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[[File:Portret van Paul Schede, RP-P-1917-745.jpg|thumb|Paulus Melissus.]]

'''Paulus Melissus''' (also: ''Paul Melissus,'' ''Paul Schede'', or ''Paulus Schedius Melissus''; 20 December 1539 &ndash; 3 February 1602) was a [[Humanism|humanist]] [[Neo-Latin]] writer, translator and composer.

==Life==
Melissus was born in [[Mellrichstadt]].  He studied and attended school in [[Zwickau]] from 1557 to 1559, and studied philology in [[Erfurt]] and [[Jena]]. From 1560 to 1564 he lived in [[Vienna]], where in 1561 he became [[poet laureate]]. He stayed in [[Prague]], [[Lutherstadt Wittenberg|Wittenberg]] and [[Leipzig]], and was called to the court of the bishop of [[Würzburg]] and went on a campaign to [[Hungary]] with him.

He was an ambassador in the service of Emperor [[Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian II]] and [[Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor|Rudolf II]], and traveled to France, Switzerland, Italy, and England and was ultimately director of the Electoral library (the [[Bibliotheca Palatina]]) in Heidelberg, where he died.

Melissus translated works of [[Clément Marot]] and [[Théodore de Bèze]] for the [[Huguenot]] church services in rhyme using the [[Psalm]]s in German. He was the first to use the [[sonnet]] and the ''[[terza rima]]'' in German lyric. In his lifetime he was recognized as an author fully versed in Latin love poetry.

==Works==
*''Cantiones'', poems (1566)
*''Psalmen Davids'' (1572)
*''Schediasmata'', poems (1574)
*''Schediasmatum reliquiae'', poems (1575)
*''Epigrammata'' (1580)
*''Odae Palatinae'' (1588)
*''Meletemata'', poems (1595)

==Literature==
*{{Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie|21|293|297|Melissus, Paul Schede|Erich Schmidt}}
*{{NDB|17|15|16|Melissus, Paulus|Jörg-Ulrich Fechner, Hans Dehnhard}}
*Fritz Roth, Restlose Auswertungen von Leichenpredigten für genealogische und kulturhistorische Zwecke. Bd. 5 R 4941
*Wolfgang Klose: Das Wittenberger Gelehrtenstammbuch: das Stammbuch von Abraham Ulrich (1549-1577) und David Ulrich (1580-1623), Halle: Mitteldt. Verl., 1999, {{ISBN|3-932776-76-3}}

==External links==
*[http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/desbillons/aport/seite237.html Picture of Paulus Melissus]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Melissus, Paulus}}
[[Category:1539 births]]
[[Category:1602 deaths]]
[[Category:German librarians]]
[[Category:German Renaissance composers]]
[[Category:16th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:Imperial counts palatine]]
[[Category:German male writers]]
[[Category:German male classical composers]]


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