VILLOISON, JEAN BAPTISTE GASPARD

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 87 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: VAN-VIR

VILLOISON, JEAN BAPTISTE GASPARD D'ANSSE (or DANNSE) DE (1750-1805), French classical scholar, was born at

Corbeil

CORBEIL
CORBEIL, WILLIAM OF (d. 1136)

-sur-Seine on the 5th of March 1750 (or 1753; authorities differ). He belonged to a noble family (De Ansso) of Spanish origin, and took his surname from a

village

VILLAGE

in the neighbour-hood. In 1773 he published the Homeric Lexicon of Apollonius from a MS. in the abbey of Saint Germain des Pres. In 1778 appeared his edition of Longus's

Daphnis

DAPHNIS

and Chloe. In 1781 he went to Venice, where he spent three years in examining the library, his expenses being paid by the French government. His

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

discovery was a loth-century MS. of the Iliad, with ancient scholia and marginal notes, indicating supposititious, corrupt or transposed verses. After leaving Venice, he accepted the invitation of the duke of Saxe-

Weimar

WEIMAR

to his court. Some of the fruits of his researches in the library of the palace were collected into a volume (Epistolae Vinarienses, 1783), dedicated to his royal hosts. Hoping to find a treasure similar to the Venetian Homer in Greece, he returned to Paris to prepare for a journey to the East. He visited Constantinople, Smyrna, the Greek islands, and

Mount

MOUNT, WILLIAM SIDNEY (1807-1868)

Athos, but the results did not come up to his expectation. In 1786 he returned, and in 1788 brought out the Codex Venetus of Homer, which created a sensation in the learned, world. When the revolution broke out, being banished from Paris, he lived in retirement at Orleans, occupying himself chiefly with the transcription of the notes
in the library of the brothers Valois'(Valesius). On the restoration of order, having returned to Paris, he accepted the professorship of modern Greek established by the government, and held it until it was transferred to the College de France as the professorship of the ancient and modern Greek languages. He died soon after his appointment, on the 25th of April 18o5. Another

work

WORK

of some importance, Anecdota Graeca (1781), from the Paris and Venice libraries, contains the

Ionia

IONIA

(violet garden) of the empress Eudocia, and several fragments of Iamblichus,

Porphyry

PORPHYRY (IlopcPisptos) (A.D. 233-c. 304)

, Procopius of Gaza, Choricius and the Greek grammarians. Materials for an exhaustive

work

WORK

contemplated by him on ancient and modern Greece are preserved in the royal library of Paris.
See J. Dacier, Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Villoison (1806); Chardon de la Rochette, Melanges de critique et de philologie, iii. (1812) ; and especially the article by his friend and pupil E, Quatremere in Nouvelle biographie generale, xiii., based upon private information.

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