Erycius Puteanus (4 November 1574 – 17 September 1646) was a humanist and philologist from the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

Name

Erycius Puteanus is a latinization of his name, which was rendered in various ways, including Hendrick van den Putte (Put, Putten), Errijck (Eryck, Eerryck) de Put or Eric van der Putte. This was also Latinized as Ericus Puteanus. He was also known as Henry du Puy.

Life

He was born in

Venlo Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherland ...

and studied at the schools of

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

and

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

( College of the Three Crowns), where he took the degree of

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

, 28 February 1595. He then followed, at Leuven, the lectures on ancient history given by

Justus Lipsius Justus Lipsius (Joest Lips or Joost Lips; 18 October 1547 – 23 March 1606) was a Flemish Catholic philologist, philosopher, and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible w ...

. In 1597 he travelled to Italy and met scholars, especially Cardinal

Federigo Borromeo Federico Borromeo (18 August 1564 – 21 September 1631) was an Italian cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, a prominent figure of Counter-Reformation Italy. Early life Federico Borromeo was born in Milan as the second son of Giulio Cesare Borro ...

, through whom he was appointed professor of Latin at the Palatine School of Milan from 1600 to 1606. Then the

States of Brabant The States of Brabant were the representation of the three estates (nobility, clergy and commons) to the court of the Duke of Brabant. The three estates were also called the States. Supported by the economic strength of the cities Antwerp, Bruss ...

offered him the chair left vacant by Lipsius at Leuven. He taught at the Collegium Trilingue at the University of Leuven for forty years. He was loaded with favours by reigning princes: the Archduke Albert appointed him his honorary counsellor (1612), and increased his annual pension by 200

ducat The ducat () coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages from the 13th to 19th centuries. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wi ...

s (1614), adding the reversion of Château-César. At the same time he filled, after 1603, the post of historiographer to

Philip III of Spain Philip III ( es, Felipe III; 14 April 1578 – 31 March 1621) was King of Spain. As Philip II, he was also King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621. A member of the House of Habsburg, Phi ...

, on behalf of the Milanese, with other appointments. His outspoken language provoked political animosities, and he was almost driven into exile by request of King

James I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the Union of the Crowns, union of the Scottish and Eng ...

, who wrongly believed him to be the author of ''

Corona Regia ''Corona Regia'' (Latin for "Royal Crown") was a scandalous satire of King James I of England. It was written from the fictional perspective of an unfinished panegyric of the king found among the papers of Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) and publishe ...

'' (1615), a scandalous satire about James's parentage and behaviour. He fathered 17 children, and died in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

Work

Puteanus was an encyclopedist; in one period of his literary activity (1603–19), he detached himself from Lipsius by aiming at personal leadership of a school. He then went back to

chronological Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , ''-logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It ...

works. As a philologist some of his dissertations were reproduced in the ''Thesauri'' of

Grævius Johann Georg Graevius (originally Grava or Greffe; 29 January 1632 – 11 January 1703) was a German classical scholar and critic. He was born in Naumburg, in the Electorate of Saxony. Life Graevius was originally intended for the law, but made ...

and Gronovius. Among his more than 90 works is a treatise on music, ''Modulata Pallas'', which also appeared in four later substantially altered adaptations. One of these is ''Iter Nonianum'', which was a comprehensive scholarly study of music theory. One distinctive feature is his extension of the Guidonian

hexachord In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six-note series, as exhibited in a scale (hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial theor ...

(''ut'', ''re'', ''mi'', ''fa'', ''sol'', ''la'') with a seventh note ''bi'', accompanied by a justifying cosmological and numerological emphasis on the number seven. Puteanus provided advice about naming features on the first telescopic lunar map produced by his friend Michael van Langren (1598-1675). Peter van der Krogt & Ferjan Ormelin
"Michiel Florent van Langren and Lunar Naming."
Actes del XXIV Congrés Internacional d'ICOS. Annex. Pp. 1851-1868. 2014. Van Langren named two features after him, the ''Aestuaria Bamelrodia'' and the crater ''Puteani''.

Editions

For the history of the numerous writings and editions of Erycius Puteanus see *Roersch and Vanderhaegen in Bibliotheca Belgica (1904-5), nos. 166, 167, 168, 171 *

Alphonse Roersch Alphonse Roersch (1870–1951) was a Belgian philologist, professor at the University of Ghent.Louis BakelantsNécrologie: Alphonse Roersch (1870-1951) '' Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire'', 29 (1951), pp. 999-1001. Life Roersch was born in ...

in ''

Biographie Nationale de Belgique The ''Biographie nationale de Belgique'' ( French; "National Biography of Belgium") is a biographical dictionary of Belgium. It was published by the Royal Academy of Belgium in 44 volumes between 1866 and 1986. A continuation series, entitled the ' ...

''
vol. 18
(1904), coll. 329–344. *Simar, Etude sur Erycius Puteanus (Louvain, 1909) *Saverio Campanini, ''Die Diatriba de anagrammatismo des Erycius Puteanus. Schöpfung und Erschöpfung einer barocken Leidenschaft'', in A. Eusterschulte – W.-M. Stock (Hrsg.), ''Zur Erscheinung kommen. Bildlichkeit als theoretischer Prozess'', Sonderheft der "Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft" 14, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 2016, pp. 65–79

References

Sources

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puteanus, Erycius 1574 births 1646 deaths 17th-century Latin-language writers Linguists from the Netherlands Dutch Renaissance humanists Encyclopedists People from Venlo Old University of Leuven faculty