Isaac Casaubon
Isaac Casaubon | |
---|---|
philologist | |
Alma mater | University of Geneva |
Isaac Casaubon (
His son Méric Casaubon was also a classical scholar.
Life
Early life
He was born in
At the age of nineteen Isaac was sent to the
Casaubon sought help by cultivating the acquaintance of foreign scholars, as Geneva, the metropolis of
In 1596, they succeeded, and Casaubon accepted a post at the
Travels and tribulations
In 1598 Casaubon was at
"Non debebat Casaubon interesse colloquio Plessiaeano; erat asinus inter simias, doctus inter imperitos."[5]
"Casaubon ought not to have been involved in the conference about Du Plessis; he was a donkey among monkeys, a learned man among the ignorant."
The issue was contrived that the Protestant party (Du Plessis Mornay) could not fail to lose. By concurring with this decision, Casaubon confirmed the Protestants' suspicions that, like his friend and patron, Philippe Canaye, he was contemplating
Meanwhile, the king repeated his invitation to Casaubon to settle in Paris, and gave him a pension. No more was said about the university. The recent reform of the University of Paris closed its doors to all but Catholics; and though the chairs of the Collège de France were not governed by the statutes of the university, public opinion ran so violently against Protestants, that Henry IV dared not appoint a Calvinist to that position. When the king's sub-librarian Jean Gosselin died of extreme old age in 1604, Casaubon succeeded him, with a salary of 400 livres in addition to his pension.[4]
Paris
Casaubon remained in Paris until the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. These ten years were the brightest period of his life. He had attained the reputation of being a learned man, in an age in which learning formed the sole standard of literary merit. He had money, the ability to worship as a Huguenot (though he had to travel to Hablon, ten miles from the center of Paris, or Charenton to worship), and the society of men of letters, both domestic and foreign. Above all, he had ample facilities for using Greek books, both printed and in manuscript, the want of which he had felt painfully at Geneva and Montpellier, and which only Paris could supply at that time.[4]
Despite all these advantages, Casaubon considered many schemes for leaving Paris and settling elsewhere. Offers came to him from various quarters, including
England
When the assassination of Henry IV gave full rein to the
Casaubon found great success in England. English Bishop John Overall received him and his whole family into the deanery of St Paul's, and entertained him there for a year. Lancelot Andrewes, then Bishop of Ely, also became Casaubon's friend, taking him to Cambridge, where he met with a most gratifying reception from the notabilities of the university. They went on together to the Bishop's Palace at Little Downham near Ely,[9] where Casaubon spent six weeks of the summer of 1611, in which year he became naturalized.[8] He accompanied the bishop on visits to nearby towns including Doddington and Wisbech.[10] In 1613 he was taken to
Still, Casaubon gradually discovered the serious inconveniences of his position. Having been taken up by the king and the bishops, he had to share in their rising unpopularity. The courtiers were jealous of a foreign pensioner who was so close to the king. Casaubon was especially mortified by Sir Henry Wotton's behaviour towards him, so inconsistent with their former intimacy. His windows were broken by vandals, and his children were pelted in the streets. On one occasion he appeared at
Although Sir Henry Savile ostensibly patronized him, Casaubon could not help suspecting that it was Savile who had persuaded
The most serious cause of discomfort in England was that his time was no longer his own. He was continually being summoned to one or other of James's hunting residences in order to converse. The king and the bishops compelled him to write pamphlets on the subject of the day, the royal supremacy. At last, ashamed of misappropriating Casaubon's stores of learning, they asked him to refute the popular Annals of Baronius.[8]
In 1614 he published De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI which consisted of a philological analysis of the Corpus Hermeticum, a series of neo-platonic texts. He placed their origin in the third or fourth century AD, rather than in a much earlier "hermetic" period to which they had generally been ascribed.[11]
He died in London of a congenital malformation of the bladder; but his end was hastened by an unhealthy life of over-study, and by his anxiety to acquit himself creditably in his criticism on Baronius. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The monument by which his name is there commemorated was erected in 1632 by his friend Thomas Morton when Bishop of Durham.[8]
Scholarship and correspondence
Besides the editions already mentioned, Casaubon published and commented upon
His correspondence (in
Casaubon corresponded with scholars all over Europe, including Johannes van den Driesche and, more surprisingly, one of the doctors of the Ambrosiana Library and eminent historian of Milan, Giuseppe Ripamonti.[13]
He also corresponded with the translators of the King James Version of the Bible and helped resolve issues in the translation.[14]
Literary appearances
The scholars in
In their book Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship, Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg show that Casaubon was a Hebrew scholar too, taking serious interest in Jewish studies.
The Jewish bibliographer Isaac ben Jacob, in his Bibliography Otsar Hasefarim (1880), mentions notations on Michlol, the Hebrew book by David Kimhi on Hebrew grammar, which he attributes to one "Rabbi Isaac Casaubon".
Works
- Casaubon, Isaac, De Satyrica Graecorum & Romanorum Satira, Paris, 1605. Facsimile ed., ed. Peter E. Medine, 1973, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 978-0-8201-1115-5.
See also
Notes
- ^ "Casaubon, Isaac". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ^ a b Pattison 1911, p. 441.
- ^ Pattison 1911, pp. 441–442.
- ^ a b c d e Pattison 1911, p. 442.
- ^ Scaligerana 2
- ^ Pattison 1911, pp. 442–443.
- ^ Fœdera, conventiones, literæ, et cujuscunque generis acta publica... A. & J. Churchill. 1615. p. 710.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pattison 1911, p. 443.
- ^ Pattison, Mark. "Isaac Casaubon, 1559-1614", p. 349.
- ^ anonymous (1953). Wisbech Coronation Year Celebrations. Wisbech Borough.
- ^ Parry, G. J. R. (2002). A Protestant Vision: William Harrison and the Reformation of Elizabethan England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 303.
- ^ "The Correspondence of Isaac Casaubon, 1610-1614". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved Feb 10, 2023.
- ^ Grafton&Weinberg, p. 233.
- ^ Rudgard, Olivia (29 April 2018). "Frenchman helped English write King James Bible". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
References
- Caterina Marrone, I geroglifici fantastici di Athanasius Kircher, Nuovi Equilibri, Viterbo, 2002, pag. 166, ISBN 88-7226-653-X.
- public domain: Pattison, Mark (1911). "Casaubon, Isaac". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 441–444. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- A. Grafton and J. Weinberg, "I have always loved the Holy Tongue": Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
- Paul Botley and Máté Vince (eds), The Correspondence of Isaac Casaubon in England, 1610-14. 4 volumes, Geneva, Droz, 2018.
External links
- Media related to Isaac Casaubon at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Isaac Casaubon at Post-Reformation Digital Library