Mathias Ringmann

Mathias Ringmann was humanistic with the multiple talents, at the same time hellenist, geographer, poet, pedagog and corrector of printing works.

Born with Eichhoffen in Alsace in 1482 and died with Sélestat in 1511, it belonged to the scholars of the Vosgean Gymnase created by Vautrin Lud.

Years of training

It begins its studies with Sélestat, probably at the Latin school founded by Louis Dringenberg, the father of the Humanisme in Alsace. It is then with the Université of Heidelberg that he studies theology and mathematics. It makes also to some significant meetings, such as this other humanistic Alsatian, the priest Jakob Wimpheling, or the Carthusian monk Gregor Reisch who works then with his encyclopedia Margarita Philosophica .

In Paris he learns the Greek and also follows the courses of Faustus Andrelinus, “poet of the king” and fine expert of Erasme. It is also formed with cosmography, philosophy and mathematics near the theologist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d' Étaples.

Return in Alsace

In 1503 it leaves Paris for the Alsace where it finds Wimpheling, returned to him-also with the country. Set on pedagogy he would like to base in his turn an innovative school on the model of that of Sélestat. But it fails twice.

At this period Strasbourg became - with Basle - one of the great centers of printing works in Europe. Mathias Ringmann there attends the mediums of the edition and works itself as correct in a printing works when its life will take a turning. To the return of its third voyage (1501-1502) Amerigo Vespucci comes to send the account of its forwarding to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco di Medici. This letter of some pages is known under the name of Mundus Novus and makes at once the object of several editions and translations. In 1505 Mathias Ringmann publishes to him-also a Latin version at Mathias Hupfuff in Strasbourg under the title De Ora Antarctica and makes precede the text by Vespucci of a small geographical and humorous poem of twenty-two worms of which he is the author. Allured, the canon of Saint-Dié Vautrin Lud will transcribe of it thereafter a part in his Speculi Orbis… Declaratio . Already he persuades Ringmann to accompany it in the the Vosges.

Before leaving this one the work in progress completes for Jean Grüninger, a translation in German of works of Jules César, under the title Julius DER erst römisch Keiser von seinem Leben und Krieg, erstmals custom dem Latein in Tütsch gebracht vnd put andrer Ordnung der Capittel und uil zusetz nüw getruckt. Shortly after it arrives at Saint-Dié where the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was already established for a certain time.

The Vosgean Gymnasium and the Cosmographiae Introductio

Vautrin Lud thought for a long time of a republication of the Geographia of Ptolémée which would take into account the recent discovered ones. It knew to find the arguments so that Ringmann - which will be made from now on call Philesius Vogesigena - joins the Vosgean Gymnase, an small group of scholars who it is creating in Saint-Dié, and which counts among its members his own nephew Nicolas Lud, the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller and the Latinist Jean Basin.

The 1507 group publishes the Cosmographiae Introductio, a small work which supplements a large chart of the world Universalis Cosmographia drawn by Waldseemüller. With this occasion the name America appears for the first time, at the same time on the map of the world and in the opuscule where this choice is duly explained.

The question of knowing to which of the five learned members of the coterie one owes really this new name worried already Dr. Franz Laufenberger in 1959 (“Ringmann oder Waldseemüller? ”). Albert Ronsin, large specialist déodatien in the baptism of America, was also questioned on this subject: “Which is the author of the Cosmographiae Introductio ? ”. Many sources allot this paternity to Waldseemüller, others in Ringmann, and the arguments of the ones and others do not miss relevance. Ronsin pleads in favor of a really collective design (the Vosgean Gymnase), while conceding - as Laufenberger besides - a light advantage in Mathias Ringmann.

Grammatica Figurata

Pedagog in the heart - it tried even to him to create schools and designed a collection of exercises - and marked by his famous professor Lefèvre d' Etaples, Mathias Ringmann works out an illustrated Latin grammar intended for the schoolboys of the diocese of Toul, Hugues of Hazards, bishop of Toul, being a close relation of the group. The initiative in cost with Vautrin Lud which sees there a derivative for his/her friend, always plunged in the Greek texts. It is also the canon who blows the idea of a teaching play to him. Ringmann is harnessed with the task and retains the idea of the card deck, “the useful one mixed with pleasant” according to its own expression.

The historian Albert Ronsin sees there the influence of the theologist and humanistic Alsatian Thomas Murner, precisely the author of another “chartiludium”. The American academic Kenneth Mayer (University of Wisconsin) thinks that it was a question of illustrating the Ars Minor Latin grammairien Aelius Donatus (4th century), which already divided the speech into eight classes of words. On its side Irene Mittelberg, professor of linguistics (Cornell University), watch starting from many examples that the visual representation for teaching of grammar is not new thing.

Composed of 32 layers, illustrated of 93 engravings on wood, the Grammatica Figurata is written in Latin and Ringmann publishes it in Saint-Dié in 1509, under the pseudonym of Philesius Vogesigena. Latin grammar is simplified there, it acts above all to facilitate the acquisition of the basic concepts using the charts. The play comprises 60 questions and as many answers. Each of the eight parts of speech is personified: the pronoun is incarnated by the vicar, the adverb by the queen, the interjection by the insane one, and so on. A privileged place is reserved to the king, it is him which symbolizes the verb: “Patiensque Rex verbum designat agens inimicos nonnunque neutrum pace vigente gerens”.

The plate is dedicated to the bishop of Toul, and in engraving illustrating the conclusion one notices an angel carrying on the left the blazon of Vautrin Lud and on the right the armorial bearings of Eichhoffen dating from 1097, the sheets of oak and three nipples symbolizing the native village of Ringmann (in German, Eiche = oak). The Colophon explicitly pays homage to the town of Saint-Dié: “It is in the Vosges a known place of the whole world, having for name your own name O Saint-Dié. It is there that Gauthier Lud, and Ringmann itself printed these elements in admirable characters”.

The teaching method is not discounted success, but the Grammatica Figurata has nevertheless escaped with the destruction and the lapse of memory. Some rare original specimens are preserved at Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna or Prague. A republication in Fac-similé was published in 1905 at Heitz. It is only in 1987 that the work is translated into French by a student déodatien, Didier Jodin.

On the traces of Ptolémée

In parallel the Vosgean Gymnasium always prepares its Geographia of Ptolémée, and Ringmann continues its research, in particular at the Dominicains of Basle. In this city it also gives some courses of cosmography in 1508 and works on various translations.

It also goes to Italy and initially meets with Ferrare the poet and archeologist Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, who gets useful information to him on the Greek numbering system. Thereafter, with Novi, close to Genoa, humanistic Italian Jean Pic of Mirandole lends a text of Ptolémée to him.

The funeral oration of Rene II

In 1510, always with Saint-Dié, Ringmann prints a small plate of six layers written by Jean Loys (Aloisius Crassus Calaber) at the request of the canon André de Reynette, near to the Lud family. Heading Renati Secundi Syciliae Governed and Lothoringiae Ducis Vita per Ioannem Aluysium Crassum Calabrum published , this text is the funeral praise of the duke of Lorraine Rene II, died in 1508 and whose Loys was one of the secretaries. Ringmann itself wrote the dedication of it.

Weakened since 1509 by the tuberculosis which corrodes it, it must slow down the rate/rhythm of its work, but to the beginning of 1511 it still goes to Nancy, where the duke Antoine of Lorraine asks him to print with Saint-Dié the book first of the Liber Nanceidos, that Pierre de Blarru has just written with the glory of Rene II.

An premature end

Ringmann dies suddenly in Sélestat on August 1st 1511, hardly 29 years old, and it is Jean Basin of Sandaucourt which will take care some.

The Vosgean Gymnase sees from now on private one of its most talented members, whereas Vautrin Lud itself is confronted with financial problems.

Ringmann had still had time to finish the drafting of the explanatory booklet accompanying the chart by the Europe ( Carta Itineraria Europae ) designed by Waldseemüller. This plate, printed in 1511, was entitled Instructio manuductionem prestans in cartam itinerariam martini hilacomil ipsuus europae.

In fact another work was under development at the time of its disappearance. On the initiative of Lud and in collaboration with Waldseemüller for the charts, Mathias Ringmann worked since 1506 on the nomenclature of the Geographia of Ptolémée. When this one is printed by Jean Schott with Strasbourg in 1513 under the title Claudii Ptolemei Viri Alexandrini. Mathematicae disciplinae Philosophi doctissimi Geographiae opus novissima Traductione E Grecorum archetypis castigatissime pressum: caeteris handle lucubratorum multro praestantius , its name is not mentioned, and those of his/her companions not more.

Heritage

In 1911 - date marking the fourth centenary of died of Mathias Ringmann - great Franco-American festivals are organized with Saint-Dié. The formula “Saint-Dié, godmother of America” becomes a true slogan and a commemorative plaque is affixed on the house known as of America (on the spot of the old workshop of printing works of the Gymnasium).

This building was destroyed in 1944, and plates it marble saved of the flames is preserved today at the Musée Pierre-Christmas of the Saint-Dié-of-Vosges.

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