'Jakob Balde' (
January 4 1604 –
August 9 1668), a
German Latinist, was born at
Ensisheim in
Alsace.
Driven from
Alsace by the marauding bands of
Count Mansfeld, he fled to
Ingolstadt where he began to study law. A love disappointment, however, turned his thoughts to the church, and in
1624 he entered the
Society of Jesus. Continuing his study of the humanities, he became in
1628 professor of
rhetoric at
Innsbruck, and in
1635 at Ingolstadt, whither he had been transferred by his superiors in order to study
theology. In
1633 he was ordained a priest.
His lectures and poems had now made him famous, and he was summoned to
Munich where, in
1638, he became court chaplain to the elector
Maximilian I. He remained in Munich till
1650, when he went to live at
Landshut and afterwards at
Amberg. In
1654 he was transferred to
Neuburg on the Danube, as court preacher and confessor to the
count palatine. He remained at Neuburg for the rest of his life.
A collected edition of Balde's works in 4 vols was published at
Cologne in
1650; a more complete edition in 8 vols at Munich,
1729; also a good selection by L. Spach (
Paris and
Strasbourg,
1871). An edition of his Latin lyrics appeared at Regensburg in
1884. There are translations into German of some of his odes, by J. Schrott and M. Schleich (
Munich,
1870). See G. Westermayer, ''Jacobus Balde, sein Leben und seine Werke'' (
1868); J. Bach, ''Jakob Balde'' (
Freiburg,
1904).
External links
★
Works of Jakob Balde online (e.g. the Cologne edition) - project
Camena
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Catholic Encyclopedia article