Hieronymus Balbus (also called Girolamo Balbi or Accellini) was a Renaissance Humanist, poet, diplomat, and Bishop of Gurk in Carinthia, b. about 1450 in Venice; d. there, probably 1535. He was a pupil of Julius Pomponius Laetus, the founder of the Roman Academy. As a young man, he was reportedly of a quarrelsome disposition, and, for a time, led a very loose life. But in later years he was highly respected and came to be regarded as one of the most accomplished men of his day. In 1485 he was professor at the University of Paris. His overbearing manner here soon brought him into conflict with various scholars, and in consequence of the attack which these men made on his character, he was obliged to leave Paris in 1491. A few years later (1494), at the invitation of Emperor Maximilian I, he