FABRI, fābrî (not Faber), FELIX: German Dominican; b. at Zurich 1441 or 1442; d. at Ulm Mar. 14, 1502. He belonged to a distinguished family, and in 1465 entered the Dominican order at Basel. He studied theology and was sent to Ulm in 1477 or 1478 as lector and preacher. From early childhood he desired to visit the Holy Land, and his longing was increased by pilgrimages to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1468 and to Rome in 1476. He first visited the East in 1480, but remained only nine days in Jerusalem. In 1483-84 he made a second journey of longer duration, visiting Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine, as well as Mount Sinai and Egypt in company with four Swabian noblemen. Except for frequent trips in behalf of his order, such as his visits to Venice in 1486-87, he spent the remainder of his life as a teacher and preacher in his monastery at Ulm, though he was also a preacher in neighboring nunneries. His works, which are mostly unpublished or lost, show keen observation, piety, sincerity, and humor, though they are marred by their lack of critical acumen, while their Latinity is strongly monastic. Nevertheless, he is the most important and instructive of the pilgrims of the fifteenth century. His chief works are as follows: Evagatorium in Tersæ Sanctæ, Arabiæ et Ægypti peregrinationem (ed. C. D. Hassler, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1843-49; Eng. transl., The Wanderings of Felix Fabri, in Publications of Pilgrims' Text Society, vols. vii.-x., London, 1897); Eigentliche Beschreibung der Hin- und Wiederfahrt zum heiligen Land (Frankfort, ? 1556); Gereimtes Pilgerbüchlein (ed. A. Birlinger, Munich, 1864); and Historia Suevorum (partly edited by M. Goldast, in Suevorum rerum Scriptores, Frankfort, 1605, Ulm, 1727). The most important portions of the Descriptio Sueviæ were published by H. Escher, in Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vi. 107-202 (Basel, 1884), while G. Veesenmeyer has edited the Tractatus de civitate Ulmensi (Stuttgart, 1889). Die Sionspilgerin is partly printed in Verhandlung des Vereins für Kunst und Altertümer in Ulm und Oberschwaben, new series, i. 30 sqq.

G. BOSSERT.