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Johann Matthias Gesner




Johann Matthias Gesner ( 9 April 1691 - 3 August 1761 ), was a German Classical Scholar and Schoolmaster .

He was born at Roth An Der Rednitz near Ansbach . He studied at the University Of Jena , and in 1714 published a work on the ''Philopatiis'' ascribed to Lucian . In 1715 he became Librarian and vice-principal at Weimar, Germany , where he became good friends with Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach later dedicated his ''Canon a 2 perpetuus'' BWV 1075 to Gesner), in 1729 rector of the gymnasium at Ansbach, and in 1730 rector of the Thomas School at Leipzig . On the foundation of the University Of Göttingen he became professor of Rhetoric ( 1734 ) and subsequently librarian. He died at Göttingen .

His special merit lies in the attention he devoted to the explanation and illustration of the subject matter of the classical authors.


WORKS


  • editions of the ''Scriptores rei rusticae'', of Quintilian , Claudian , Pliny The Younger , Horace and the Orphic poems (published after his death)

  • ''Primæ lineæ isagoges in eruditionem universalem'' (1756)

  • an edition of Basilius Faber 's ''Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae'' (1726), afterwards continued under the title ''Novus linguae et eruditionis Romanae thesaurus'' (1749)

  • ''Opuscula minora varii argumenti'' (1743—1745)

  • ''Thesaurus epistolicus Gesnerianus'' (ed. Klotz, 1768—1770)

  • ''Index etymologicus latinitatis'' (1749)



REFERENCES


  • JA Ernesti , ''Opuscula oratoria'' (1762), p. 305

  • H Sauppe, ''Göttinger Professoren'' (1872)

  • CH Pöhnert , ''J.M. Gesner und sein Verhaltnis zum Philanthropinismus und Neuhumanismus'' (1898), a contribution to the history of Pedagogy in the 18th Century

  • articles by FA Eckstein in ''Allgemeine deutsche Biographie ix''



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