Novalis enrolled at the Mining Academy of Freiberg in 1797, where he studied a wide number of disciplines including electricity, medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics, mineralogy, and natural philosophy. He also met many of the formative figures of Early Germanic Romanticism at this time, including Goethe, Friedrich Schelling, Jean Paul, and August Schlegel. After finishing his studies, Novalis served as a director of salt mines in Saxony and later in Thuringia. During this time, Novalis also wrote his major poetic and literary works, including "Hymns to the Night", which was published in Friedrich Schlegel's "Athenaeum". In 1800, Novalis began showing signs of illness, which is thought have been either tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis. He died on March 25, 1801 at the age of 28.