SCHLITPACHER, JOHANN (GIOVANNI di WEILHEIM). - Benedictine monastic reformer and humanist, b. in 1403 at Schongau (Swabia), d. in a plague on 24 Oct. 1482 at Melk. He was educated at Schlitbach near Weilheim (whence his other name); "magister artium" at Vienna and at Melk; prior in the monasteries of southern Germany, where he worked to introduce the reforms of the Council of Basel.

Under the cardinal legate Nicholas of Cusa he was a visitor and preacher of the jubilee indulgence in the ecclesiastical province of Salzburg from 3 Feb. 1451 to 19 Nov. 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 the union (1471-72) he represented the Austrian monasteries, but his activity was without result. He brought fully into the milieu of the Melk reform both Italian monastic humanism, introduced by Peter of Rosenheim, and the scholarly directives of Vienna. As reformer, writer and humanist, S. stands between Peter of Rosenheim and Bernard of Waging (1400-72), who were the principal representatives of the Melk reform movement and of south-German monastic humanism.

Numerous unpublished works of S. are preserved in the Staatsbibliothek of Munich and in the monastery of Melk: writings on the reform, letters, mnemonic poems (Gemma bibliae seu memoriale minus bibliae, 1447).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: J. Zibermayr, S.S. Aufzeichnungen als Visitator der Ben. Kloster, in Mitt. Inst. Ost. Gesch., 1906, p. 268 ff.; id., Die Legation des Kard. Nik. Cusanus, in Reformat. Stud. u. Texte, by Jos. Greving, XXIX (1914), pp. 49-57; R. Newald, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Humanismus in Oberösterreich, Linz 1926, pp. 162-71; F. Thoma, Petrus v. Rosenheim u. die Melker Ben. Reformbewegung, in Stud. Mitteil. O.S.B., Munich 1927, pp. 94-222.

Francesco Thoma

@incollection{ec11_schlitpacher_johann_giovanni_d, author = {Thoma, Francesco}, title = {Schlitpacher, johann (giovanni di weilheim)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {72--73}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/schlitpacher-johann-giovanni-di-weilheim} }

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Schlitpacher, Johann (Giovanni di Weilheim)

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