Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/121

UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING 109 correspondence with theologians, lawyers, mathema- ticians, physicists, doctors, and poets. It can be com- pared only with that of Erasmus. All scholars of the time of any importance, as well as many men of high rank, such as the Emperor Maximilian, the Electors Philip and Joachim of Brandenburg, solicited his friend- ship. From Italy even, so Wimpheling tells us, dis- tinguished men would frequently come to him for advice in learned matters, and counted themselves lucky to possess a letter from him. He acquired world-wide fame by the library which he founded at Sponheim, and which, by years of un- wearied labour and generous expenditure in collecting the rarest and costliest books in twelve different languages, he raised to a position of unique dis- tinction in Germany. By the year 1505 it had grown to the size of two thousand volumes, and its collection of manuscripts was valued at eighty thousand crowns. In fulfilment of the decree of Trithemius the monks were to occupy themselves diligently in copying the manuscripts ' for the glory of God.' l The abbot himself copied with his own hands, among other works, the New Testament and the poems of the nun Eoswitha. While lending willing co-operation to all general literary enterprises, such as those of the Kobergs in Nuremberg, and of John Amerbach in Basle, he himself formed the project of establishing an office in Sponheim which should be de- voted entirely to printing reliable material for a history of Germany. 'The activity of the abbot Trithemius is won- 1 Even in our day many evidences of the industry of the monks of Sponheim are extant.