Johann Friedrich Gronovius
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
classical scholar and critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
.
Born in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, he studied at several universities and travelled in England, France and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. In 1643, he was appointed professor of rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
and history at Deventer
Deventer
Deventer is a municipality and city in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. Deventer is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, but also has a small part of its territory on the west bank. In 2005 the municipality of Bathmen Deventer is a municipality and city in...
, and in 1658 to the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
chair at Leiden, where he remained until his death. In 1665, Gronovius succeeded Antonius Thysius the Younger as the 6th Librarian of Leiden University
Leiden University Library
Leiden University Library is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the development and spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment...
(see also Raffaello Fabretti).
Gronovius edited and annotated Statius
Statius
Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the 1st century CE . Besides his poetry in Latin, which include an epic poem, the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the unfinished epic, the Achilleid, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory...
, Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
, Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
, Tacitus, Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius , was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office...
and Seneca's tragedies. In addition, he was the author of Commentarius de sestertiis (1643) and of an edition of Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
's De jure belli et pacis (1660), amongst numerous other works. His Observationes contain a number of brilliant emendations. His son Jakob Gronovius
Jakob Gronovius
Jacobus Gronovius a.k.a. Jacob Gronow was a Dutch classical scholar.He was the son of the German classical scholar Johann Friedrich Gronovius and Aleyda ten Nuyl from Deventer, and father of the botanist Jan Frederik Gronovius...
was also a classical scholar.
Johann Friedrich Gronovius died at Leiden in 1671.
Further reading
- John Edwin SandysJohn Edwin SandysSir John Edwin Sandys FBA , was a classical scholar.He was born at Leicester on 19 May 1844, a son of the Reverend Timothy Sandys of the Church Missionary Society and Rebecca . Living at first in India, he returned to England at the age of eleven, and was educated at the Church Missionary Society...
(1908), History of Classical Scholarship, II, 1908. - Friedrich August EcksteinFriedrich August EcksteinFriedrich August Eckstein was a German classical philologist and educator born in Halle an der Saale.He studied philology at the University of Halle, earning his doctorate in 1831. In 1839 he became head of the Royal Pädagogium in Halle, and in 1849 was appointed Kondirektor at the Franckesche...
in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und KünsteAllgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und KünsteThe Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste was a 19th-century German encyclopaedia published by Johann Samuel Ersch and Johann Gottfried Gruber, therefore also known as the "Ersch-Gruber." One of the most ambitious encyclopaedia projects ever, it remained uncompleted.It was designed...