State-supported university in Leipzig, Germany, founded in 1409.
In the 1500s it was a centre of Reformation thought, and in the 18th and 19th centuries it became one of Europe's leading literary and cultural centres, attracting such students as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , and Richard Wagner . Between 1953 and 1990 it was named Karl Marx University of Leipzig.