FREDERICK III. called "the Wise," elector of Saxony, eldest son of Ernest, elector of Saxony, and Elizabeth, daughter of Albert, duke of Bavaria-Munich (d. 15o8), was born at Torgau on Jan. 17, 1463 and succeeded his father as elector in 1486. Retaining the government of Saxony in his own hands, he shared the other possessions of his family with his brother John, called "the Stedfast" (1468-1532). Frederick was among the princes who pressed the need of reform upon the German king Maximilian I. in 1495, and in 1500 he became president of the newly-formed council of regency (Reic/isregiment). He took a genuine interest in learning; was a friend of Georg Spalatin ; and in 1 502 founded the university of Wittenberg, where he appointed Luther and Melanchthon to professorships. In 1520 he refused to put into execution the papal bull ordering Luther's writings to be burned and the reformer to be put under restraint or sent to Rome; and in 1521, after Luther had been placed under the imperial ban by the diet at Worms, the elector had him con veyed to his castle at the Wartburg, and protected him. In 1519, Frederick, who alone among the electors refused to be bribed by the rival candidates for the imperial throne, declined to be a candidate himself, and assisted to secure the election of Charles V. He died unmarried at Langau, near Annaberg, on May 5, 1525. See M. M. Tutzschmann, Friedrich der Weise, Kurfiirst von Sachsen (Grimma, 1848) ; G. Spalatin, Das Leben and die Zeitgeschichte Fried richs des Weisen, edited by C. G. Neudecker and L. Preller (Jena. 1851) ; T. Kolde, Friedrich der Weise and die Anfdnge der Reformation (Erlangen, 1881) ; Kalkoff, Die Kaiserwahl Friedrichs IV. and Karls V. (1925).