Trithemius

TRITHEMIUS. - Johann von Heidenberg, called T. of Trittenheim on the Moselle (Trier), where he was born on 1 February 1462; he died at Würzburg on 13 December 1516. It was said of him that "he was a stranger to no science"; he studied at Trier, Cologne and Heidenberg; he learned Greek and Hebrew under Reuchlin and Wimpfeling.

He became a Benedictine monk at Sponheim, of the congregation of Bursfeld, in February 1482, and was elected abbot there the following year. He devoted himself to rebuilding the possessions of his abbey and to increasing monastic observances; he collected books and rare manuscripts, through which the library became renowned throughout Germany and in 1623 entered the Vatican Library. He also established a printing press and founded an academy, placing the study of the classics as the principal means for the formation of minds, and laying down the norms for the development of Christian science, that is, of the study of the Bible, of the Fathers and of theology according to the directions of St. Thomas.

In 1503 he left Sponheim and withdrew to Würzburg, to the monastery of St. James of the Scots, of which on 12 October 1505 he was elected abbot and where he died, esteemed as an ornament of his country, a teacher and mirror of monks, an educator and friend of priests, a father of the poor and a physician of the sick (Janssen). He was in contact with the learned men of his time, and besides the ecclesiastical sciences T. had a knowledge of the natural sciences so great that he was thought to be a sorcerer, but his greatest fame is due to his historical writings, which in some parts still retain their importance. He published the first universal lexicon of the learned in the Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiast. (Mainz 1494), to which his disciples added an appendix of 1155 articles (1508-13). He followed it with the De viris illustribus Germaniae (ibid. 1495) and had the monk Paul Lang collect the materials for an extensive history of Germany. He also wrote: De viris illustribus O. S. B., Annalium Hirsangensium libri II, and a Chronicon Hirsangense (830-1370); Compendium annalium de origine Francorum (ibid. 1515-16); Chronicon ducum Bavariae; Chronicon Sponheimense from 1124 to 1506, which an anonymous writer continued to 1526; Sermones et exhortationes ad monachos (Strasbourg 1516); Epist. familiar. libri II, and other pious and spiritual works. He also wrote curious works such as those concerning astrologers, alchemists, witches (Steganographia libri III) and secret scripts and alphabets (Polygraphia, Frankfurt 1518).

Pio Paschini