BALDE, JAKOB. - Jesuit and poet, called the Horace of Germany, b. in Alsace at Ensisheim (it is known that he was baptized on 4 January 1604), d. at Neuburg on 9 August 1668. Having entered the Society of Jesus (1624), he spent his whole life teaching humanities and rhetoric at Innsbruck and Munich, apart from two brief interludes: as court preacher at Munich (1638-40); and as official historiographer of Bavaria (1640-48); from this office he had to be dispensed because it was too alien to his character.
An exquisite and imaginative poet, sensitive to the two great loves of religion and fatherland, he exercised his vein in every genre of poetry: dramatic, epic, satirical, didactic, with a predominance of the lyric, in which he comes closest to Horace. His masterpiece is Lyricorum libri IV et Epodon liber unus (Munich 1643); other works: Silvae lyricæ (ibid. 1643 and 46); Paraphrasis lyricæ in Philomelam Divi Bonaventuræ (ibid. 1645); De laudibus B. M. V., seu odæ partheniae (ibid. 1649); Urania victrix sive animae christianae certamina (ibid. 1663). His German poems, fewer in number, are also inferior in literary value, except for his Ehrenpreis, der allerheiligsten Jungfrauen und Mutter Gottes Maria (ibid. 1639).
The public's favor, which caused the editions of his works to multiply, declined in the 18th century, but then revived at the beginning of the 19th century, in which editions and translations were repeated. Balde's bust has been placed in the Bavarian Pantheon of Regensburg; in 1868 a "Baldverein" was founded at Munich; and in Kaulbach's painting The Age of the Reformation, in the Berlin museum, he appears as the representative of poetry, alongside Petrarch, Shakespeare and Hans Sachs.
Bibliography7 worksWorks: R. P. J. B. opera poetica omnia, 8 vols., Munich 1729 (a nearly complete edition, but defective). Studies: Sommervogel, I, 816-27; E.
BIBL.: Works: R. P. J. B. opera poetica omnia, 8 vols., Munich 1729 (a nearly complete edition, but defective). Studies: Sommervogel, I, 816-27; E. Lamalle, s. v., in DHG, VI, pp. 325-27; A. Baumgartner, Die Weltliteratur, IV, Freiburg im Br. 1900, pp. 644-56; G. Gietmann, J. B., in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 66 (1904), pp. 1-20; J. Bach, J. B., ein religiös-patriotischer Dichter aus dem Etnos, Freiburg 1904; B. Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher Zunge, II, I, Freiburg im Br. 1913, pp. 691-93; II, ibid., pp. 450-58, 478-80.
Testore, Celestino. “Balde, jakob.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II, coll. 732–733. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949. https://azioneromana.com/article/balde-jakob.
MLA
Testore, Celestino. “Balde, jakob.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949, coll. 732–733. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/balde-jakob.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec2_balde_jakob,
author = {Testore, Celestino},
title = {Balde, jakob},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {II},
pages = {732--733},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1949},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/balde-jakob}
}
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