Jean Lévesque de Burigny, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJean Lévesque de Burigny
French historian
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Reims, Grand Est, France
About Jean Lévesque de Burigny
- Jean Lévesque de Burigny (1692 in Reims, France – 1785 in Paris) was a historian, who in 1713, with his brothers, Champeaux and Lévesque de Pouilly, he began to compile a dictionary of universal knowledge, similar to an encyclopedia, which comprised twelve large manuscript folios, and afforded Burigny ample material for his subsequent works.
- In 1718, at The Hague, he worked with Saint-Hyacinthe on L'Europe savante, in twelve volumes, of which he contributed at least one-half.
- On his return to Paris, he devoted his time to historical research and published several works which stamped him as a conscientious scholar.
- Burigny, although sharing the ideas of the philosophers of his time, was by no means an extremist.
- He was a modest, peace-loving man, whose only ambition was to be a scholar, and his works show a great amount of learning; some, for instance his lives of Grotius and Erasmus, give very interesting data not elsewhere found.
- Among his works are: Traité de l'autorité du pape (Paris, 1782) which reduces papal authority to a primacy of honour, Théologie païenne (Paris, 1754); Histoire générale de Sicile (The Hague, 1745); Histoire des révolutions de l'empire de Constantinople (The Hague, 1750); Traité de Porphyre touchant l'abstinence de la chair, avec la vie de Plotin (tr.
- from Greek; Paris, 1740); Vie de Bossuet (Paris, 1761); Vie du cardinal Duperron (Paris, 1768).
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