Denis Lambin (Latinized as Dionysius Lambinus; 1520 – September 1572) was a French

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Life

Lambin was born at

Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais Montreuil (; also nl, Monsterole), also known as Montreuil-sur-Mer (; pcd, Montreu-su-Mér or , literally ''Montreuil on Sea''), is a sub-prefecture in the Pas-de-Calais department, northern France. It is located on the Canche river, not far fro ...

. Having devoted several years to classical studies during a residence in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, he was invited to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

in 1550 to fill the professorship of Latin in the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ...

, which he soon afterwards exchanged for that of Greek. His lectures were frequently interrupted by his ill-health and the religious disturbances of the time. His death is said to have been caused by his apprehension that he might share the fate of his friend Pierre de la Ramée, who had been killed in the massacre of St Bartholomew.

Works

Lambin was one of the greatest scholars of his age, and his editions of classical authors are still useful. In

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...

he was a conservative, but by no means a slavish one; indeed, his opponents accused him of rashness in emendation. His chief defect is that he refers vaguely to his manuscripts without specifying the source of his readings, so that their relative importance cannot be estimated. But his commentaries, with their wealth of illustration and parallel passages, are a mine of information. In the opinion of the best scholars, he preserved the happy mean in his annotations, although his own countrymen have coined the word ''lambiner'' to express trifling and diffuseness. His chief editions are:

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ...

(1561);

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated in ...

(1563), on which see

H. A. J. Munro Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro (29 October 1819 – 30 March 1885) was a British classical scholar. Biography Munro was born at Elgin, Moray, Scotland, the illegitimate son of Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar by Penelope Forbes, and educated a ...

's preface to his edition;

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the est ...

(1566);

Cornelius Nepos Cornelius Nepos (; c. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman Empire, Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona. Biography Nepos's Cisalpine birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls ...

(1569);

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual pro ...

(1570), completing the unfinished work of

Guillaume Morel Guillaume Morel (1505 – 19 February 1564), French classical scholar, was born at Le Teilleul in Normandy. After acting as proof-reader in a Paris firm, he set up for himself, and subsequently succeeded Turnebus as king's printer P ...

; and

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the ...

(1576).

References

External links

Titi Lucretii Cari ''De rerum natura libri sex''
published in Paris 1563, later owned and annotated by

Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a lite ...

, fully digitised in

Cambridge Digital Library The Cambridge Digital Library is a project operated by the Cambridge University Library designed to make items from the unique and distinctive collections of Cambridge University Library available online. The project was initially funded by a donat ...

Lambin's posthumously published Plautus edition at Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambin, Denis 1520 births 1572 deaths People from Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais French classical scholars

Life

Works

References

Further reading

External links