Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Aventinus

AVENTINUS [JOHANN THURMAYR], author of the Annals of Bavaria, was born in the year 1466 at Abens- berg. He studied first at Ingoldstadt, and afterwards in the university of Paris. In 1503 he privately taught rhetoric and poetry at Vienna, and in 1507 he publicly taught Greek at Cracow, in Poland. In 1509 he read lectures on some of Cicero s works at Ingoldstadt, and in 1512 was appointed preceptor to Prince Ludwig and Prince Ernst, sons of Albert the Wise, duke of Bavaria, and travelled with the latter of these princes. After spending several years in the collection of materials he undertook to write the Annales Boiorum, or Annals of Bavaria, being encouraged by the dukes of that territory, who settled a pension upon him, and gave him hopes that they would defray the expenses of publication. He finished, but did not publish, his work in 1528, and in the following year he was imprisoned on suspicion of heresy. He was soon released from confinement, but the indignity he had suf fered seriously affected him. He died in 1534 at Ratisbon. His history, which has gained for him considerable repu tation as a writer, was published, but with some important omissions, in 1554, by Ziegler, professor of poetry in the university of Ingoldstadt. These passages, which were adverse to the Roman Catholics, were all restored in the edition published at Basle in 1580, by Nicholas Cisner. Besides his other writings, Gesner attributes to him a curious work, entitled Numerandi per digitos manusque Veterum Gonsuetudines.