Reisch, Gregor, approximately 1467-1525

Carthusian monk and humanist scholar who brought academic humanism to southwest Germany. Reisch became a student at the University of Freiburg in 1487, earning the degree of magister in 1489. He remained at the university as a teacher until 1494, when he enrolled at Ingolstadt as an educator of the young duke of Zollern. While continuing his teaching and scholarly work, he became a Carthusian monk at Sankt Margarethental in Kleinbasel, serving as prior there from 1500 to 1502. The following year, he became prior at Kartause Sankt Johannisberg, the charterhouse in Freiburg im Breisgau, where Reisch served until shortly before his death. As visitor for the Rhenish province, he fought against the rise of Lutheranism. In 1510, he was appointed counselor and father confessor to Maximilian I. Reisch is best known for his comprehensive dialectic work Margarita Philosophica, one of the earliest printed encyclopedias of general knowledge and widely used as a general textbook in universities. It is divided into twelve books, covering Latin grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy, physics, natural history, physiology, psychology, and ethics.