TRITHEMIUS. - Johann von Heidenberg, known as T. from Trittenheim on the Moselle (Treves), where he was born on 10 Feb. 1462; died at Würzburg on 13 Dec. 1516. Of him it was said that “no science was alien to him”; he studied at Treves, Cologne and Heidelberg; he learned Greek and Hebrew under Reuchlin and Wimpfeling.
He became a Benedictine monk at Sponheim, of the Bursfeld congregation, in Feb. 1482, and was elected abbot there the following year. He devoted himself to the restoration of the property of his abbey and to the promotion of monastic observances; he collected rare books and manuscripts, by 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 norms for the development of Christian scholarship, namely the study of the Bible, the Fathers and theology according to the principles of St Thomas.
In 1503 he left Sponheim and retired to Würzburg in the monastery of St James of the Scots, of which he was elected abbot on 12 Oct. 1505, and where he died esteemed as the ornament of his country, master and mirror of monks, educator and friend of priests, father of the poor and physician of the sick (Janssen). He was in touch with the scholars of his time and besides ecclesiastical sciences T. had knowledge of the natural sciences to such an extent that he was considered a sorcerer; but his greatest fame is due to his historical writings, some parts of which still retain their importance. He published the first universal dictionary of scholars in the *Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum* (Mainz 1494), to which his disciples added an appendix of 1155 articles (1508–13). He followed this with the *De viris illustribus Germaniae* (ibid. 1495) and had the monk Paul Lang gather materials for a comprehensive history of Germany. He also wrote: *De viris illustribus O. S. B.*, *Annalium Hirsangensium libri II*, and a *Chronicon Hirsangense* (830–1370); *Compendium annualium 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); *Epistolarum familiarum 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 writings and alphabets (*Polygraphia*, Frankfurt 1518).