Born the February 6, 1748, he was fatherless at the age of five. Baron Johann Adam von Ickstatt (de) (1702–1776) the pupil, sent him to the Jesuit college of Ingolstadt in 1755, where his predispositions quickly made him a brilliant and promising pupil. Showing quite early on a pronounced taste for classical authors, it is the vision of some of them (in particular Cicero ), as conveyed by the Jesuits, that Weishaupt will subsequently reject. At the age of fifteen, he began his academic studies ( jurisprudence , political science , history and philosophy ). Ickstatt, who is professor and director of the University of Ingolstadt , allows him to consult the books banned by theological censorship . There he discovered the French philosophers of the Enlightenment .