Jean-Baptiste Le Chevalier

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean-Baptiste Le Chevalier , also Lechevalier (born July 1, 1752 in Trelly , Department Manche ; † July 2, 1836 in Paris , Saint-Étienne-du-Mont ), was a French astronomer , traveler and archaeologist .

Life

Originally, Jean-Baptiste Le Chevalier was destined for the clergy and studied at the Saint-Louis seminary in Paris, but did not become a priest. He taught from 1772 to 1778 at the Collèges du Plessis , d'Harcourt and de Navarre . His scientific endeavors brought him into contact with the French diplomat Marie Gabriel Choiseul-Gouffier, also known as an archaeologist . When he was appointed French ambassador to Constantinople in 1784 , Le Chevalier allegedly joined as his secretary while giving up his teaching post, but mainly in order to be able to carry out geographic and archaeological research. He then toured Italy and the northwest coast of Asia Minor , where he devoted his research particularly to the Troy Plain, where he claimed to have found the tombs of Ajax , Achilles and Protesilaus . In the following years he carried out research on the coast of the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea .

After the outbreak of the French Revolution to France returned, Le Chevalier was very put off the local stay. He went to England in 1790, toured Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Russia in the following years, from where he returned to England in 1795 and was hospitably received in the house of Sir Francis Burdett . In 1797 he came back to France for a short time, but then visited Spain and Portugal and returned to France via Sicily in 1805. He brought back many literary treasures that he had found on his travels. From 1806 he was employed by the Sainte-Geneviève library in Paris, where he became the first curator. In his work Ulysse-Homer, or a discovery of the true author of the Iliad and Odyssea (London 1829; French Ulysse-Homère, ou du véritable auteur de L'Iliade et L'Odyssée , Paris 1829), published under the pseudonym Konstantin Koliades he claimed that it was not Homer but Odysseus who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey . He died in Paris on July 2, 1836 at the age of 84.

In 1791 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

More fonts

  • Voyage de la Troade, ou table de la plaine de Troie dans son état actuel , London 1794; 3rd edition, 3 vol., Paris 1802, with atlas.
    • German translation by Karl Gotthold Lenz, Reise nach Troas or Painting of the Plain of Troy in its current state , Altenburg, 1800.
  • Voyage de la Propontide et du Pont-Euxin , 2 vols., London 1800.
    • Journey through the Propontis and Pontus-Euxinus . Liegnitz and Leipzig: Siegert, 1801.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class . Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class . Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 147.
personal data
SURNAME Le Chevalier, Jean-Baptiste
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lechevalier, Jean-Baptiste
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French archaeologist and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1752
PLACE OF BIRTH Trelly
DATE OF DEATH July 2, 1836
Place of death Paris