SCHLITPACHER, JOHANN (GIOVANNI di WEILHEIM). — Benedictine monastic reformer and humanist, born in 1403 at Schongau (Swabia), died in an epidemic on 24 October 1482 at Melk. He was educated at Schlitbach near Weilheim (hence his other name); «magister artium» at Vienna and Melk; prior in the monasteries of southern Germany, where he worked to introduce the reforms of the Council of Basel.
Under Cardinal Legate Nicola Cusano he was visitor and preacher of the jubilee indulgence in the ecclesiastical province of Salzburg from 3 February 1451 to 19 November 1452. From 1457 he worked to unite the observance of Melk with those of Kastl and Bursfeld. From 1468 to 1472 he was prior in the monasteries of Austria and Bavaria; at the conferences for union (1471-72) he represented the Austrian monasteries, but his activity produced no result. He fully introduced into the milieu of the Melk reform both Italian monastic humanism, brought in by Pietro di Rosenheim, and the scholarly directives of Vienna. As reformer, writer, and humanist, S. stands between Pietro di Rosenheim and Bernardo di Waging (1400-72), who were the principal representatives of the reform movement of Melk and of South German monastic humanism.
Numerous unpublished works by S. are preserved in the Staatsbibliothek in Munich and in the monastery of Melk: writings on reform, letters, mnemonic poems (Gemma bibliae seu memoriale minus bibliae, 1447).