Philipp Melanchthon (Dictionary of World Biography: The Renaissance)
Early Life
Philipp Melanchthon was born in the village of Bretten in the German Rhineland, some twenty miles south of Heidelberg, on February 16, 1497. His real name was Philipp Schwartzerd; his father, Georg Schwartzerd, was an armorer under the Palatinate princes. His mother, Barbara Reuter, was a niece of the great Humanist and Hebrew scholar Johannes Reuchlin, whose influence over Philipp can be seen not only in his early studies but also in his Humanist leanings.
The eldest of five children, Philipp proved himself something of a child prodigy under the direction...
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