Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie

Jean -François de Boissonade Fontarabie ( born August 12, 1774 Paris, † September 8, 1857 in Passy ) was a French classical philologist.

Life and work

Jean -François Boissonade family came from Gascony. After studying at the Collège d' Harcourt in Paris in 1792, he joined the civil service in. After his release in 1795 he was hired by Lucien Bonaparte in 1799 and again appointed Secretary of the Prefecture of Haute- Marne.

In addition to the profession itself Boissonade dealt with Greek literature. To be able to fully concentrate on his studies, he finally resigned from the government service. In addition to his research, he took in 1809 to the academic administration at the University of Paris, where he was in 1813 appointed professor of Greek language and literature. In 1828 he moved to the chair of Greek language at the Collège de France. In addition, he was head of the Bibliothèque du Roi and permanent secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions.

Boissonade was one of the most prolific publishers of Greek literature. His text editions made ​​many remote authors of the research available, but did not satisfy the requirements of the permanent scientific textual criticism. Nevertheless, his life's work a significant achievement of the French philology of the 19th century dar. Many texts he published for the first time.