JOHANN CUSPIDIAN. — The family surname varies: Spiesham, Spiessham, Spiesschimer; humanist, politician, physician, and imperial archivist, born at Schweinfurt in 1473, died at Vicenza on 19 April 1529. In 1493 he was crowned poet laureate; from 1500 rector of the University of Vienna, imperial historiographer. Maximilian I, Charles V, and Ferdinand I entrusted him with important diplomatic missions.
A student of classical antiquity and collector of ancient codices, among other works he published the writings of Lucius Florus (1511), the Chronicle of Otto of Freising (1515), and the Fasti consulares (from the Chronography of 354), as well as the Chronicle of Cassiodorus, all published posthumously in 1553. His De Caesaribus atque imperatoribus romanis, an important but not profound work, appeared between 1512 and 1522 and was published posthumously in 1540. His Austria (1553) is a geographical description. His Diary has been published in Fontes rerum austriacarum, I (1885; cf. H. Ankiewicz, Das Tagebuch C., in Mitteilungen des Instituts f. österr. Geschichte, 30 [1929], pp. 283-326).