Willibald Pirkheimer

Pirkheimer, Willibald, also Pirckheimer (Eichstätt, 1470-1530, Nuremberg), was a prominent personality among German humanists. Educated in Italy at Padua and Pavia, he was a man of wealth and a city councillor of Nuremberg. He was a connoisseur of art, a bibliophile, and a close friend of Dürer, who executed and engraved a portrait of him which is still extant. He served as an officer in the Swiss war of 1499. Pirkheimer's writings, all in Latin, include historical works and translations from Greek, and also an ironical laudation of gout (Apologia seu podagrae laus, 1510), commonly called Laus podagrae. Like many educated men of his age he welcomed the Reformation, only to react later against its extremism. A select edition by M. Goldast of 1610, Opera politica, historica, philologica et epistolica, was reprinted in 1969.