Philip Melanchthon and the Age of Enlightenment: Notes on his Commemoration in 1760

Abstract

The academic commemoration of Philip Melanchthon, humanist, reformer and ‘teacher of Germany’ (‘praeceptor Germaniae’), occurred for the first time on a large scale in 1760, the two-hundredth anniversary of his death. This article offers a first exploration of the bicentennial. It explores how Melanchthon's commemorators in central Europe positioned him as a hero of the early German Enlightenment (Aufklärung), singling out and reinterpreting his labours for the ‘improvement of humanity’. Shorn of context, divested of theological and ecclesiastical commitments, Melanchthon became the model scholar and the pride of Lutheran Germany, who transcended confessional particularities to instruct all of Europe.