PIRKHEIMER, WILLIBALD

A leading German humanist; b. Eichstatt, Dec. 5, 1470; d. Nuremberg, Dec. 22, 1530. The son of a distinguished lawyer, he studied jurisprudence, music, and classics at the Universities of Padua and Pavia (1489–95). In 1498, appointed one of the town councilors at Nuremberg, he became the center of the humanistic movement. He translated Greek classics into Latin and wrote a history of early Germany that won him the title of the German Xenophon. At the beginning of the Reformation, Pirkheimer sided with Martin Luther and attacked Johann Eck, Luther's opponent, in a bitter satire, Eccius dedolatus. He was included in the bull of excommunication of 1520, but he was absolved in 1521, after formally denouncing Luther's teaching. Later he attacked Protestantism with force when he learned of the persecutions to which his sister Charitas, abbess of the Poor Clares in Nuremberg since 1503, was subjected by Lutheran members of the city council. In that same convent his sister Clara and his two daughters, Katherina and Crescentia, were nuns.

Bibliography: Opera, ed. m. goldast (Frankfurt a. M. 1610); Briefwechsel, ed. e. reicke and a. reinmann, 2 v. (Munich 1940–56). k. schottenloher, Bibliographie zur deutschen Geschichte im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung, 1517–85, 6 v. (Leipzig 1933–40; repr. Stuttgart 1956–58, v. 7, 1962–) 2:141–144; 5:219. h. lutz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:516–517. g. pfeiffer, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 5:385.

[m. duffey]