Encyclopaedist (encyclopédie)

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The encyclopedists are the 144 contributors to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers , who are known by name.

The Encyclopédie is probably the most famous early encyclopedia as we understand it today. It appeared in Paris between June 1751 and December 1765 in seventeen text volumes.

The 17 text volumes of the Encyclopédie contain 71,818 articles on around 18,000 pages. The text contains 20,736,912 words, of which 391,893 are different. The eleven additional picture board -Bände contain about 7,000 pages 2,885  engravings and 2,575 notes.

Personal background of the encyclopedists

origin

The family background of 114 of the total of 140 named contributors to the Encyclopédie is known - at least in outline.

At least ten encyclopedists came from the nobility. The Polish Count Ogiński belonged to one of the leading noble families in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The families of the Neckers , Tronchins , Charles-Benjamin de Langes de Montmirail de Lubières , Bertrands and Antoine-Noé de Polier de Bottens belong to the Swiss patriciate . Among the French, Stanislas-Catherine Boufflers , Jaucourt , Tressan and Turgot came from noble families.

At least 36 other encyclopedists came from the lower nobility, such as Bordeu , whose father had married into a noble family as a doctor in Izeste ( Canton Arudy ), or Bourgelat , whose father, a wealthy Lyonnais cloth merchant, was échevin échevin for his services as councilor .

At least 31 encyclopedists come from families of the upper middle class; their fathers were doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, judges, wholesalers and engineers.

Four belonged to the lower bourgeoisie; their fathers were elementary school teachers or shopkeepers.

At least 16 encyclopedists came from families of craftsmen, such as the watchmaker Berthoud or the goldsmith Magimel. One of them is Denis Diderot , whose father was a successful cutler master was.

Level of education

Most of the 140 encyclopedists known by name have had very good training. A total of 87 of them are attending a collège .

At least 25 of the encyclopedists from France attended collèges led by Jesuits , including 18 those close to Jansenism . Another nine attended Protestant schools outside France, such as Jaucourt , whose father sent him to the Académie de Genève , which also accepted other encyclopedists.

After finishing school, the majority of encyclopedists attended university, with most enrolled in medicine, law, or theology. Twenty-four graduated with a doctorate in medicine, and another 25 graduated as lawyers.

In summary, Kafker describes the encyclopedists as an extraordinarily well-educated group for their time, whose level of education had greatly promoted their social advancement.

There were exceptions to this, such as Jean Romillys , who had to work in his father's watchmaking business at an early age and whose manuscripts had an above-average number of spelling and punctuation errors.

jobs

Three larger groups can be identified among the professions of encyclopedists: 23 of them practiced as doctors, 24 taught in schools or universities, and a further 24 served as royal officials. The next largest group was that of the clergy (six Catholic pastors and four Protestant pastors). Nine other encyclopedists worked as lawyers or judges.

Four of the encyclopedists were entrepreneurs. Antoine Allut (1743–1794) took over his father's glass manufacture, Étienne Jean Bouchu (1714–1773) worked in iron processing and the two publishers of the Encyclopédie Michel-Antoine David (1707–1769) and André-François Le Breton belonged to the Parisians Booksellers and printers guild, the Communauté des libraires et imprimeurs . In addition, two were architects ( Jacques-François Blondel and Jacques-Raymond Lucotte ), one as a diplomat ( Friedrich Melchior Grimm ), one as a pharmacist ( Jacques Montet , 1722–1782), two as geographers ( Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville and Didier Robert de Vaugondy ) and one as a sculptor ( Etienne-Maurice Falconet ).

Some encyclopedists have embarked on military careers; among these Ogiński took the highest rank as general of the Lithuanian army.

History of the collaboration of the encyclopedists

recruitment

initial situation

In the autumn of 1745, the first attempt to translate the Cyclopaedia , a work by the Englishman Chambers that was highly praised by contemporaries , into French failed. However, the announcement of an encyclopédie based on the Cyclopedia , ou Dictionnaire universel des arts & des sciences , published in spring 1745, was received with such great interest by the public that the Parisian publisher André-François Le Breton ventured a new beginning in October and for this purpose looked for suitable authors. In addition, were still as another publisher Gottfried Sellius and John Mills involved.

Diderot and d'Alembert recruited

Title page of the Encyclopédie by d'Alembert and Diderot

When exactly Le Breton was able to win the later editor of the Encyclopédie Diderot for the project cannot be determined with absolute certainty. The Diderot's biographer Arthur M. Wilson points to the possibility that Antoine-Claude Briasson , one of three relied upon in October 1745 by Le Breton as a partner publisher may have, contact was made because Briasson already as a publisher of Diderot's translation of the history Grecian with this was in contact. According to another variant - based mainly on a tradition by Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet - it was the mathematician Abbé Jean Paul de Gua de Malves , who was now editor of the project , who established the contact with Jean Baptiste le Rond the Elder 'Alembert and the mediated to Diderot. This variant is supported by the fact that Gua de Malves' name appears simultaneously with that of d'Alembert in Le Breton's account books in December 1745 - a few weeks before Diderot was first mentioned. However, this is contradicted by the fact that Concorcet, in his review of the beginnings of the project undertaken in 1786 on the occasion of the death of Gua de Malves, also mentions other authors allegedly recruited by him, but who never wrote for the Encyclopédie . The fact that both Gua de Malves and d'Alembert were mathematicians suggests at least that Gua de Malves recruited d'Alembert, as did the contact with Pierre Tarin , another contributor who was already involved in this phase and later lead author the article on anatomy and physiology came about through his acquaintance with Gua de Malves. Marc-Antoine Eidous and François-Vincent Toussaint - both in turn later main authors - were friends of Diderot and had assisted him with the translation of the Medicinal Dictionary by Robert James (1703–1776).

Expansion of the circle of authors

After Gua de Malves had already left the project on August 3, 1747, Diderot and d'Alembert took over responsibility for the Encyclopédie . It is unclear to what extent the decision to expand the lexicon project from a pure translation and revision of the Cyclopédia to the later scope came from Diderot and d'Alembert or from Gua de Malves. For the first variant, however, the fact that the group of employees was still relatively small before Gua de Malves' resignation and the recruitment of suitable authors entered a new phase with the takeover of the editorship by Diderot and d'Alembert.

D'Alembert, whose scientific reputation was greater than that of Diderot at the time, played a central role in this. In 1753 he recruited Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu for the project and it was probably he who was able to get Voltaire to work a year later . Via already existing contacts, d'Alembert also established a connection to Georges-Louis Le Sage , who later wrote the article on mathematical logic, and to his colleague Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle , who later became the main author in the field of mathematics.

Diderot also used his existing contacts when recruiting. Étienne Jean Bouchu (1714–1773), the later author of the long article “Forges (Grosses-)”, came from Diderot's hometown Langres ; with Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who later became the main contributor in the field of music, Diderot had been on friendly terms since he moved to Paris at the beginning of the 1740s. Many other encyclopedists such as Jean-Baptiste Le Roy , Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton , Jean-François Marmontel or Jean-François de Saint-Lambert knew both Diderot and d'Alembert.

Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach , editor-in-chief with 427 articles and maître d'hôtel de la philosophie

Important authors left after 1757

After the scandal surrounding d'Alembert's article "Genève" in 1757 - he had asserted that Geneva had no theater and thus provoked protests from Rousseau and others - a number of the established authors stopped working.

The encyclopedia was banned after Diderot was briefly imprisoned in the Bastille and could not be printed or published in France for eight years. D'Alembert withdrew completely in 1759.

Co-editor Louis de Jaucourt, from 1760

His successor as editor from 1760 was Louis de Jaucourt who, with the help of secretaries, prepared many thousands of short articles for possible later publication, so that the last 10 of the 17 text volumes up to the letter Z were all published in 1765.

The publishers and patrons of the Encyclopédie

The Parisian publisher and court printer André François Le Breton , imprimeur ordinaire du Roy , after initial failures in 1745, did the French translation and publication of the Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences by Ephraim Chambers with three other publishers and donors Antoine- Claude Briasson , Michel-Antoine David (1707–1769), Laurent Durand (1712–1763) worked together to design the Encyclopédie .

In addition to the financial planning and the staff of the writers around Denis Diderot, the supportive attitude of the senior censor, Censure royale Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, was an important prerequisite for the growth of the Encyclopédie . The benevolent intercession of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, dame Le Normant d'Étiolles, marquise de Pompadour also played a role.

The opponents of the Encyclopédie

Of the multitude of opponents of the Encyclopédie who are known by name and the probably even greater number of unknown opponents, the writers Élie Catherine Fréron and Charles Palissot de Montenoy should be mentioned in particular .

Activities in the follow-up publication Encyclopédie méthodique

In the Encyclopédie méthodique , a 166-volume revision, expansion and reorganization of the Encyclopédie into various specialist encyclopedias published between 1782 and 1832 by the publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke and after his death by Madame Thérèse-Charlotte Agasse (1775–1838) , some new encyclopedists have been involved.

List of encyclopedists known by name

author Main
contributor
(H) 		Subject area Author sigle Remarks Number of
articles


d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond H Natural sciences, religion, philosophy, etc. a. O 1309
d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph Dezallier H horticulture K 541
d'Aumont, Arnulphe H medicine d 192
A (others): Guillaume d'Abbes , Allard , Allut , Anville , Arnauld , Authville
Barbeu-Dubourg, Jacques
Barthez, Paul-Joseph G
Beauzée, Nicolas H grammar BERM see also "ERM" 91
Beauzée and Douchet ERM see also "BERM" 18th
Bellin, Jacques-Nicolas H Maritime Z 994
Blondel, Jacques-François H architecture P 482
Boucher d'Argis, Antoine-Gaspard H jurisprudence A. 4268
Bourgelat, Claude H Horses e 227
B (others): Barthez de Marmorières , Bergier , Berthoud , Bertrand , Bordeu , Bouchaud , Bouchu , Boufflers , Bouillet, J. , Bouillet, J.-H.-N. , Boulanger , Brisson , Brosses , Brullé
de Cahusac, Louis H Dance, music and festivals B. sometimes mistakenly marked with "b" 119
C (others): Collot , de Compt , Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet-Laumont physics Émilie du Châtelet copied their texts from Institutions de Physique , Paris (1740), but without citing the source
Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie H biology I. 693
Daubenton, Pierre c
Diderot, Denis H Religion, philosophy, politics, economics, etc. v. a. * 5394
You Fresnoy, Lenglet a 45
Du Marsais, César Chesneau H grammar F. 129
D (others): Damilaville , David , Deleyre , Desmahis , Desmarest , Douchet , Duclos , Dufour , Durival, JL , Durival, NL
Eidous, Marc-Antoine H Heraldry, blacksmithing, horsemanship V 428
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel H Religion, philosophy, science, etc. a. 20th
de Fortbonnais, François Veron VDF
F (more): Faiguet , Falconet , Fenouillot , Fouquet
Goussier, Louis-Jacques D. 61
G (others): Genson , Grimm , Grosley , Gueneau , Guillotte
d 'Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry H Science, religion, politics, etc. a. - 414
de Jaucourt, Louis , Jodin H Religion, politics, economics, medicine, literature etc. a. DJ 17,288
Kurdwanowski, Jean-Étienne Ligenza
de La Chapelle, Jean-Baptiste H mathematics E. 214
Landois, Paul H art R. 107
Le Blond, Guillaume H Military affairs Q sometimes also mistakenly marked with “q” 720
Le Roy, Jean-Baptiste H technology T 108
Louis, Antoine H surgery Y 449
L (more): La Bassée , La Condamine , La Motte-Conflans , Lavirotte , Le Breton , André Lefèvre , Le Monier , Lenglet , Le Romain , Le Roy , CG., Le Roy , Le Sage , Lezay-Marnésia , Liebault , Lubières , Lucotte H architecture
Mallet, Edme François H Trade, history, literature, religion, etc. a. G 1925
Malouin, Paul-Jacques M. see also "m" 78
Menuret, Jean-Joseph m in volumes 9 and 10 sometimes mistakenly marked with "M"
Morellet, André H in volumes 8, 11 and 14 possibly erroneously marked with an "H"
M (others): Magimel , Margency , Marmontel , Millot , Monnoye, Montamy , Montdorge , Montesquieu , Montet , Montlovier , Morand
N (others): Naigeon , Necker
Ogiński, Michał Kazimierz
Pestré, Jean C. 7th
P (others): Paillasson , Papillon , Pâris de Meyzieu , Penchenier , Perrinet d'Orval , Perronet , Pesselier , Petit , Pezay , Polier , Prades
Quesnay, François
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques H Music and political theory S. sometimes also mistakenly marked with "s" 344
R (others): Rallier , Ratte , Robert , Romilly, J. , Romilly, J.-E. , Roux
S (others): Saint-Lambert , Sanches , Sauvages , Seguiran , Soubeyran
Tarin, Pierre H Anatomy and physiology L. 337
Toussaint, François-Vincent H jurisprudence H see also "h" 388
T (others): Thomas, Tressan , Tronchin , Turgot
de Vandenesse, Urbain H Medicine and pharmacy N 199
Venel, Gabriel-François H Chemistry, medicine, etc. a. b see also "B" 707
Villiers, Jacques-François f 10
Voltaire 26th
V (more): Vinfrais , Voglie
W (more): Watelet , Willermoz
Yvon, Claude X 39

Number of contributions written

37870 - unsigned or indeterminable article
17288 - Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt
5394 - Denis Diderot
4268 - Boucher d'Argis
1925 - Edme-François Mallet
1309 - Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
994 - Jacques-Nicolas Bellin
720 - Guillaume Le Blond
707 - Gabriel-François Venel
693 - Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton
541 - Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville
482 - Jacques-François Blondel
449 - Antoine Louis
428 - Marc-Antoine Eidous
414 - Baron d'Holbach
388 - François-Vincent Toussaint
344 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
337 - Pierre Tarin
227 - Claude Bourgelat
214 - Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle
199 - Urbain de Vandenesse
192 - Arnulphe d'Aumont
129 - César Chesneau Du Marsais
119 - Cahusac
108 - Le Roy
107 - Landois
91 - Beauzée
78 - Malouin
61 - Louis-Jacques Goussier (also more than 900 engravings)
56 - Malouin
45 - Lenglet Du Fresnoy
41 - Daubenton / Diderot
39 - Claude Yvon
39 - Daubenton / Vandenesse
32 - Boucher d'Argis
26 - de La Chapelle / d'Alembert
26 - Voltaire
25 - Diderot / Mallet
23 - Daub enton / Jaucourt
22 - Daubenton, le Subdelegue
21 - Barthez
20 - Mallet / Diderot
20 - Formey
20 - Daubenton / Jaucourt
14 - Rousseau / d'Alembert
14 - Beauzee
13 - Watelet
13 - Boucher d'Argis
12 - Romain
12 - Douchet et Beauzee
12 - Daubenton / d'Argenville
11 - Diderot / Vandenesse
10 - Villiers
10 - Marmontel
10 - Forbonnais
9 - Papillon
9 - Mallet / d'Alembert
9 - Daubenton / Daubenton, le Subdelegue
8 - Faiguet
7 - d'Argenville / Diderot
7 - Tarin
7 - Pestré
7 - Jaucourt
7 - Bellin / Bellin
6 - Vandenesse / Diderot
6 - Toussaint / Mallet
6 - Durival
6 - Beauzee et Duchet
5 - d'Aubenton
5 - d'Alembert / Diderot
5 - Yvon / Diderot
5 - Venel / Venel
5 - Menuret
5 - Mallet / Mallet
5 - Diderot / Daubenton
5 - Daubenton / d'Argenville / Vandenesse
5 - Daubenton / Vandenesse / Diderot
5 - CDJ / Jaucourt
4 - d'Alembert / Mallet
4 - Romilly
4 - Rallier
4 - Louis / Diderot
4 - Blondel / Diderot

literature

Tools

  • Frank Arthur Kafker: The encyclopedists as individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the Encyclopédie , Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-7294-0368-8 .
  • Richard N. Schwab / Walter E. Rex (eds.): Inventory of Diderot's Encyclopédie , 7 volumes, Oxford 1971–1984.

Representations

  • Frank Arthur Kafker: The encyclopedists as a group: a collective biography of the authors of the Encyclopaedia , Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-7294-0521-4 .
  • John Lough: The contributors of the Encyclopédie. In: Richard N. Schwab / Walter E. Rex (eds.): Inventory of Diderot's Encyclopédie , Volume 7: Inventory of the plates, with a study of the contributors to the Encyclopédie, Oxford 1984, ISBN 0-7294-0310-6 , Pp. 484-517.
  • Frank Arthur Kafker: A List of Contributors to Diderot's Encyclopedia. In: French Historical Studies 3, 1 (1963), pp. 106-122.
  • Jacques Proust: Diderot et l'Encyclopédie , Paris 1962.
  • Klaus Semsch: Distance from rhetoric. Structures and functions of aesthetic distancing from the 'ars rhetorica' in the French encyclopedia , Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1999 (Studies on the 18th Century, 25), ISBN 3-7873-1396-6 .
  • Jaussaud, Philippe: La pharmacie dans l'Encyclopédie. Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie, Année (2004) Volume 92 Numéro 343 pp. 419-426
  • Volker Mueller: "Denis Diderot's idea of ​​the whole and the 'Encyclopédie'", Neu-Isenburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-943624-03-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert - Collaborative Translation Project . University of Michigan Library online
  2. ↑ haraldfischerverlag.de: About the Encyclopédie ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 25, 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.haraldfischerverlag.de
  3. ↑ On this and the following cf. Kafker: The Encylopedists as a group , chapter "The Encyclopedists before the publication of the Encyclopédie", pp. 3-16.
  4. ^ "For their time, the Encyclopedists were an exceptionally well-educated group, and their education facilitated their social ascent", Kafker: The Encylopedists as a group , p. 9.
  5. ^ A b Arthur M. Wilson: Diderot , New York 1972, p. 78f.
  6. ↑ Frank Arthur Kafker: The Encylopedists as a group , S. 36 f.
  7. ↑ Frank Arthur Kafker: The encyclopedists as worth individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the Encyclopaedia , Oxford, 1988, ISBN 0-7294-0368-8 .
  8. ↑ 37,870 articles are not marked or cannot be assigned to an author.

Representations of the encyclopedists (selection)

Representations of the publishers and sponsors of the Encyclopédie (selection)

Representations of the opponents of the Encyclopédie (selection)