Kaspar Ursinus Velius
Caspar Ursinus Velius (* around 1493 in Schweidnitz, Principality Schweidnitz; † March 5, 1539 in Vienna) was a humanist, poet, imperial court historian and educator.
Life
Ursinus studied in 1505 at the University of Krakow in the humanities and Greek. Even at fifteen, he wrote poems in Latin and fell by the Breslau Bishop John V. Thurzos on. This brought him into his surroundings and supported him financially. 1508 Ursinus moved to the University of Leipzig, where he taught Greek. Around 1510 he became secretary of the Bishop of Gurk Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg. Along with this he went to Italy for the first time in 1511. Since then, he also called himself Velius. He studied in Bologna and Rome, where he met the poet circle of sodalitas Coritiana. Particularly closely connected he was with the historian Paul Jovius. In Rome, he created two heroic poems about two battles.
In 1514 he returned to Germany and came back into the service of the Bishop Long. With this he took in 1515 at the Prince meeting in Bratislava in part. Ursius lived about a year in Vienna and had relations with the local university and sodalitas Collimitiana. 1517 the poet laurel, he was awarded by Emperor Maximilian I.. In the same year he published the collection of poems " epistolarum Epigrammatum et liber ". In 1518 he received from his sponsor John V Thurzos a Kanonikeramt in Breslau. There he met the theologian Valentin Krautwald, he had probably already met during his Cracow study. By Canonicate it was possible for him to continue his studies in Vienna. From there he fled from the plague in 1521 in Basel, where he became acquainted with Erasmus of Rotterdam. In Freiburg he came into contact with Ulrich Zasius. In 1522 he gave a Basel out a complete edition of his poems and returned a short time later to Vienna.
Among other things, due to progress of the Reformation but also the internal decay of the local university, he again went to Italy. He strongly opposed the Reformation and warned against the spread of Lutheran doctrine.
After Emperor Ferdinand I had started with the reform of the University of Vienna, Ursinus received the offer for the chair of rhetoric. He did not return until 1524 and lectured on Greek and Roman authors. Most recently, he taught Roman law. In the winter of 1525/26 he was in the oven, and found there contact with literary circles. Archbishop László Szalkai (* 1475, † 1526) took him under his familiars. After the battle of Mohacs in 1526 and claim Ferdinand I to the Kingdom of Hungary Ursinus was imperial court historian. At the coronation of Ferdinand in White Castle, he was the keynote speaker.
In 1529 he gave up his clergy and married in Vienna, started on the day when the first Ottoman siege of the city. He could flee to Linz and returned to end the siege returned to Vienna to participate in the reform of the university. 1530 he took part in Augsburg at the Reichstag. When Ferdinand was in 1531 crowned Roman German king, Ursinius again held a speech. In the same year he became tutor to the children of Ferdinand. The circumstances of his death in 1539 are unclear. He drowned in the Danube and may have committed suicide.
Work
The 1522 published anthology of his poems contains occasional poems to family events in the House of Habsburg, King of Poland and senior patrons. Noteworthy is a birthday poem for Erasmus of Rotterdam. There are also occasional poems about the poet lives in Rome or friends in Vienna. His epigrams contain love poems and show its relationship to the visual arts, such as the mention of Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach. Other forms of poetry were included in the complete edition. Only small parts are marked religious. For this purpose, a long poem in hexameters belongs to the glorification of the Mother of God.
After 1522 its offices were more important than the seal. In 1524 he published a collection of his epigrams. Among these is an account of the Laocoon Group in Rome. As an opponent of the Reformation in 1523 he wrote an ode to Pope Hadrian VI. In 1527 he published an epigram to the Emperor, that was directed against the Anabaptists. He wrote in 1525 about the battle of Pavia, and complained 1530/32 in a poem about the Turkish threat. As a historian, he published in 1528 the collection Monosticha regnum Italiae etc and couplets on Roman Emperor.
A program written by him this year work on the Battle of Mohacs is not obtained. His main work is a story of Emperor Ferdinand I. The font remained unfinished and ends with the year 1531.