Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier

Choiseul-Gouffier

Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier (born September 27, 1752 in Paris , † June 20, 1817 in Aachen ) was a French diplomat and ancient historian .

biography

During his studies at the Collège d'Harcourt , Choiseul-Gouffier was particularly enthusiastic about antiquity and there met Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1834), whose close friend he remained throughout his life. At his uncle, the former Minister of War, the Navy and Foreign Affairs, Étienne-François de Choiseul (1719–1785), he also met Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (1716–1795), the author of the famous book Voyage d'Anarcharsis, at an early age .

In 1776 Choiseul-Gouffier took part with some painters and architects on an expedition of the astronomer Joseph Bernard de Chabert (1724-1805) to Greece . On board the Atalante , the group toured the Peloponnese , the Cyclades and some islands in the Aegean and Asia Minor . On his return he published a travelogue under the title Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce , which became a great commercial success.

This publication fueled his intellectual and political career. He was accepted into the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (German Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Arts ) in 1782 and the Académie française the following year . Between 1784 and 1791 Choiseul-Gouffier was France's ambassador to the Sublime Porte in the Ottoman Empire , which gave him the opportunity to pursue his discoveries in Greece. During this time, he had a team of scholars, surveyors and draftsmen carefully measured maps of the Troas created for the first time , with the express aim of supporting the reader's idea of Homer's Iliad and enabling him to visualize the events of the Trojan War in the real landscape enable.

The French Revolution changed these circumstances. He resisted the convention and also refused to return to France for fear of being executed. As a result, his property in France was confiscated and a second ambassador was sent to replace Choiseul-Gouffier. He therefore emigrated to Russia in 1792 , where he was made director of the Academy of Arts and the imperial library . He soon became friends with Tsarina Catherine II (1729–1796), who gave him lands in what is now Lithuania .

Only after Napoleon had declared amnesty for the emigrated French nobility, Choiseul-Gouffier returned to France in 1802. Although Talleyrand contacted him again and offered him a job in the government, Choiseul-Gouffier refused. At the same time he maintained good contacts with King Louis XVIII. (1755-1824) in his English exile. He devoted himself to his scientific work and in 1809 published the second volume on his Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce . He also built a property that imitated the Erechtheion . In 1810 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

After the return of King Louis XVIII. Choiseul-Gouffier was appointed Pair of France and Minister of the Interior. Since he had been excluded from the Académie française when he emigrated , he was re-accepted into it in 1816. But he died the following year. It was not until 1822 that the third volume of Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce appeared .

Choiseul-Gouffier's descendants lived in Lithuania until 1945. However, they were then persecuted by the communist regime and were forced to emigrate to Switzerland . The last offspring died there in 1949.

Works

In Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce ( 1806 ) Choiseul-Gouffier described not only the well-known buildings and monuments. He also drew a picture of modern Greece, which was shattered by Ottoman rule and is now about to be resurrected. This romantic vision was widespread among authors in the early 19th century and later prompted many intellectuals to take part in the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). Through the work of Choiseul-Gouffier, however, regions of Greece that were previously rather unknown, such as the Cyclades, were examined for the first time. A painter he patronized, Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé (1782–1859), illustrated the second volume of the work for him with numerous engravings.

In Choiseul-Gouffier's memoirs, there were also some smaller works, such as a dissertation on Homère , a Mémoire sur l'hippodrome d'Olympie and the essay Recherches sur l'origine du Bosphore de Thrace . He also left an extensive collection of antiques to the Musée du Louvre when he died .

• Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier: Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce . tape 1 . Paris 1782 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier: Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce . tape 2 . Paris 1809 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier: Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce . tape 2.2 . Paris 1822 ( digitized on Gallica ).

literature

• Elisabeth A. Fraser: Books, Prints, and Travel: Reading in the Gaps of the Orientalist Archive . In: Art History , Volume 31, Issue 3 (June 2008), pp. 342–367 ( online ).
• Elisabeth A. Fraser: Mediterranean Encounters. Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839 . University Park, Pennsylvania 2017, ISBN 978-0-271-07320-0 ( table of contents and introductory chapter online ).
• Léonce Pingaud: Choiseul-Gouffier - La France en Orient sous Louis XVI . Paris 1887 ( full text online ).

Web links

• Works by and about Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier  in the German Digital Library
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Justus Cobet: From text to ruin. In: Christoph Ulf (ed.): The new dispute over Troy. A balance sheet. Beck, Munich 2003, p. 23ff
2. ↑ 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. 58.