Kaspar von Barth
Caspar von Barth ( born June 21, 1587 Kuestrin; † September 17, 1658 in Leipzig ) was a German philologist and private scholar of the Baroque period.
Life
Barth came from an old noble family. His father Carl von Barth was Brandenburg Privy Council and Chancellor of the Neumark with the official residence in Kuestrin. The gifted boy visited the schools in Eisenach and Gotha and had to enroll in 1607 in Wittenberg, where he heard Latin poetry under Frederick deaf man. Deaf man it was he who sparked his interest in the classical literatures. After a brief stopover in Jena, he went on a ten-year educational journey, the personal contact with the great scholars enabled him throughout Europe. His wealth allowed him the luxury of undisturbed to pursue his humanistic and philological tendencies.
After his return he lived for many years in Halle ( Saale ), where he belonged to the patrician class of Hallorenring or salt men thanks to its possessions in the salt industry. He later moved to his estate Sellerhausen in Leipzig, at the fire his valuable library with precious manuscripts were destroyed in the fire. The rest of his life he spent in the Pauline Leipzig, where he could pursue his studies undisturbed in the immediate vicinity of the University Library.
His work includes philological editions and commentary on classical texts of a high scientific level. Therefore, it is undoubtedly unfair to underestimate him as a scholarly dilettante. Its still unpublished manuscript estate is preserved in Zwickau.
Works (selection)
- Iuvenilia, Wittenberg 1607 ( digitized )
- Amabilium Libri IV, Hannover 1612 ( digitized )
- Adversariorum commentariorum ( in 60 books ), Frankfurt 1624, 2nd Edition 1658 - a large collection ( approximately 3000 pages ) varied learning material, which is concerned not only with classical, but also with the medieval and contemporary authors
- Comments on Claudian, 1650
- Comments on Statius, 1664