Charles César Baudelot de Dairval

Charles César Baudelot de Dairval (born November 29, 1648 in Paris ; † June 27 or 28, 1722 there ) was a French antiquarian , numismatist and gemologist . He is regarded as one of the formative French personalities of antiquarianism and stimulated many more such research in his home country with his work. For gem research he is considered one of the founders of science.

Charles César Baudelot de Dairval began his training with his uncle, the theologian Louis Hallé , in Beauvais . He then continued his studies at the Sorbonne with Abbé Pierre Danet and devoted himself entirely to law . After completing his studies, he was employed as a lawyer at the Paris Parliament .

Baudelot de Dairval only began to be interested in antiquity when he was in Dijon on business . Here he began to devote himself to antiquity and made contact with the city's scholars, whose libraries he made extensive use of. At this time he began to collect antiquities and books himself. After returning to Paris, he began to devote himself exclusively to his studies in classical studies. He became the overseer of the royal coin cabinet and devoted himself to his publications on coin and gemology. At the end of the 1690s he became the overseer of the medals and coins cabinet of Elisabeth-Charlotte von Orléans in Paris. Baudelot de Dairval was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres .

Baudelot de Dairval's main work is the travel book De l'utilité des voyages et de l'avantage que la recherche des antiquités procure aux sçavans , published in 1686 . It was very well received across Europe and made it known on the continent. The Accadmia dei Ricoverati in Padua then made him an associate member in 1689. In his work, Baudelot de Dairval emphasized the importance of travel and personal perception in assessing and researching the ancient remains. He agreed with Jacques Spons' s systematic classification of the finds into coins, inscriptions , statues , paintings, reliefs and architecture and also emphasized the importance of the gems in addition to the coins. He divided these into four classes: seals, jewelry, religious works, and works related to the phallic cult . He worked out the meaning of the seal gems and showed the importance of the gems for the development of ancient portraits and the iconography of ancient deities. On the basis of the preliminary work of the collector Louis Chaduc (1564–1638), he also devoted himself to the differences between ancient and modern gems and the quality of the work. In 1704 he published his description of the journey of the German businessman and researcher Paul Lucas through Egypt , the Levant and Asia Minor in the work Voyage Du Sieur Paul Lucas Au Levant . In the field of epigraphy he published, among other things, the inscription from the pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci . With the writing Sur la guerre des Athéniens contre les peuples de l'île Atlantide , he intervened in the ongoing discussion about the localization of Atlantis and assumed the island in the Atlantic .

Philip II of Orléans suggested Baudelot de Dairval's work Lettre sur le pretendu Solon, published in 1717 . Here he proved that the inscription Solon on the Solon gem owned by Fulvio Orsini does not designate the person depicted, but is to be understood as the artist's signature. As early as 1710 he had translated Orsini's Imagines virorum illustrium into French. His work on the gem was an outstanding scientific work and consolidated Baudelot de Dairval's reputation as an outstanding antiquarian of his time. It is still considered to be methodologically impeccable today. The work also inspired Philipp von Stosch's work Gemmae antiquae celatae, scalptorum nominibus insignitae on gem signatures, in which the latter often followed Baudelot de Dairval's judgment. Only the great gem researchers of the middle of the 18th century, Pierre-Jean Mariette and Lorenz Natter, were sure of his evaluations .

Publications

• De l'utilité des voyages et de l'avantage que la recherche des antiquités procure aux sçavans. 2 volumes. Auboüin et al., Paris 1686, ( digitized volumes I and II ).
• Histoire de Ptolémée Aulètes. Dissertation on une pierre gravée antique du cabinet de Madame. Auboüin et al., Paris 1698, ( digitized ).
• Voyage du sieur Paul Lucas au Levant. 2 volumes. Vandive, Paris 1704, ( digitized volumes I and II ).
• as translator: Portraits d'hommes et de femmes illustres, du recüeil de Fulvius Ursinus. Cot, Paris 1720, ( digitized ).

literature

• Jörn Lang: Baudelot de Dairvals, Charles César. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 49-51.