EBERHARD, surnamed IM BART (Barbatus), count and afterwards duke of WUrttemberg (1445-1496), was born on Dec. II, 1445, the second son of Louis I., count of WUrttemberg-Urach (d. 1450) and succeeded his elder brother Louis II. in 1457. In 1468 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He visited Italy, became acquainted with some famous scholars, and in 1474 married Barbara di Gonzaga, daughter of Lodovico III., marquis of Mantua. In 1482 he made with .his cousin Eberhard VI., count of WUrttemberg-Stuttgart, the treaty of MUnsingen, by which the districts of Urach and Stuttgart into which WUrttemberg had been divided in 1437 were again united. The country was declared indivisible, and the right of primogeniture established. (See VV URTTEMBERG.) At the diet of Worms in the emperor Maximilian I. guaranteed the treaty, and raised Eberhard to the rank of duke. Eberhard was one of the founders of the Swabian League in 1488. He gave charters to the towns of Stuttgart and Tubingen, and introduced order into the convents of his land, some of which he secularized. He took a keen interest in the new learning and founded the university of Tubingen in 1476. In 1482 he again visited Italy and received the Golden Rose from Pope Sixtus IV. He died at Tubingen on Feb. 25, 1496. The succession passed to his cousin Eberhard, who became Duke Eberhard II.
See Rosslin, Leben Eberhards im Barte (Tubingen, 1793) ; Bossert, Eberhard int Bart (Stuttgart, 1884) .