thumb|Beatus Rhenanus

Beatus Rhenanus (22 August 148520 July 1547), born as Beatus Bild, was a German humanist, religious reformer, classical scholar, and book collector.

Early life and education

thumb|centre|350px|School workbook of Beatus Rhenanus

Rhenanus was born on 22 August 1485 in Schlettstadt (Sélestat) in Alsace. He was the third of three brothers. His father, Anton Bild, was a butcher from Rhinau His classmates in Schlettstadt were the sons of Johann Amerbach, Basilius and Bruno.

Paris

On 25 April 1503, Rhenanus left Schlettstadt for Paris where he arrived on 9 May 1503. He assisted Lefèvre in publishing a commented Politika and a treatise on the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle in the print of Henri Estienne. After having graduated he returned to Schlettstadt in 1507. Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg and Sebastian Brant. The works he was involved with at Schürer were poems and treatises by contemporary Italian humanists and are seen as a preparation for his later work on texts by Aristotle and the Fathers of the Church. He sought to become a student of the teacher of the Greek language Johannes Cuno.

The 1512 edition of the Decretum Gratiani from the printers Johann Amerbach, Johan Petri and Johann Froben is the first known book he edited in Basel. In Basel he also befriended Desiderius Erasmus and played an active role in the publishing enterprises of Johann Froben. Many of the authors he worked on were historians. While he was staying in Basel, he usually lived several months a year in Schlettstadt. The Tacitus was published in 1533 by Froben in Basel. He continued a lively correspondence with many contemporary scholars, including his friend Erasmus, and supervised the printing of many of Erasmus's most important works. The stay was not successful and, still gravely sick, he eventually arrived in Strasbourg on 14 July. the Rerum Germanicarum Libri III (1531), and editions of Velleius Paterculus (Froben, Basel, 1520), based on the sole surviving manuscript, which he discovered in the Benedictine monastery at Murbach, Alsace. He also wrote works on Tacitus (1519), Livy (1522), and a nine-volume work on his friend Erasmus (1540–1541).

Beatus Rhenanus's collection of books went into the ownership of his hometown on his death, and can still to be seen in its entirety in the Humanist Library of Sélestat. Four years after his death, Johannes Sturm wrote a biography of him.

Personal life

His father Anton Rhinau (Bild) was a member of the council in Schlettstadt from 1479, and he became its mayor in 1497. He died on the way back from Wildbad in Strasbourg on 20 July 1547 while still in hope of a treatment for his sickness.

Notes

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20120211132805/http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/at/beatus-rhenanus_1531_rerum-germanicarum-libri-tres.pdf