WENCK, JOHANNES. - Theologian, b. at Herrenberg (Württemberg), d. in 1460.
Recorded as a priest in 1424, at the end of 1426 he came as *magister artium* from Paris to Heidelberg, where he remained after completing his theological studies as *professor theologiae*. He is especially known for the writing *De ignota litteratura* (1442-43) against Nicholas of Cusa, and even more through the latter’s *Apologia doctae ignorantiae* (1449). In his commentaries on the writings of Aristotle, and more on the *Liber de causis*, and finally (1455) on the *De caelesti hierarchia* of Dionysius, W. strove, as a decisive representative of the *via antiqua*, to propagate the common fund of scholastic ideology. Nevertheless, he often followed, alongside the commentaries of Albert the Great, a Neoplatonic orientation. His work as a preacher, the *Memoriale divinorum officiorum* (1445), is constantly directed toward liturgy. The illustration of W.’s works contained in the Palatine codices of the Vatican is in preparation.