Émile Espérandieu

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Émile Espérandieu

Émile Jules Espérandieu (born October 11, 1857 in Saint-Hippolyte-de-Caton ; died March 14, 1939 in Avignon ) was a French military , archaeologist and epigraphist .

Training and military

Émile Espérandieu, son of an old-established Protestant family in the Gard department , attended schools in Saint-Hippolyte-de-Caton, Euzet and Alès from 1869 to 1875 . In 1878 he became a student at the Saint-Cyr Military School , which he left in 1878 as a second lieutenant . From 1882 to 1883 he took part in France's campaign against Tunisia as a result of the Bardo Treaty , which led to the short-term establishment of a French protectorate in Tunisia. His service in Tunisia, for which he was promoted to lieutenant in 1884 , brought him with the legacies of theRoman antiquity in this area - especially in Makthar , Dougga and Téboursouk - in touch and aroused his interest in archeology . Equipped with confident lines when drawing, he began to record monuments and document Latin inscriptions .

Back in France, Émile Espérandieu became a lecturer in topography and geography at the École militaire d'Infanterie , a French military school . Due to increasing deafness, he was retired from the military in 1910, but returned to active service at the beginning of World War I.

archeology

Since his time in Tunisia, archeology and especially Gallo-Roman epigraphy have been his special area of ​​interest, which he pursued with every move from his location. His activities focused on topographical investigations as well as archival materials , such as the documents on the antiquities that Choiseul-Gouffier brought to France. The scientific community in France remained Émile Espérandieu, who could neither demonstrate an academic training in the field of classical studies nor was ever a member of one of the related institutions such as the École française d'Athènes , with his activities initially a stranger, the "commandant Espérandieu". Yet Salomon Reinach was one of his few friends during the early stages of his scientific work. Tireless publishing - 389 articles in 53 years - however, let the reservations against the "lateral entrant" disappear. In 1899 he took over the management of the Revue épigraphique du Midi de la France.

Émile Espérandieu, who at the age of seventeen had written a tragedy about Vercingetorix , was commissioned in 1906 by the Comité des travaux historiques , which since the research at the time of Napoleon III interested in archeology . known Alesia to investigate. Until 1909, he initially devoted himself to this task, buying land in order to be able to research more freely, but got into increasingly heated disputes with the scientific society of Semur-en-Auxois , particularly with the archaeologist Jules Toutain about the interpretation of the archaeological findings . Finally, he broke off the excavations and handed over his finds to the Museum of Alesia and the Musée des Antiquités Nationales in Saint-Germain-en-Laye . But from 1920 to 1939 he continued to investigate Alesia and the field of the Battle of Alesia . In 1918 he retired to Nîmes , where he worked as a curator of Roman antiquities and as director of the archaeological museums and led the École antique de Nîmes , a learned society.

Recueil general

Espérandieu's work to this day is mainly connected to one work: the Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine ("Comprehensive collection of Gallo-Roman reliefs, statues and busts"). The demand to start such an undertaking ultimately went back to the ancient historian Camille Jullian in 1894, but it was probably inspired largely by Salomon Reinach's Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romain, published from 1896 . While his own work was a corpus based on statue types, Reinach suggested to the Minister of Education of France in 1903 that a corpus of Gallo-Roman reliefs be brought into being that would be of the same national interest as a collection of Latin inscriptions from Roman Gaul. However, the volumes of the authoritative Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum zu Gaul with Volume XII in 1888 and XIII, 1 1899-1904 had just appeared. Nevertheless, Émile Espérandieu was commissioned in 1905 to publish a Recueil général des bas-reliefs de la Gaule under the scientific direction of Reinach. The model for the undertaking was the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum , the aim was to ensure completeness.

The publication project tied Émile Espérandieu's workforce for the next 30 years. All the texts and all the photographs - thousands of glass plates over the years - he made himself and traveled to all museums and collections in France. The first volume appeared in 1907, followed by eight more by 1927. By 1938, Espérandieu also published three supplement volumes, including a volume on the material of Germania. After his death, the project was continued, in 1981, Volume 16, the last volume for the time being, was published. The work was criticized by contemporaries, including Germans, who were mostly grateful and enthusiastic, as the knowledge of Gallo-Roman culture increased . This concerned the classification based on the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum , the assignment and dating of individual pieces and the print quality of the illustrations. As a basis for numerous detailed investigations, the Recueil général was very fruitful. While working on the Recueil , Émile Espérandieu found the time to do further research. This included not only the investigations of Alesia and excavations in Nîmes, but also a revision and update of Volume XII of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum , which he published in 1929 under the title Inscriptions latines de Gaule narbonnaise .

In 1936, Émile Espérandieu married the writer Jeanne de Flandreysy , who ran a salon for Mediterranean culture in the Palais du Roure in Avignon . Here he spent the last years of his life and in Avignon is the scientific estate of Espérandieu.

Memberships and honors (selection)

Émile Espérandieu was a member of numerous learned societies and has received many awards.

Publications (selection)

Henri Rolland published a list of Émile Espérandieu's writings up to 1936 : Bibliographie d'Emile Esperandieu membre de l'institut 1883–1936. With a foreword by Augustin Fliche . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1937.

  • Note on quelques ruines romaines de la subdivison du Kef (Tunisie). Report présenté à l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. L. Larguier, Paris 1883.
  • Archeology tunisienne. Epigraphie des environs du Kef, inscriptions recueillies en 1882–1883. Champion, Paris 1884–1885.
  • Etudes sur le Kef. A. Barbier, Paris 1889.
  • Cours de topographie élémentaire. Lavauzelle, Paris 1889 (reprints 1889, 1892, 1907, 1913).
  • Recueil des cachets d'oculistes romains. Leroux, Paris 1893.
  • Signacula medicorum oculariorum. Leroux, Paris 1904.
  • Recueil general des bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine. Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1907–1938:
    • Volume 1: Narbonnaise, Alpes maritimes, Alpes cottiennes, Corse. 1907.
    • Volume 2: Aquitaine. 1908.
    • Volume 3: Lyonnaise (Irish partie). 1910.
    • Volume 4: Lyonnaise (2nd part). 1911.
    • Volume 5: Belgique (1st partie). 1913.
    • Volume 6: Belgique (2nd part). 1915.
    • Volume 7: Gaule germanique, Germanie supérieure. 1918.
    • Volume 8: Gaule germanique, Germanie inférieure. 1922.
    • Volume 9: Gaule germanique (3e partie et suppl.). 1925
    • Volume 10, 1: Supplément et tables générales du recueil. 1928.
    • Volume 10, 2: Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Germanie romaine. Complément du recueil général des bas-reliefs, statue. 1931.
    • Volume 11: Suppléments. 1938.
  • Catalog des musées archéologiques de Nîmes. I. Cabinet des médailles, monnaies dites consulaires. Gellion et Bandini, Nîmes 1920.
  • Catalog des musées archéologiques de Nîmes. I. Cabinet des médailles, monnaies dites impériales. Gellion et Bandini, Nîmes 1920.
  • Inscriptions latines de Gaule (Narbonnaise). Leroux, Paris 1929.
  • Les Mosaïques de Nîmes. Larguier, Nîmes 1935.

literature

  • Charles Picard : Éloge funèbre de M. Émile Espérandieu, membre libre de l'Académie. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Volume 83, 1939, pp. 161-172 ( digitized version ).
  • Marianne Altit-Morvillez: Le commandant Émile Espérandieu (1857-1939) et le patrimoine antique de Nîmes. In: Revue d'histoire de Nîmes et du Gard, Société d'histoire moderne et contemporaine de Nîmes et du Gard. Volume 33, 2018, pp. 75-85.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Espérandieu, Émile
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Espérandieu, Émile Jules (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French military, classical archaeologist and epigraphist
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Hippolyte-de-Caton
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1939
Place of death Avignon