Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/120

 108 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE and various learning.' The epitaph on his grave at Worms is as follows : Er war selbst gliicklich und stellte den Nachkommen mit glticklichem Erfolg ein Bild des Lebens auf. John Trithemius stood in close relation to the University of Heidelberg. He was born in 1462 in the village of Trittenheim, on the Moselle, and was the founder of a kind of ' learned academy ' in the Benedic- tine monastery of Sponheim, near Kreuznach, of which he had been abbot from 1483 to 1503. His pupils and his friends valued him as an ornament to his country, a teacher and example to the monks, a friend and educator of the priests, a father to the poor, and a healer to the sick. Conrad Celtes draws the following picture of him : ' Trithemius is abstemious in drink ; he disdains animal food, and lives on vegetables, eggs, and milk, as did our ancestors when there were yet no strong spices in our Fatherland, and no doctors had begun to brew their gout- and fever-breeding concoc- tions. He is modest in speech and conduct.' His outward person was as dignified as his character. i His firm, manly features,' writes Wimpheling, ' have a look of inexpressible goodness.' Trithemius was an encyclopaedia of learning, whose like was scarcely known in his century. Thoroughly at home in Greek and Latin classics, a competent Hebrew scholar, well equipped with knowledge of theology, philosophy, history, and canon law, he also applied himself zealously to the study of mathematics, astronomy and physics, chemistry and medicine, and actually practised as a doctor in order to assist the poor. His literary and scientific connection was immense and extensive, as shown by his epistolary