Lot Essay
Philip Melanchthon, known as 'Praeceptor Germaniae', was celebrated throughout Germany for his erudition and his knowledge of the ancient languages. He became a professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg in 1518 at the age of twenty-one. He was a friend of Martin Luther, and he published in 1521 his Loci Communes Rerum Theologicarum, the first systematic discourse on Lutheran Theology. He was invited to Nuremberg in 1525 and 1526 by the City Council to establish the first public school in the city, and to plan the curriculum. It was probably at this time that Drer executed the portrait on which the engraving is based.