Born for Phoebus

Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Germany witnessed - as did Renaissance Europe in general - growing concern for the secrets of nature and the correspondence between micro- and macrocosm. Although the interest in these secrets by Conrad Celtis (1459-1508), the "Arch-Humanist" of Germany, has long been highlighted in scholarship, the function of solar-astral ideas in his poetry, the poetological dimensions of the rich cosmic symbolism in his oeuvre has not received focused scholarly attention before. This study reveals the solar and astral (mainly astrological) symbolism in the works of Celtis and some of his humanist friends, and investigates the various intriguing ways this cosmic symbolism was used for self-representative purposes.