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Homer in Wittenberg draws on manuscript and printed materials to demonstrate Homer's foundational significance for educational and theological reform during the Reformation in Wittenberg. In the first study of Melanchthon's Homer annotations from three different periods spanning his career, and the first book-length study of his reading of a classical author, William Weaver offers a new perspective on the liberal arts and textual authority in the Renaissanceand Reformation. Melanchthon's significance in the teaching of the liberal arts has long been recognized, but Homer's prominent place in his educational reforms is not widely known. Homer was instrumental in Melanchthon's attempt to transform the university curriculum, and his reforms of the liberal arts areclarified by his engagements with Homeric speech, a subject of interest in recent Homer scholarship. Beginning with his Greek grammar published just as he arrived in Wittenberg in 1518, and proceeding through his 1547 work on dialectic, Homer in Wittenberg shows that teaching Homer decisively shaped Melanchthon's redesign of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Melanchthon embarked on reforming the liberal arts with the ultimate objective of reforming theological education. His teaching ofHomer illustrates the philosophical principles behind his use of well-known theological terms including sola scriptura, law and gospel, and loci communes. Homer's significance extended even to a practical theology of prayer, and Wittenberg scholia on Homer from the 1550s illustrate how the Homeric poem could beused to exercise faith as well as literary judgment and eloquence.

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The need for a new critical edition of Philip Melanchthon's philosophical works is particularly clear in the case of his writings on rhetoric. That Melanchthon played a central role in the transformation of the ancient discipline has been well established by historians. His writings on rhetoric have proven significant sources for several academic fields, including church history, Scriptural interpretation, the history of science, and the reception of classical literature. Remarkably, two of the three principal writings have not been published in their entirety since the sixteenth century. This volume collects critical editions of the three principal writings to provide a more complete record of Melanchthon's teaching of rhetoric. It includes critical editions of De Rhetorica (1519), Institutiones Rhetoricae (1521), and Elementa Rhetorices (1531). In addition to the three principal writings, this volume collects a new edition, based on a 1911 edition by Hanns Zwicker, of Dispositiones Rhetoricae (c. 1553), a manuscript compilation of 161 model themes. Scholars will find in this volume the major sources for Melanchthon's theory and practice of rhetorical instruction.

Rhetoric --- Dialectic. --- Reformation. --- Renaissance. --- Rhetoric.