Leopold Witte

Leopold Witte (9 June 1836, in Halle an der Saale – 2 December 1921) was a German Protestant theologian and educator. He was the son of Dante scholar Karl Witte (1800–1883).^[1]

From 1853 to 1857 he studied Protestant theology at the universities of Halle and Heidelberg, and afterwards worked as a tutor at the Prussian Embassy in Rome. In 1861 he was ordained as a minister in Berlin, and he subsequently served as a pastor in the town of Cöthen, near Eberswalde. From 1873 to 1879 he lived in the United States, and following his return to Germany, served as a professor and superintendent at Schulpforta (1879–1900). In 1888 he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Greifswald.^[2][3]

He was the author of a well-received biography on theologian August Tholuck, titled Das Leben d. Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck's, (2 volumes, 1884–86). His treatise on humanist Pietro Carnesecchi and the Italian Inquisition, Pietro Carnesecchi : ein Bild aus der italienischen Märtyrergeschichte (1883),^[4] was translated into English and published as: A glance at the Italian Inquisition: a sketch of Pietro Carnesecchi: his trial before the supreme court of the papal inquisition in Rome, and his martyrdom in 1566 (John Thomas Betts, 1885). His other principal works include:

• Friedrich der Grosse und die Jesuiten, 1892 – Frederick the Great and the Jesuits.
• Die erneuerung der Schlosskirche zu Wittenberg : eine that evangelischen Bekenntnisses, 1894 – The renewal of the All Saints' Church, Wittenberg.
• Richard Rothe über Jesus als Wundertäter, 1907 – Richard Rothe on Jesus as a miracle worker.^[5]