UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING 159 among his pupils. Gifted with an unusual capacity for teaching, Celtes gathered around him a large number of zealous students, and he made special efforts to interest the nobility in science and literature. He enriched the imperial library, which had been founded by Maximilian and entrusted to his care, with Greek and Latin books of great worth, with globes, maps, &c, so that by degrees it became a most valuable place of reference for students. He also displayed great ability as the director of the so-called ' Academy of Poets,' founded at his suggestion by Maximilian in 1501 for the purpose of furthering the study of poetry and mathematics at the university, and keeping up an interest in these subjects.
- This academy,' the first of the kind connected with
any German university, consisted of a group of learned men and promising students, who lived together in the same house, and it acquired the privilege of conferring an academic degree, that of ' the crowned poets.' Celtes established in Vienna the ' Danube Society,' which was on the same principle as the ' Bhenish Literary Society,' which he had founded earlier for the furthering of the study of humanities, belles-lettres, and science. It counted among its members Germans, Magyars, Slavs, and Italians. Amongst the most active of them was Cuspinian, who devoted himself from preference to historical studies. Besides other works he left one of much merit on the Boman emperors of the German nation, the material for which he had obtained by diligent research among Austrian archives and libraries. Other enthusiastic members of the society were the mathematician Johann Stabius, Andreas Stiborius, and the physician Bartholomew Steber, called
