Jakob Gronovius

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Jakob Gronovius

Jakob Gronovius (born October 20, 1645 in Deventer , † October 15, 1716 in Leiden ) was a classical philologist , archaeologist , historian and geographer .

Life

Jacob Gronovius (also Gronow / Gronov) studied from 1658 with his father Johann Friedrich Gronovius in Leiden philology ( literae humaniores ) and law. In 1668 he traveled to England to study further at Oxford and Cambridge . There he met his father's friends, the orientalist and theologian Edward Pococke (1604–1691), the theologian John Pearson (1613–1686) and the philologist Méric Casaubon (1599–1661). In 1670 Gronovius turned down a call to Deventer, because he preferred to travel. A trip to Paris followed in 1671. There he met the two orientalists Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville (1625–1695) and Melchisédech Thévenot (c. 1620–1692), the philologist Henri Valois (1603–1676) and the writer Jean Chapelain .

In 1672 he visited Spain together with the envoy of the States General Adriaan Paets, then he traveled to Tuscany. There, at the instigation of Grand Duke Cosimo von Medici , Gronovius received a professorship for Greek at the University of Pisa . After two years he went to Venice and Padua and returned to Leiden via Germany in 1675. From there Gronovius went to Deventer to take up his maternal inheritance. In 1679 he took over his father's professorship for Greek language and history at the University of Leiden, which he would hold until his death. In 1702 he became a geographer at the academy in Leiden, but refused appointments to Kiel and Padua. In addition, he participated in the organizational tasks of the Leiden University and was rector of the Alma Mater in 1703/1704 and 1711/1712 . Gronovius died in Leiden in 1716 from grief over the death of his youngest daughter.

family

His father Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1611–1671) came from Hamburg and had studied in Leipzig, Jena, Altdorf, Leiden and Groningen, his mother Adelheid Tennuyl (Germanized for Alida ten Nuyl) came from Deventer. There the father received a professorship for eloquence and history in 1643, in 1658 he followed a call to the University of Leiden for a professorship in Greek language and history.

On May 5, 1680, Gronovius married Anna van Vredenburch (1652–1732) from Rotterdam. He had four children with her: Alida (1683–1729), Jan Frederik (1686–1762), Abraham (1695–1775) and Clara Wilhelmina (1697–1716).

His eldest son, Jan Frederik Gronovius , a doctor of medicine, became a law scholar and a well-known botanist; the second oldest, Abraham, was a philologist and librarian at Leiden University.

Act

Jakob Gronovius was considered choleric and contentious, as did his violent arguments with the antiquarian Rafaello Fabretti (1618–1700), the philologist Jacob Perizonius (1651–1715), the theologian Johannes Clericus (1657–1736), the lawyer and antiquarian Lorenz Beger ( 1653–1705) among others. It is to his merit that with the publication of the Thesaurus Graecarum Antiquitatum in twelve volumes that are about as strong as the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, he has emphasized the equilibrium of Greek antiquities, although the actual rediscovery of Greece had not yet begun. Although his compilation was thematically arranged according to Flavio Biondo's concept, it was based on the idea that religion, mythology, art, philosophy, poetry, science and customs of antiquity were ultimately largely influenced by Greek. By reprinting them in his thesaurus, Gronovius made these early archaeological writings more easily accessible to an interested specialist community and thus usable for antiquarian research. The aim of the thesauri was to represent the exemplary nature of antiquity through the collections of the best treatises. Therefore, for a long time, they were considered an indispensable tool for the study of antiquity.

Works

  • Gemmae et sculpturae antiquae depictae from Leonardo Augustino Senensi addita earum enarratione . Amsterdam 1685.
  • Abrahami Gorlaei Antverpiani Dactyliothecae, seu annulorum sigillarium ... pars prima, cum explicationibus Jacobi Gronovii . Suffering 1695.
  • Abrahami Gorlaei Antverpiani Dactyliothecae. Pars Secunda, seu variarum gemmarum ... cum succincta singularum explicatione Jacobi Gronovii . Suffering 1695.
  • Thesaurus Graecarum antiquitatum, in quo continentur effigies virorum ac foeminarum illustrium ..., adjecta brevi descriptione singulorum ... , Vols. 1–3, Leiden 1697–1698.
  • Thesaurus Graecarum Antiquitatum, continens libros erudite & operose per varias aetates scriptos ... . Vol. 4–12 / 2, Leiden 1699–1702.

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Gronovius, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Havercampius, Gerhardus (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION classical philologist, archaeologist, historian and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1645
PLACE OF BIRTH Deventer
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1716
Place of death Suffer