Melchior Pfintzing

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Hans Schwarz (* 1492; † unknown): Melchior Pfinzing . Charcoal drawing n.d.; State Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.

Melchior Pfintzing , also: Pfinzing , (born November 25, 1481 in Nuremberg , † November 24, 1535 in Mainz ) was a clergyman and a high-ranking member of the court of Emperor Maximilian I ; he is considered to be the co-author of Theuerdank .

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Pfintzing coat of arms

Melchior Pfintzing came from one of the oldest and most influential patrician families in Nuremberg. His father was Seyfrid Pfintzing, councilor and city builder. The mother, Barbara Grundherrin, came from an equally respected Nuremberg council family. On May 23, 1494 he enrolled in Ingolstadt, where in 1496 he was one of Conrad Celtis' students .

His career at the Viennese court began with the position as one of the secretaries of the court chancellor Maximilian, Cyprian von Nordheim; then he became secretary and councilor to the emperor. Together with his brothers, he was raised to the knightly nobility in 1510. At the request of the emperor received Pfintzing 1512, the provost of St. Sebald in Nuremberg; in 1517 he became provost of the knightly monastery of St. Alban in Mainz . In addition, he was canon in Mainz, Bamberg and Trient. He took care of the court and had further tasks to fulfill, such as the election of bishops in Speyer in 1513 and the Princes' Congress in Pressburg in 1515. He also represented his hometown at court as a diplomat.

After the death of Maximilian I, he retired from court and only lived in his ecclesiastical offices. In 1521 he gave up his post as pastor and provost of St. Sebald with a pension and settled in Mainz, where he died in 1535.

plant

For a long time Melchior Pfintzing was considered the sole author of Theuerdank , an allegorical narrative in 1517 with the emperor as the protagonist; however, this narrative arose from a collaboration between Pfinzing, Emperor Maximilian and his scribe Marx Treitzsaurwein . Pfinzing, like, at the Trautzsaurwein as Gedechtnus , literary and artistic perpetuate designated strategy Maximilian, even involved going on. So he was not only on Theuerdank , but also in the final editing of the Weißkunig , one written by Maximilian and processed by Trautzsaurwein Imperial family history - again with Maximilian as the title character - involved. In addition, his participation in the planning for Maximilian's tomb is documented.

reception

From the dedication preceding the Theuerdank , in which Pfintzing referred to himself as the chaplain of Maximilian I's grandson, King Karl of Spain, who later became Emperor Charles V , in 1517 , it was concluded that Melchior Pfintzing was also Charles V's court chaplain, but that was already the case was doubted in the 19th century.

Some sixteenth-century scholars, such as Willibald Pirckheimer , mentioned his education and indicated that he was a translator from Greek; however, there is no evidence for this. In literary terms it is only proven in the vernacular.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. See Roethe (ADB)
  2. Müller (1989), col. 569