A decorative woodcut headpiece consisting of three horizontal bands of repeating floral and scrollwork motifs.

THE LIFE

OF JOHANNES TRITHEMIUS

FIRST OF SPONHEIM, THEN OF SAINT JAMES AT WÜRZBURG original: "Peapolitani." This is a Latinized reference to Herbipolis, the Latin name for the city of Würzburg.

ABBOT The head of an abbey or monastery. Trithemius was a famous Benedictine monk and polymath..

PREFACE TO THE READER.

I have described the life of Trithemius from Trithemius's own Chronicles of Hirsau A massive historical work documenting the history of the Benedictine monastery at Hirsau. and Sponheim The monastery where Trithemius served as Abbot for over twenty years and built one of the greatest libraries of his time., as well as from his personal letters; I have added scarcely anything of my own, except where the logic of the sequence and the necessity of connecting parts required it. Nor should I be judged to have inserted my own thoughts simply because I have not cited the specific locations of the source texts everywhere. You should know that I have done this for the sake of brevity, and so that an abundance of citations would not interrupt the curious reader. Meanwhile, I have often combined several pages into a single chapter, collecting meanings and phrases from here and there, so that the natural splendor of history might remain, and the unsullied truth of the narrative might be preserved.