Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison (19 July 1759 (Paris) – 14 August 1818 Paris) was an

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifacts, archaeological and historic si ...

and naturalist erudite in various domains, who followed

Jean-Jacques Barthélemy Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (20 January 1716 – 30 April 1795) was a French scholar who became the first person to decipher an extinct language. He deciphered the Palmyrene alphabet in 1754 and the Phoenician alphabet in 1758. Early years Barth� ...

as curator of the Cabinet des médailles et antiques of the former French royal library and took an interest in

medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, ge ...

, which was just beginning to attract serious attention, as well as classical culture.

Biography

During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

he was imprisoned in 1793 as a result of his campaigns against

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in the ''Chronique de Paris'', which he edited. At the end of a year's term, he was freed following the

Thermidorian Reaction The Thermidorian Reaction (french: Réaction thermidorienne or ''Convention thermidorienne'', "Thermidorian Convention") is the common term, in the historiography of the French Revolution, for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespie ...

, to teach archeology at the nationalised royal library, reestablished as the

Bibliothèque nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

; there he also served as ''conservateur-professeur'' in the department of antiquities and in 1799-1800 as president of the Conservatoire de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. As a naturalist he joined

Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet (28 February 1761 – 17 January 1807) was a French naturalist who contributed primarily to botany. He was born in Montpellier, where he was educated, and travelled to Morocco, Spain, the Canary Islands, and Southe ...

(1761–1807) and Louis-Augustin Bosc d'Antic (1759–1828) to form the first Linnean society in the world, the ''Société linnéenne de Paris''. His ''Éléments d'Histoire naturelle'' (1797) formed part of the curriculum of the

École centrale Paris École Centrale Paris (ECP; also known as École Centrale or Centrale) was a French grande école in engineering and science. It was also known by its official name ''École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures''. In 2015, École Centrale Paris mer ...

. At the same time he was known for the many articles he published on

Greek vase Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

s. In 1806, appeared his ''Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts''. From 1807 to 1811, appeared the four volumes of his ''Voyage dans les départemens du Midi de la France'', accompanied by an atlas. In 1811 he travelled in Italy and Sicily, and afterwards published designs of the mosaic paving in the cathedrals of

Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...

. Millin de Grandmaison was the director of the ''Magasin encyclopédique'' and participated in other scientific reviews and belonged to numerous scientific societies. He translated numerous accounts of voyages, edited two dissertations of

Carl von Linné Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

for the Société philomathique de Paris and one by

Johan Christian Fabricius Johan Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, and is co ...

(1745–1808). He carried on an important correspondence with the German archaeologist Karl August Böttiger.Geneviève Espagne, Bénédicte Savoy (eds.) ''Aubin-Louis Millin et l'Allemagne. Le Magasin encyclopédique - Les lettres à Karl August Böttiger.'' (Series Europaea Memoria: Studien und Texte zur Geschichte der europäischen Ideen 41) Hildesheim, 2005. In 1817, he was a founder of the ''Annales encyclopédiques''. Millin de Grandmaison was born and died in Paris.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Millin De Grandmaison, Aubin Louis 1759 births 1818 deaths French naturalists French editors French male non-fiction writers