CONRADUS CELTIS (1474)

German name CONRAD PICKEL.

German scholar known as Der Erzhumanist ("The Archhumanist"); also a Latin lyrical poet, who stimulated interest in Germany in both classical learning and German antiquities.

He studied at Cologne and Heildelberg, was crowned poet laureate by Frederick III at Nürnberg in 1487 (the first German to receive this honour), spent two years in Italian humanist circles, studied mathematics and astronomy at Cracow, and became professor of poetry and rethoric in Ingolstadt in 1491. In 1497 Maximilian I appointed him professor in Vienna, where Celtis founded, on Italian models, a centre for humanistic studies, the Sodalitas Danubiana.

Celtis rediscovered the manuscripts of Germany´s first woman poet, the 10th-century nun Hrosvitha (sometimes spelled Hrotswith) and also the so-called Peutinger Table, a map of the Roman Empire. Among his scholarly works were editions of Tacitus Germania (1500), Hrosvitha´s plays (1501) and the 12th-century poem on Barbarossa, Ligurinus (1507).

The dominant theme of patriotism that partly inspired these editions is an important element in Celtis work. German greatness past and present is a recurrent theme, as in his inaugural lecture at Ingolstadt (Oratio, 1492); in it, in a nationalistic, anti-Italian tone, he commends the study of poetry, eloquence, and philosophy as a foundation for personal and political virtue.

Celtis masques with music, Ludus Dianae (1501) and Rhapsodia (1505) were early forerunners of Baroque opera. 

His greatest work is his lyric poetry: Odes (published posthumously, 1513) -Celtis aimed at being the German Horace; Epigrams (in manuscript till 1881); and especially Amores (1502), love poems of forthright sensuality and true lyrical intensity, presented in an elaborate symbolical framework characteristic of the age.