Ursinus, Caspar auch Velius#

Ursinus, Caspar (also Velius), b. Šwidnice, Poland (then Schweidnitz), around 1493, d. Vienna (probably suicide), March 5, 1539, humanist, neo-Latin poet, historiographer. Worked in Vienna from 1515 (with interruptions). 1517 was crowned poet laureate by Emperor Maximilian I. Opposed the Reformation, Canon in Breslau, in 1524 Professor of Rhetoric, then of Roman Law at the University of Vienna. 1526 was named Imperial Historiographer by Ferdinand I. In this function wrote numerous works about contemporary history. Member of the Sodalitas Collimitiana, highly acclaimed for panegyric poetry on the Habsburgs (Poematum libri quinque, 1522) and religious poetry; author of a history of Ferdinand I (De bello Pannonico libri decem, printed as fragment in 1762).

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