Veit Amerbach (also Vitus Amerpachius) (1503 in Wemding, Germany – September 13, 1557, in Ingolstadt, Germany) was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar and humanist, who converted to Catholicism.
Amerbach was born at Wembdinden in 1503. Up to age of 14 he attended the Latin School at Weth in his hometown of Wemding and then went to study at the University of Ingolstadt. On July 7, 1521, he enrolled at the University of Freiburg. In the following year, he moved to the University of Wittenberg, where he met the reformer Martin Luther and the humanist Philipp Melanchthon, which shaped his future. Through the mediation of Luther in 1528 he became a teacher at the Latin school in Eisleben, where he worked with Johannes Agricola of Eisleben. He continued his philosophical studies at the University of Wittenberg, completing them on December 12, 1529, with the degree of Magister.
In the same year, he married Elisabeth, and the couple had eleven children. From 1530 to 1532, Amerbach was in the Senate of the art department of the University of Wittenberg. In the 1538–39 winter semester he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts; he was professor at Pädagogium starting in 1529 and Professor of Physics starting in 1535. In 1541, Luther and Gregory Brück sent him to the Saxon Consistory of Wittenberg to participate in the sovereign government of the Church. With in-depth study of the church fathers, Amerbach came to a different conclusion, so that disagreements arose with Reformation ideas, particularly with regard to the doctrine of justification and of papal primacy. Then came his 1542 rebuttal of Philip Melanchthon's "Commentarius de Anima".
After much controversial correspondence with Melancthon, he left Wittenberg in 1543, and was received back into the Catholic Church, along with his wife and children. The Prince-Bishop Maurice von Hutten made him professor of rhetoric at Eichstätt. A year later, he went to Ingolstadt as professor of philosophy, where he remained until his death on 13 September 1557. At the University of Ingolstadt, he lectured on Aristotelian philosophy and rhetoric. Soon he enjoyed a widespread reputation as a commentator on Horace and Cicero; he also tried his hand at poetry, likewise in Latin. During his many years of teaching in Ingolstadt, he was also committed to an equality with the rest of the philosophical faculties.
Veit Amerbach was buried inside the parochial church of Our Lady in Ingolstadt.
A humanist scholar, he wrote learned works, including:
Detailed directory in: