=Heldref Publications |page=148 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BIzjO6GiGeIC |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>{{efn|"Conrad Celtis , der deutsche Erzhumanist , perhaps the greatest lyric genius and certainly the greatest organizer and popularizer of German Humanism , has fared somewhat better than most of his NeoLatin contemporaries."<ref name=GermanicReview/>}}

==Life==
Born at [[Wipfeld]], near [[Schweinfurt]] (present-day [[Lower Franconia]]) under his original name '''Konrad Bickel''' or '''Pyckell''' (modern spelling '''Pickel'''), Celtes left home to avoid being set to his father's trade of [[vintner]], and pursued his studies at the [[University of Cologne]] (1477–1479; B.A., 1479) and at the [[University of Heidelberg]] (M.A., 1485). While at Heidelberg, he received patronage and instruction from [[Johann von Dalberg|Dalberg]] and [[Rodolphus Agricola|Agricola]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} As customary in those days for humanists, he [[Latinisation of names|Latinized]] his name, to Conradus Celtis. For some time he delivered humanist lectures during his travels to [[Erfurt]], [[Rostock]] and [[Leipzig]]. His first work was titled ''Ars versificandi et carminum'' (The Art of Writing Verses and Poems, 1486). He further undertook lecture tours to Rome, Florence, [[Bologna]] and Venice.

The elector [[Frederick III, Elector of Saxony|Frederick of Saxony]] approached the emperor [[Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick III]], who named Conrad Celtes ''[[Poet Laureate]]'' (Honored Poet) upon his return. At this great imperial ceremonial gathering in [[Nuremberg]],{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Celtes was at the same time presented with a [[doctoral degree]]. Celtes again made a lecturing tour throughout the empire.

In 1489–1491, he stayed in [[Kraków]] where he studied mathematics, astronomy and the natural sciences at the [[Jagiellonian University]] (at which he enrolled in 1489),<ref>Harold B. Segel, ''Renaissance Culture in Poland: The Rise of Humanism, 1470-1543'', Cornell University Press, 1989, pp. 86 and 92.</ref> and befriended many other humanists such as [[Lorenz Rabe]] and [[Bonacursius]]. He also founded a learned society, based on the [[Roman academies]]. The local branch of the society was called ''[[Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana]]'' (the "Literary Society on the Vistula River").

In 1490 he once again went through [[Breslau]] ([[Wrocław]]) to [[Prague]], capital of the [[Kingdom of Bohemia]]. [[Hartmann Schedel]] used Celtis' descriptions of Breslau in the ''Schedelsche Weltchronik'' ([[Nuremberg Chronicle]]). In Hungary, Celtis formed the ''[[Sodalitas Litterarum Hungaria]]'' ("Hungarian Literary Society"), later as ''[[Sodalitas Litterarum Danubiana]]'' to be based in [[Vienna]]. He made stops at [[Regensburg]], [[Passau]] and [[Nuremberg]] (and probably [[Mainz]]). At Heidelberg he founded the ''[[Sodalitas Litterarum Rhenana]]'' ("Rhineland Literary Society"). Later he went to [[Lübeck]] and [[Ingolstadt]].  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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Hrotsvit of Gandersheim – Martha Carlin|url=https://sites.uwm.edu/carlin/hrotsvit-of-gandersheim/|access-date=2021-01-26|language=en-US}}</ref> His friend [[Willibald Pirckheimer|Willibald Pickheimer]] introduce him to Abbess [[Caritas Pirckheimer|Caritas Pickheimer]]. He wrote her in Latin and called her the "new [[Hrotsvitha]]".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/42004382|title=A history of women's writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland|date=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|last=Catling|first=Jo|isbn=0-521-44482-9|location=Cambridge|oclc=42004382}}</ref>

While the plague ravaged Ingolstadt, Celtes taught at Heidelberg. By now he was a professor. In 1497 Celtes was called to Vienna by the emperor [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]], who honored him as ''teacher of the art of poetry and conversation'' with an imperial ''Privilegium'', the first of its kind. There he lectured on the works of classical writers and in 1502 founded the  ''Collegium Poetarum'', a college for poets.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} His invitation to Vienna came about greatly at the influence of his friend and fellow scholar [[Johannes Cuspinian]].

Celtes died in Vienna a few years later of [[syphilis]].<ref>Laurens 2004, p. 405</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Unger |first1=Richard |title=Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods |date=31 August 2008 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-474-4319-3 |page=119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TO95DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA119 |access-date=7 November 2021 |language=en}}</ref> 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, [[Konrad Peutinger|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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Albu |first1=Emily |title=The Medieval Peutinger Map |date=29 August 2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05942-9 |pages=13, 14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m143BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

==Works==
[[File:Conrad celtes.jpg|thumb|Conradus Celtis]]
[[File:ConradCeltisRuhmeshalle.jpg|thumb|Bust in the [[Ruhmeshalle (Munich)|Ruhmeshalle]], Munich]]
Conrad Celtes' teachings had lasting effects, particularly in the fields of [[classical language]]s and [[history]]. He brought systematic methods to the teaching of Latin and furthered the study of the [[Ancient literature|classics]]. He was also the first to teach the history of the world as a whole.<ref>{{cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Conrad Celtes |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03492a.htm |website=www.newadvent.org |access-date=6 January 2022}}</ref> Celtes was the first early modern humanist who introduced the term "[[topography]]" as a critical  appraisal of the Ptolemaic dichotomy between [[cosmography]] and [[chorography]], which was becoming insufficient to reflect the rapidly changing contours of Europe.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Piechocki |first1=Katharina N. |title=Cartographic Humanism: The Making of Early Modern Europe |date=13 September 2021 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-81681-4 |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6A5EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

He was the foremost cartographic writer in German lands. He worked on the large-scale cosmographic and cartographic project ''Germania Illustrata'', of which the core — among them the treatise ''Germania generalis'', four books of love elegies, and ''De origine, situ, moribus et institutis Norimbergae libellus'' ("On the origins, site, habits and institutions of Nuremberg") — was published under the title ''Quatuor libri amorum secundum quatuor latera germanie'' in Nuremberg (1502).{{sfn|Piechocki|2021|p=26}}

In 1493, he discovered the writings of [[Hroswitha of Gandersheim]] in the monastery of St. Emmaram. He then stole the manuscript and had it mass-printed across the Empire in 1501.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Russell |title=Mapping European Empire: Tabulae imperii Europaei |date=26 June 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-59306-5 |page=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6cgBCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT116 |access-date=6 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Also in 1501, he received a privilege from the Imperial [[Aulic 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Witcombe |first1=Christopher |title=Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the Privilegio in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome |date=1 June 2004 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-474-1363-9 |page=332 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hstKEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA332 |access-date=8 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Celtes also discovered a map showing roads of the Roman Empire, the ''Tabula Peutingeriana'', or [[Peutinger 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 of [[Ovid]]'s [[Fasti (poem)|''Fasti'']] in a letter to the Venetian publisher [[Aldus Manutius]] in 1504.<ref>{{cite book|author=Christopher S. Wood |title=Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art |publisher=University Of Chicago Press |date=2008 |page=8}}</ref> The purported new verses [[Pseudepigrapha|had actually been composed]] by an 11th-century monk and were known to the [[Empire of Nicaea]] according to [[William 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.<ref>{{cite book |author=Angela Fritsen |title=Antiquarian Voices: The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti (Text and Context) |publisher=Ohio State University Press |date=2015}}</ref> His [[epigram]]s, edited by Kark Hartfelder, were published in Berlin in 1881.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Conrad Celtes was more of a free-thinking humanist and placed a higher value on the ancient pagan, rather than the Christian ideal. His friend [[Willibald Pirckheimer]] had blunt discussions with him on that subject. As early as ''Ode 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.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Orbán |first=Áron |date=2017 |title=Born for Phoebus: solar-astral symbolism and poetical self-representation in Conrad Celtis and his humanist circles|degree=PhD|pages=40,57,134,183–186, 193–196  |publisher=Central European University |doi=10.14754/CEU.2017.01 |access-date=7 January 2022|url=https://www.ceu.edu/sites/default/files/orbanaron.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106170205/https://www.ceu.edu/sites/default/files/orbanaron.pdf |archive-date=2022-01-06 |url-status=live}}</ref>
 
The Celtis-Gymnasium in [[Schweinfurt]] was named after Conrad Celtis.

==See also==
* [[Rudolf Agricola]]
* [[Joachim Vadian]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03492a.htm ''Catholic Encyclopedia''].
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Celtes, Konrad|volume=5|page=652}}
* Pierre Laurens (ed.) ''Anthologie de la poésie lyrique latine de la Renaissance'' (Gallimard, 2004)
* Pierer's ''Lexikon'', Kluepfel, Aschbach.

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last1=Spitz |first1=Lewis W. |title=Conrad Celtis : the German arch-humanist |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=1957 |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780674435957}}
*{{cite book |last1=Celtis |first1=Konrad |last2=Schäfer |first2=Eckart |title=Libri odarum quattuor, cum epodo et saeculari carmine |date=2012 |publisher=Narr Francke Attempto Verlag |isbn=978-3-8233-6635-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XU0UFM0U9L8C |access-date=12 January 2022 |language=de}}
*{{cite book |last1=Forster |first1=Leonard |title=Selections from Conrad Celtis: 1459-1508 |date=18 November 2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-60182-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ELeZXcyD34C|access-date=12 January 2022 |language=en}}
* Christopher B. Krebs: ''Negotiatio Germaniae. Tacitus’ Germania und Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Giannantonio Campano, Conrad Celtis und Heinrich Bebel'', Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005. ([[Hypomnemata. Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben|Hypomnemata]], Bd. 158) Pp.&nbsp;284. {{ISBN|3-525-25257-9}}.
* Jörg Robert: ''Konrad Celtis und das Projekt der deutschen Dichtung. Studien zur humanistischen Konstitution von Poetik, Philosophie, Nation und Ich'', Tübingen 2003. {{ISBN|3-484-36576-5}}
* Hans Rupprich: [[Neue Deutsche Biographie]], Band 3 Seite 181siehe auch Band 20, Seite 50 und 474, Band 22, Seite 601
* [[Walther Killy]] (ed.): Literaturlexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, Bd. 2, S. 395, Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh u. München 1988–1991 (CD-ROM Berlin 1998 {{ISBN|3-932544-13-7}})
* Schäfer, Eckart (ed., trans.), ''Conrad Celtis: Oden/Epoden/Jahrhundertlied: libri odarum quattuor, cum epodo et saeculari carmine (1513).'' (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2008) (NeoLatina, 16).

==External links==
* {{DNB portal|118519891}}
* {{Cite ADB|4|82|88}}
* {{BBKL|c/celtis_c_p|autor=Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz|band=1|spalten=967–969}}
* {{MathGenealogy|id=128013}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926223143/http://opc.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de:8080/DB=1/SET=3/TTL=1/CMD?ACT=SRCHA&IKT=1016&SRT=YOP&TRM=Celtis,+Conrad Bücher von und über Celtis bei der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin]
* [http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~cd2/hdhs/objekte/2302.htm Kurzbiographie]
* [http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/bibliography/c.html Nachweise von Werken im Web]
* [http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost15/Celtis/cel_intr.html Celtis in der Bibliotheca Augustana mit Porträts]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050306043016/http://fotothek.slub-dresden.de/bildnis/Bildnisse_1_3_10_1.htm Bildnis-Holzschnitt von Dürer]
* [http://www.univie.ac.at/archiv/rg/7.htm Denkmäler des Wiener Poetenkollegs]
* [http://www.bayern-fichtelgebirge.de/heimatkunde/109.htm Der gekrönte Conrad Celtis und das Fichtelgebirge]
* [http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camena/celtis1/jpg/s001.html Conrad Celtis Protucius]... Four cities of Germany
* {{austriaforum|AEIOU/Celtis_Celtes%2C_Konrad/Celtis_Celtes%2C_Konrad_eigentlich_K._Pickel_oder_Bickel_english}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Celtes, Conrad}}
[[Category:1459 births]]
[[Category:1508 deaths]]
[[Category:16th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:German Renaissance humanists]]
[[Category:German scholars]]
[[Category:Lower Franconia]]
[[Category:Neo-Latin poets]]
[[Category:15th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:Heidelberg University alumni]]
[[Category:Jagiellonian University alumni]]
[[Category:15th-century German writers]]
[[Category:16th-century German writers]]
[[Category:16th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:Deaths from syphilis]]