 Celtes collected numerous Greek and Latin manuscripts in his function as librarian of the imperial library that was founded by Maximilian, and he claimed to have discovered the missing books of Ovid’s "Fasti" in a letter to the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius in 1504.The purported new verses had actually been composed by an 11th-century monk and were known to the Empire of Nicaea according to William of Rubruck, but even so, many contemporary scholars believed Celtes and continued to write about the existence of the missing books until well into the 17th century.Conrad Celtes was more of a free-thinking humanist and placed a higher value on the ancient pagan, rather than the Christian ideal.