Xenotheka
Xenotheka
  • Home
  • Collaboration
  • On Xenotheka
  • Folders
  • Categories
    • _English Language
    • _French Language
    • _German Language
    • _Italian Language
    • Architectural Theory
    • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism
    • Architecture + Philosophy
    • Artists in Rome
    • Art Theory
    • Bernini
    • Christian Iconography
    • France
    • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism
    • Italy
    • Literary Theory
    • Historiography
    • Low Countries (Benelux)
    • Modern
    • Monuments + Conservation
    • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality
    • Popes, Vatican, Rome
    • Post-Modern
    • Renaissance
    • Rome
    • Sources
    • 17th Century
    • 1750-1850
    • 20th Century
    • 21th Century
  • ask.alice-ch3n81
  • _French Language
  • 17th Century

Spon, Recherches curieuses d’antiquité

  • By: Xenotheka
  • April 23, 2019
  • 0
  • 11
  • 75

 
 

Jacob Spon (or Jacques; in English dictionaries given as James) (Lyon 1647, Lyon – 25 December 1685 Vevey, Switzerland) was a French doctor and archaeologist, was a pioneer in the exploration of the monuments of Greece and a scholar of international reputation in the developing “Republic of Letters”.

His father was Charles Spon, a doctor and Hellenist, of a wealthy and cultured Calvinist banking family from Ulm that had been established since 1551 at Lyon, where they were members of the bourgeois élite. Following medical studies at Strasbourg, the younger Spon first met the son of a friend of his father, Charles Patin, who introduced him to antiquarian interests and the study of numismatics, then as now a window into the world of Classical Antiquity. In Paris, Jacob Spon lodged with Patin’s father, Guy Patin. At Montpellier he received his doctorate in medicine (1668) and subsequently practiced in Lyon to a wealthy clientele. There his first publication appeared, a Recherche des antiquités et curiosités de la ville de Lyon and he entered into correspondence with a wider circle of savants: the abbé Claude Nicaise at Dijon, du Cange at Paris, the erudite circles that gravitated to le Grand Dauphin and the duc d’Aumont. Among his correspondents were the courtier-theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the philosopher Pierre Bayle, Pierre Carcavy, the Jesuit scholar François d’Aix de la Chaise, confessor to the King, and François Charpentier. He met Jean Mabillon when Mabillon passed through Lyon in 1682.

Spon travelled to Italy, and then to Greece, to Constantinople and the Levant in 1675–1676 in the company of the English connoisseur and botanist Sir George Wheler (1650–1723), whose collection of antiquities was afterwards bequeathed to Oxford University. They were among the first knowledgeable Western European antiquaries to see the antiquities of Greece at first hand. Spon’s Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant (1678) remained a useful reference work even in the time of Chateaubriand, who employed it in his trip to the East.

Spon brought back many valuable treasures, coins, inscriptions and manuscripts. In January 1680, he quarreled with Père de La Chaise, who pressed him to convert to Catholicism. That year Spon published his Histoire de la république de Genève, followed by his Récherches curieuses d’antiquité (Lyon 1683) and in 1685 a collection of transcriptions of Roman inscriptions gleaned over the years, Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis, in the preface to which he offered one of the earliest definitions of “archaeologia” to describe the study of antiquities in which he was engaged.

In 1681 Spon published a brief (95pp.) treatise on fevers, which, being well-received, he expanded to 264 pp. to include the latest remedies, including “Quinquina” from “Perou,” which he considers especially effective, but which, he says, the “Ameriquains” did not recognize: “le quinquina n’etoit pas connu pour la guerison des fievres par les Ameriquains meme…”. “Observations sur les Fievres et les Febrifuges” was published by Thomas Amaulry at Lyon in 1684 and posthumously in 1687. Spon points out that he is an expert on fevers because Lyon includes a swampy area (the Dombes) that produces “mauvais air” responsible for fevers—probably actually malaria. As Spon’s book illustrates, in the 17th century a whole range of diseases were classified as different “fevers.” In its time, “Observations sur les Fievres” was a learned, technical manual for a physician who wanted to be current.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October 1685, was indirectly the cause of Spon’s death. Rather than abjure his Calvinist faith he preferred to leave for Zurich, an illegal move. His money and baggage stolen from him, and in fragile health, he died of tuberculosis in the canton hospital at Vevey, Christmas Day 1685, at the age of 38.

 
 

Download

Spon_Recherches curieuses d’antiquité.pdf

 
 

← Previous Article
Audran, Les Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures de l’antiquité
→ Next Article
Agostini, Gemmae et sculpturae antiquae depictae ab Leonardo Augustino Senensi

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recently added books

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

January 11, 2021
An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

January 11, 2021
Mack, The Sea: A Cultural History

Mack, The Sea: A Cultural History

January 6, 2021
Mirrlees, Collected Poems

Mirrlees, Collected Poems

January 6, 2021
Mitchell, Daoist Nei Gong: The Philosophical Art of Change

Mitchell, Daoist Nei Gong: The Philosophical Art of Change

January 6, 2021

Categories

  • _English Language 961
  • _French Language 53
  • _German Language 65
  • _Italian Language 53
  • _Latin Language 42
  • 1750-1850 64
  • 17th Century 76
  • 17th culture and other cities in Italy 5
  • 19th century 45
  • 20th Century 150
  • 21th Century 75
  • Ancient Literature 36
  • Architectural Theory 216
  • Architecture + Philosophy 28
  • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism 29
  • Art 6
  • Art Theory 96
  • Artificial Intelligence 1
  • Artists in Rome 20
  • Autobiography 1
  • Bernini 19
  • Catalogue 1
  • Christian Iconography 18
  • Christianity 7
  • Cinema 1
  • City 44
  • Design 29
  • Digital Architectonics 13
  • Drawings 39
  • Economy 13
  • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism 13
  • England & British Isles 23
  • Evolution 2
  • Fashion 5
  • Feminism 11
  • Film Festival 1
  • France 43
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies 4
  • Gothic 13
  • Greek, Roman Library 62
  • Historiography 31
  • Humanism 10
  • India 5
  • Italy 76
  • Landscape Architecture 8
  • LGBT 1
  • Libraries 0
  • Linguistics 1
  • Literary Criticism 2
  • Literary Theory 62
  • Literature 53
  • Low Countries (Benelux) 14
  • Mathematics 32
  • Medicine 1
  • medieval library 32
  • medieval literature 7
  • Modern 48
  • Monuments + Conservation 27
  • Mythology 13
  • Philosophy 210
  • Physics 11
  • Politics 46
  • Popes, Vatican, Rome 27
  • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality 56
  • Post-Modern 21
  • Programming 1
  • Psychology 14
  • Religion 2
  • Renaissance 77
  • Roman Architecture 19
  • Rome 118
  • Schinkel 8
  • Science 35
  • Sociology 12
  • Sources 56
  • Spain 10
  • Switzerland 47
  • Uncategorized 67
  • Urbanism 52

Follow Us

Most liked books

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

January 11, 2021
An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

January 11, 2021

Recent Comments

     

    Categories

    • _English Language 961
    • _French Language 53
    • _German Language 65
    • _Italian Language 53
    • _Latin Language 42
    • 1750-1850 64
    • 17th Century 76
    • 17th culture and other cities in Italy 5
    • 19th century 45
    • 20th Century 150
    • 21th Century 75
    • Ancient Literature 36
    • Architectural Theory 216
    • Architecture + Philosophy 28
    • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism 29
    • Art 6
    • Art Theory 96
    • Artificial Intelligence 1
    • Artists in Rome 20
    • Autobiography 1
    • Bernini 19
    • Catalogue 1
    • Christian Iconography 18
    • Christianity 7
    • Cinema 1
    • City 44
    • Design 29
    • Digital Architectonics 13
    • Drawings 39
    • Economy 13
    • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism 13
    • England & British Isles 23
    • Evolution 2
    • Fashion 5
    • Feminism 11
    • Film Festival 1
    • France 43
    • Gender and Sexuality Studies 4
    • Gothic 13
    • Greek, Roman Library 62
    • Historiography 31
    • Humanism 10
    • India 5
    • Italy 76
    • Landscape Architecture 8
    • LGBT 1
    • Libraries 0
    • Linguistics 1
    • Literary Criticism 2
    • Literary Theory 62
    • Literature 53
    • Low Countries (Benelux) 14
    • Mathematics 32
    • Medicine 1
    • medieval library 32
    • medieval literature 7
    • Modern 48
    • Monuments + Conservation 27
    • Mythology 13
    • Philosophy 210
    • Physics 11
    • Politics 46
    • Popes, Vatican, Rome 27
    • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality 56
    • Post-Modern 21
    • Programming 1
    • Psychology 14
    • Religion 2
    • Renaissance 77
    • Roman Architecture 19
    • Rome 118
    • Schinkel 8
    • Science 35
    • Sociology 12
    • Sources 56
    • Spain 10
    • Switzerland 47
    • Uncategorized 67
    • Urbanism 52
    • Home
    • Collaboration
    • On Xenotheka
    • Folders
    • Categories
    • ask.alice-ch3n81

    Copyright © Xenotheka