Encyclopaedia

In the short golden age of German Calvinism before the Thirty Years‹ War, Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638) was probably the most important scholar. He was a professor at the University of Herborn in Nassau, he taught Comenius and was friendly with Johann Valentin Andreae. As an author of textbooks, he was perhaps the most productive of anyone in this field in the early 17th century. In 1630, he compiled his books into an ‹Encyclopaedia‹ which contained the entire knowledge of that time. The single textbooks deal with theology, physics, psychology, grammar, rhetoric and poetics. Anyone wanting to get an idea of the knowledge available in the Early German Baroque will have to depend on this encyclopedia.