Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/119

UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING 107 Pirkheimer of Nuremberg, and Henry Bebel of Tubingen. The immediate object of this society, as of many similar ones in Germany, was the encouragement and spread of science and the fine arts generally, and classical learning especially, but also the furthering of national historical research. The members all assisted each other in their labours, showed each other their writings, criticised each other in turn, and helped mutually in distributing their works. The famous publisher, Aldus Manutius, founded a learned society at Venice in the year 1502, with a view to making a centre of intellectual communication between Italy and Germany. ' If this plan proves workable,' he wrote to Conrad Celtes, ' our society will be of the greatest use to all seekers after knowledge, not only in the present but in the future, and Germany will come to be considered a second Athens.' ' Through the constant intercourse of scholars,' wrote Wimpheling, ' fresh life is germinating every- where ; the voice of warning wakes the slumberers ; the letters which we write to one another speed like messengers of good tidings through the land.' The extensive correspondence carried on in the world of scholars not only served for personal matters, but answered in great measure to the scientific and literary periodicals of the present day. This society reached its highest lustre under the presidency of Dalberg (1491-1503). The death of this man in 1503 was a greater loss to German culture than even that of his contemporary, Agricola. ' I hold this bishop,' writes Wilibald Pirkheimer, ' worthy of lasting remembrance as well for his benevolence and virtues as for his great