Orations and Letters

An ornamental woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical scrolls, floral motifs, and classical architectural elements.

TO THE NOBLE MEN, OUTSTANDING IN VIRTUE

and learning, JOHANN MAT-

THÄUS STAMLER, sena-

tor; CONRAD PIUS PEU-

TINGER, doctor of laws; JOAN-

NES HARTLIEB, surnamed

Walsporium; and CHRISTOPH

TENN, patricians and school-governors original: "scholarchas." These were the city officials appointed to oversee the administration and curriculum of the local schools. of the Republic of Augsburg, lords and patrons who have well-deserved of him,

The Preface of

HIERONYMUS WOLF.

A decorative woodcut initial 'Q' set within a square frame featuring foliage and scrollwork.

WHEN after the incurable illness of Xystus Betuleius original: "Xysti Betuleii" (1500–1554), a renowned humanist scholar and previous rector of the St. Anna School in Augsburg., a most learned man who deserved great praise from many talented youths, the St. Anna School—not through the fault of his successors, as the situation itself showed (though some suspected and complained of it), but rather through a certain injustice of the times, and a lack of confidence among men, and I know not what despair regarding literature—seemed to be sliding into a worse state and threatening, as it were, to fall into ruin; the former school-governors, CHRISTOPH PEUTINGER, duumvir original: "duumuir." One of the two chief magistrates of the city, modeled on the ancient Roman office., JOHANN JAKOB FUGGER A member of the wealthy Fugger banking family and a significant patron of the arts and education., CHRISTOPH RELINGER (son of Christoph), and MATTHÄUS WELSER, most distinguished and honored men, out of their care for the state, took up a diligent plan for propping up and restoring that school. They engaged my services for the teaching of Greek and Latin literature, and for both observing the faults of the school and correcting them as much as I was able, with a liberal and splendid salary—such as is not usually decreed for any professor of the humane letters original: "humaniorum literarum." This refers to the study of classical literature, rhetoric, and philosophy, which were central to a Renaissance education. throughout all of Swabia original: "Sueuiam." A cultural and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.. In which office, with what diligence, with what zeal, with what faith and industry I have been occupied, if others are ignorant of it, God the inspector of souls knows; and for me, my conscience is an ample enough theater. However, by what slanders, and indeed by what insults and injuries—tossed about both by certain wicked sophists Wolf uses this term pejoratively here to mean deceptive or argumentative scholars. and sycophants, and by the suspicions of those who did not know me—and by what troubles through these years...