PIRKHEIMER (PIRKHEIMER), WILLIBALD. -
A renowned German humanist, b. at Eichstätt on 5 Dec. 1470, d. at Nuremberg on 22 Dec. 1530.
He attended the University of Padua (1489) for Greek letters, and that of Pavia (1482) for law. He made various journeys, forming extensive friendships with the scholars of his age. Having settled in Nuremberg, a free imperial city and a centre of high culture, he assembled in his house, soon famous as the hospitium eruditorum, an antiquarian museum and a large classical library. He was a close friend of Dürer. He maintained a very extensive correspondence with the most celebrated humanists of the time. From 1496 until his death he was also a city councillor and took an active part in the political life of this highly turbulent period. At first he supported Luther’s reform, but from 1524 onward, having seen its political and religious consequences, he became its opponent and satirical adversary. He gave effective support to his sister Charitas, abbess of the Poor Clares.
He published many writings, among them Germaniae ex variis scriptoribus perbrevis explicatio, a work that went through many editions; against Oecolampadius: De vero Christi carne et sanguine ad J. Oecolampadium responsio (1526); he described the Swiss war, in which he had taken part, and left an autobiography. He also published many works of the Fathers (St Fulgentius and St Gregory Nazianzen) and of the classics (Isocrates, Plutarch, Plato, Lucian, etc.). The Opera omnia were first published in 1610 (Frankfurt) and, after other editions, most recently in 1934 in 3 vols. by E. Reicke-A. Reimann.