Philip Melanchthon
He was born Philipp Schwartzerdt on 16 February 1497, at Bretten where his father Georg Schwarzerdt was armorer to Philip, Count Palatine of the Rhine. His birthplace, along with almost the whole city of Bretten, was burned in 1689 by French troops during the War of the Palatinate Succession. The town's Melanchthonhaus was built on its site in 1897.
Philip Melanchthon
Both were aware of their mutual position and they thought of it as a divine necessity of their common calling. Melanchthon wrote in 1520, "I would rather die than be separated from Luther", whom he afterward compared to Elijah, and called "the man full of the Holy Ghost". In spite of the strained relations between them in the last years of Luther's life, Melanchthon exclaimed at Luther's death, "Dead is the horseman and chariot of Israel who ruled the church in this last age of the world!"