Árni Magnússon

Árni Magnússon (* 1663, † January 7, 1730 ) was an Icelandic scholar.

He is also known by its Danish name Arne Magnussen. As a professor of the University of Copenhagen, he spent many years trying to collect medieval Icelandic manuscripts and archive. He was the collector of Icelandic manuscripts. His thereby resulting collection is known under the name Arnamagnäanische collection. Two research centers in the capitals Copenhagen and Reykjavik are named after him. His picture can also be found on the Icelandic 100 -krone banknote, which hardly is now still in circulation. He also served as the model for the figure of Arnas Arnaeus in the novel The Bell of Iceland Halldór Laxness.

Curriculum vitae

Árni Magnússon was born in 1663 on Kvennabrekka in Dalir. His father, his two grandfathers and two of his brothers were pastors. At 19 he went to study in Copenhagen and became assistant to the royal antiquary Thomas Bartholin. He worked for six years for him, then spent two years in Germany. Four years after his return to Copenhagen, where he worked as Head of the Royal Danish archives, he received at the age of 38 years in 1701 a professor of philosophy and Danish history at the University of Copenhagen.

From 1702 he spent ten years in Iceland to apply as a member of a Royal Commission, with instructions to keep a register of all farms in the country, conduct a census and to make sure that law and order was assured by the officials, merchants and other powerful. This was an overall review of the conditions in Iceland, the ( 50,000 inhabitants ) aimed at restoring the economy and policy in this extremely poor country. In his work, which led him throughout all the land inevitably, collected or he copied old manuscripts and manuscript fragments, which he took back with me to Copenhagen 1713. During an interrupt his stay in Iceland, he married 1708/1709 in Copenhagen, the Danish rich widow Mette Fischer.

Tragically, a large part of the manuscripts, transcripts and records Arnis the most important manuscripts were destroyed in a major fire in Copenhagen in 1728, but fortunately rescued. Part of the writings, he was able to bring up to his death in early 1730 still from memory again on paper.