FEDERICO III, elector and duke of SAXONY. — Born at Torgau on 17 January 1463, died at Lochau on 5 May 1525. The firstborn son of Elector Ernesto, he succeeded his father in August 1486.
He promoted the sciences and the arts and founded (1502) the University of Wittenberg, to which he summoned Luther and Philipp Melan-
chthon. He was a friend of Giorgio Spalatin, his court chaplain, and of Erasmo da Rotterdam. He was imperial vicar on four occasions. He supported the reform of the constitution of the Empire, in a particularist sense, before Massimiliano I; upon the latter’s death (1519), he declined candidacy for the imperial crown and worked for the election of Carlo V, opposed by the King of France. At first he was a fervent Catholic: in 1493 he had journeyed as a pilgrim to the Holy Land and had brought back various relics, which he kept in the church of the convent of the Holy Spirit, founded by him at Wittenberg. He had also been in favor of a stricter observance of the rule in the convents. But later he did not deny Luther his protection. When the latter was summoned to appear in Rome, F. saw to it that he was interrogated in Germany, at Augsburg, by Cardinal Tommaso de Vio (October 1518). With the bull Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520), 41 Lutheran propositions were condemned; it now depended on the Saxon prince whether or not to execute the bull, which ordered that Luther’s writings be burned and the reformer sent to Rome. F. permitted Luther to continue his teaching. After the latter had been condemned and was about to be placed under the ban by the Diet of Worms (1521), F. had him abducted and taken to the Wartburg, where the reformer devoted himself to translating the Bible. Protestant historians maintain that F. was a convinced Lutheran from the very beginnings of the Reformation. This opinion was abandoned by Kolde and Kirn. In any event, in the final years of his life F. openly professed Lutheranism and defended the new heresy from every attack; it owes its success, at least in part, to him. He died unmarried. He was succeeded by his brother Giovanni il Costante, with whom he had shared the government of the hereditary territories.