Aventinus
Bavarian humanist and historian
Also known as: Johannes Turmair
Aventinus (born July 4, 1477, Abensberg, Bavaria—died Jan. 9, 1534, Regensburg) was a humanist and historian sometimes called the “Bavarian Herodotus.” A student at the universities of Ingolstadt, Vienna, Kraków, and Paris, Aventinus served as tutor (1509–17) to the younger brothers of Duke William IV of Bavaria, during which time he published a Latin grammar and a history of the Bavarian dukes. In his famous Annales Boiorum (1517–21; “Bavarian Annals”), his anticlericalism and attachment to...