Gilles Ménage (; 15 August 1613 – 23 July 1692) was a French scholar.

Biography

He was born at

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers. A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his literary and professional studies, and he practised at the bar at Angers before he was twenty. In 1632, he pleaded several causes before the ''

parlement Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...

'' of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Illness caused him to abandon the legal profession for the church. He became

prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...

of Montdidier without taking

holy orders In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordination, ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders inclu ...

, and lived for some years in the household of

Cardinal de Retz Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

(then coadjutor to the

Archbishop of Paris The Archdiocese of Paris (; ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is one of twenty-three archdioceses in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created i ...

), where he had leisure for literary pursuits. Some time after 1648, he quarrelled with his patron and withdrew to a house in the cloister of

Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris ( ; meaning "Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris"), often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a Medieval architecture, medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the River Seine), in the 4th arrondissemen ...

, where he gathered round him on Wednesday evenings those literary assemblies which he called "Mercuriales."

Jean Chapelain Jean Chapelain (4 December 1595 – 22 February 1674) was a French poet and critic during the '' Grand Siècle'', best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the . Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a literary critic, ...

Paul Pellisson Paul Pellisson (30 October 1624 – 7 February 1693) was a French author, associated with the Baroque '' Précieuses'' movement. Pellisson was born in Béziers, of a distinguished Calvinist family. He studied law at Toulouse, and practised at ...

Valentin Conrart Valentin Conrart (; 1603 – 23 September 1675) was a French author, and as a founder of the Académie française, the first occupant of seat 2. Biography He was born in Paris of Calvinist parents, and was educated for business. However, aft ...

, Jean François Sarrazin and Du Bos were among the ''habitués''. He was tutor to Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette, later the great writer, to whom he was very attached. He was admitted to the

Accademia della Crusca The (; ), generally abbreviated as La Crusca, is a Florence-based society of scholars of Italian linguistics and philology. It is one of the most important research institutions of the Italian language, as well as the oldest Academy#Linguisti ...

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, but his caustic sarcasm led to his exclusion from the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. Ménage made many enemies and suffered under the satire of Boileau and of

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

. Molière immortalized him as the pedant Vadius in ''

Les Femmes savantes ''Les Femmes savantes'' (, ''The Learned Ladies'') is a comedy by Molière in five acts, written in verse. A satire on academic pretension, female education, and '' préciosité'' (French for preciosity), it was one of his most popular comedies ...

'', a portrait Ménage pretended to ignore. In 1664 he published at London an edition of the ''Lives of Eminent Philosophers'' by

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

that contains an unedited anonymous life of Aristotle; this life was known as 'Vita Menagiana' before the critical edition by

Ingemar Düring Ingemar Düring (2 September 1903 - 23 December 1984) was a Swedish Classical Philologist. From 1945 to 1970 he was a professor at University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg () is a List of universities in Sweden, university in ...

, (''Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition'' Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1957; reprinted New York, Garland, 1987, pp. 80–93) with the title 'Vita Hesychii' (the attribution to

Hesychius of Miletus Hesychius of Miletus (), Greek chronicler and biographer, surnamed Illustrius, son of an advocate, lived in Constantinople in the 6th century AD during the reign of Justinian. His writings contain more references to pagan Greek culture than Christi ...

is controversial). In 1690, he also published a supplement to the work of Diogenes Laërtius titled ''Historia Mulierum Philosopharum''. It is more than a scholarly compilation of 65 women philosophers he had found from his studies of the books of ancient writers. He intended to create a history for these women and dedicated his work to Anne Lefevre Dacier (1654 – 17 August 1720), whom he described in his introduction as "the most learned of women whether of the present or the past."''The History of Women Philosophers'' translated from the Latin with an introduction by Beatrice H. Zedler, Lanham: University press of America (1984) Ménage died in Paris in 1692. After his death his friends published, under the title of ''Menagiana'', a collection of his witticisms and table talk. The edition of this collection by

Bernard de la Monnoye Bernard de La Monnoye (15 June 1641, in Dijon – 15 October 1728) was a French people, French lawyer, poet, philology, philologue and critic, known chiefly for his Christmas carol, carol ''Noei borguignon'' (''Bourgogne, Borguignon Christmas''). ...

(2 vols., 1693/4) has found favor.

Works (partial list)

*''Poemata latina, gallica, graeca, et italica'' (1656) *''Observationes et emendationes in Diogenem Laertium'' Paris 1663 (reprint: London, 1664; Amsterdam, 1692) *''Origini della lingua italiana'' (1669) *''Dictionnaire etymologique'' (1650 and 1670) *''Observations sur la langue française'' (1672–1676) *''Histoire de Sablé'' (1686) A second part of this work was edited from the manuscript and published by J. B. Haureau in 1873. *''Anti-Baillet'' (1690) *''Historia mulierum philosopharum'' (1690) - French language translation as: "Histoire des femmes philosophes", Gilles Ménage; 2006, Paris; Editions

Arléa Arléa is a French publishing house created in 1986. Arléa publishes thirty new titles each year, including pocket ones. His catalog contains more than a thousand titles: the great classics of Antiquity (whether Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit or ...

(Translated into French from Latin by Manuella Vaney with an introduction by Claude Tarrene); 96 pages, - (See: https://web.archive.org/web/20141013152817/http://www.arlea.fr/Histoire-des-femmes-philosophes,649 ).

English translations

* ''The History of Women Philosophers'' translated from Latin with an introduction by Beatrice H. Zedler, Lanham: University Press of America (1984)

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Menage, Gilles 1613 births 1692 deaths People from the Province of Anjou People from Angers 17th-century philologists 17th-century French lawyers French philologists 17th-century French writers 17th-century French male writers