Celtes, Conrad

, a Latin poet, called also Protucius and Meissel, was born at Sweinfurt near Wetrtzburg in 1459, and died at Vienna in 1508, after having gained the poetic laurel. He has left, 1. “Odes,” Strasburg, 1513, 8vo. 2. “Epigrams,” and a poem on the manners of the Germans, 1610, 8vo. 3. “An historical account of the city of Nuremberg,” Strasburg, 1513, 4to; and various other works, enumerated by Moreri, all in Latin. He was not deficient in the sallies of imagination, though not exempt from the defects of the age in which he wrote. He is censurable for negligence in point of style, and with preferring sentiments more for their brilliancy than their solidity. His four books in elegiac verse, on the same number of mistresses he boasts to have had, were published at Nuremberg in 1502, 4to. This volume is scarce. The emperor Maximilian made him his librarian, and granted him the privilege of conferring the poetic crown on whomsoever he judged worthy of it. ²