Isaac Vossius

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Isaac Vossius (* 1618 in Leiden ; † February 21, 1689 in Windsor ) was a Dutch classical philologist .

Live and act

Isaac Vossius was the fifth of six sons of the Dutch humanist Gerhard Johannes Vossius . His upbringing and training was carried out by private tutors, his older brother Dionysius and his father, first in Leiden and later in Amsterdam . He learned not only Latin , but also Greek and Arabic , and was trained in ancient geography. Coenraad van Beuningen was one of his childhood friends . In 1643 Claudius Salmasius became his teacher, whom he actively supported through his research in writing his book De Hellenistica commentarius . Salmasius was of great importance for Vossius' early work, his first edition of the geographer Skylax , published in 1639, as well as the Trogus published in 1640 - epitomes of Justinus are in his tradition. From 1641 to 1644 he went on an extensive study trip to England, France and Italy ( Florence , Rome , Naples , Venice , Milan ). Vossius proved to be a first-class copyist and expert collector of manuscripts. He spent a longer stay in Paris with his father's friend, Hugo Grotius , and in England he met James Ussher . In 1644 he became the city librarian of Amsterdam, and in 1646, succeeding his late brother Matthäus Vossius († 1646), he became the official historiographer of Holland and Zeeland . However, Vossius did not associate more than the title with the position, he was never able to produce the expected historical work. So he lost this position again in 1671.

Leaf from the Leiden Aratea .

In 1648 Vossius joined the Swedish Queen Christina as court librarian , whom he gave lessons in Greek. He was accompanied by his father's former pupil, Cornelius Tollius , whom Vossius accused a little later of stealing books from him. At Christina's court he met scholars such as René Descartes , Johannes Freinsheim , Johannes Scheffer and Johann Heinrich Boeckler ; with Marcus Meibom he got into a dispute over his attempts to perform ancient music at the Swedish court. He also came into conflict with his former teacher Claudius Salmasius. He also suffered from the whims of the queen, when he alternated between high favor and disfavor. In 1650 he also instructed his old friend Coenraad van Beuningen in Greek when he was on a diplomatic mission at the Swedish court, in 1651 he again traveled to Italy and France with Nikolaes Heinsius the Elder . His commitment to his friend Menasse ben Israel , who applied to be a court bookseller, was in vain. In 1655 he left Sweden after Christina's abdication and first went briefly with her to Brussels , then back to Amsterdam and a little later moved with his mother to The Hague .

In the Netherlands, Vossius devoted himself increasingly to theological, mathematical and scientific topics. In the following years he traveled further and devoted himself to his own studies as well as to the publication of the writings of his father, who died in 1649. At that time he was financially supported by Louis XIV on the recommendation of Jean-Baptiste Colbert . On one of his trips in Paris in 1664 he met Paul Colomiès (1638–1692), whom he sent to the Netherlands. In the meantime, Vossius was so well known that he himself became a destination for international visitors. Paolo Falconieri (1638–1704) and Lorenzo Magalotti visited him around 1667 . 1670 he moved to England, where Charles II. Him in 1673 for a canon at the St George's Chapel of Windsor Castle made. An inheritance also made him financially independent. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in common law in 1670 . In 1673 he published his most important work, De poematum cantu et viribus rhythmi , which dealt with basic questions of ancient rhythms and the setting of metrical poems. In 1679 Adrian Beverland (1650-1716) became his secretary. Shortly before his death in 1688, he gave up his position as Canon of Windsor.

Leaf from the Codex Argenteus .

Vossius, despite his own importance, was always overshadowed by his more important father. With his editions of ancient works - in addition to Skylax and Justinus, for example, the letters of the martyr Ignatius or the poems of Catullus - he made his rich collection of manuscripts available to other researchers. It was only with the help of Vossius that it was possible for Thomas Gale to publish his editio princeps of De mysteriis by Iamblichos in 1678. His theories on metrics probably influenced Gottfried Hermann's work on this. Karl Friedrich Ernst Koldewey paints a negative picture of Vossius' character for the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie in his biography . His collaboration and help for other researchers is said to have been generous only when he himself was not interested in this area. In addition, he should not have adhered to the moral values ​​of the time. The scientist, who was unmarried throughout his life, apparently had frequent affairs with women and even as a canon in Windsor he is said to have been a frequent visitor to the brothels. This relaxed way of life was evidently often a cause for complaint by those around him. The reproach that he rejected the sacraments on his deathbed must be referred to the realm of fable. Even more serious, however, is the accusation that Vossius not only served Christina of Sweden badly because he followed his own interests when buying books and manuscripts in the Netherlands and France, but also stole valuable books from her library. He later owned books and manuscripts - including the Codex Argenteus - from the holdings of Christina's library, which settled outstanding salary payments when Vossius left her service in the form of books and manuscripts. His library - it was considered one of the best, if not the best private library of its time - and the manuscripts were sold by his heirs after his death for a large sum to the University of Leiden , where the manuscripts (including the Leiden Aratea ) the codices Form Vossiani . His manuscripts acquired for the Swedish court are now part of the Bibliotheca Vaticana as Codices Reginenses . His botanical collection from Leonhard Rauwolf , which he acquired in Sweden, also went to the University of Leiden after his death. From 1664 Vossius was a member of the Royal Society .

Fonts

Variarum observationum liber , 1685
  • De poematum cantu et viribus rhythmi. Oxford 1673.
  • De Nili et aliorum fluminum origine. The Hague 1666.
  • De septuaginta interpretibus. 1661.
  • De Sibyllinis oraculis. 1679.
  • Variarum observationum liber. 1685.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Vossius, Isaacus (1618 - 1689) in the archive of the Royal Society , London

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