Jean-Baptiste Godart
Jean-Baptiste Godart , also Jean-Baptiste Godard , (born November 25, 1775 in Origny-Sainte-Benoite , Picardy , † July 27, 1825 ) was a French entomologist specializing in butterflies.
Life
Godart was Deputy Director (Sous-Directeur) of the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he had also studied, and came after the occupation of the Rhineland by the French as a provisional (proviseur) at the Lyceum in Bonn . After the end of the French occupation, he set out with 300 French students on the orders of General Sebastian through the enemy lines on secret routes to France and arrived with them in Douai after 25 days . As a reward he became censor and provisional at the Lyceum in Nancy . During the 100 days he sided with Napoleon and was therefore forced to retire after the Bourbons returned. He had to give his butterfly collection, which he had built up over 20 years, to a naturalist in Bonn at a low price, but he took his notes with him, which were the basis of his later works.
Godart wrote the article Butterflies in the Encyclopedie Méthodique by Pierre André Latreille (Paris, 1819), and otherwise assisted Latreille with the part on the natural history of the encyclopedia, and published a work on French butterflies, of which he edited five volumes (Tagfalter, Abendmalter and a small part of the moths) and which was continued after his death by his friend Philogène Auguste Joseph Duponchel (1774–1846). It was illustrated in color on 547 plates by Antoine Charles Vauthier, Paul Duménil and Delarue. A total of over 4000 species are described. The first volume (up to the 15th delivery) was started by ER Genouville (died 1820) and still had the title Natural History of the Butterflies of the Paris Area. Godart extended this to all of France, but came into conflict with the original plan of the work.
Godart endeavored to study living specimens for the natural history of the French butterflies and died after he got pneumonia on one of his group excursions in the scorching heat.
He also described exotic butterflies, albeit from foreign collections (especially that of the Natural History Museum in Paris). Part of his collection came to Marchand in Chartres, some types were in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh.
He was a member of the Paris Linnaeus Society.
Fonts
- with duponchel: Histoire naturelle des lépidoptères ou papillons de France, Paris: Crevot and then Méquignon-Marvis, 11 volumes in 13 individual volumes and 4 volumes of supplement, 1821 to 1842
literature
- Article Jean Baptiste Godart in Ed. Gruber, General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts , Brockhaus 1860, digitized, SUB Göttingen
Web links
References and comments
- ↑ Life data according to Hagen, Bibliotheca Entomologica 1862
- ↑ Walther Horn, Ilse Kahle, Entomological Collections
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Godart, Jean-Baptiste |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Godard, Jean-Baptiste |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French entomologist specializing in butterflies |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 25, 1775 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Origny-Sainte-Benoite , Picardy |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 27, 1825 |