On 18 April 1487 Emperor Friedrich III crowned Conrad Celtis poeta laureatus, making him the first German to receive the distinction so coveted by humanists. David Friedrich Strauß designated him the Erzhumanist (archhumanist), an enduring sobriquet that conveys both Celtis's role as harbinger of and his dedication to the humanist movement. He devoted his life entirely to the cause of spreading humanist studies in Germany and, most important, to writing humanist poetry.

Celtis's birth date, 1 February 1459, is known from his elegy Amores 1.1, in Quatuor libri amorum (Four Books of Amores, 1502); otherwise, little can be said with confidence about the circumstances of his birth and youth. He seems to have been born in Wipfeld, a small village in the vicinity of Wrzburg. That origin would accord with his frequent self-characterization as a Franconian. Early sources record that he had his first training in Latin from an older brother who had...