Pieter Burman the Younger

Pieter Burman (also Pieter Burmann and Petrus Burmannus ; * October 23, 1713 in Amsterdam ; † June 24, 1778 in Santhorst near Wassenaar ), who called himself the Younger ( Secundus ), in order to hear from his uncle, Pieter Burman the Elder , to distinguish was a Dutch philologist .

Pieter Burman the Younger

He was tutored by his uncle at the University of Leiden and then studied law with Carl Andreas Duker and Arnold Drakenborch at the University of Utrecht . In 1735 he received the chair for rhetoric and history at the University of Franeker , which was expanded to include poetry in 1741. The following year he left Franeker to become Professor of History and Philology at the Athenaeum Illustre Amsterdam in Amsterdam . There he gradually became professor of poetry (1744), chief librarian (1752) and inspector of the grammar school (1753). In 1771 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1777 he went into retirement.

In the nature and direction of his studies, he is reminiscent of his more famous uncle, but also in his contentious disposition, which involved him in disputes with his contemporaries, especially the Utrecht historian Christoph Saxe and the Göttingen philologist Christian Adolph Klotz . He had extensive knowledge and a great talent for Latin poetry. His most valuable works are:

• the Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum (1759–1763),
• Aristophanis comoediae Novem (1760) and
• the rhetorica .

He completed the editions of the works of Virgil (1767) and Claudian (1760), which his uncle had left unfinished, and began a Properz edition, one of his best works, but only half of which was printed when he died. L. van Santen completed and published it in 1780.

Web links

• Literature by and about Pieter Burman the Younger in the catalog of the German National Library