Johann Matthias Gesner (9 April 1691 – 3 August 1761) was a German

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

schoolmaster The word schoolmaster, or simply master, refers to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British independent schools, both secondary and preparatory, and a few Indian boarding schools (such as The Doon School) that were modelled afte ...

Life

He was born at Roth an der Rednitz near

Ansbach Ansbach (; ; East Franconian: ''Anschba'') is a city in the German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the river Fränkische Rezat, ...

. His father, Johann Samuel Gesner, a pastor in Auhausen, died in 1704, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. Gesner's mother, Maria Magdalena (born Hußwedel), remarried, and Johann Matthias's stepfather, Johann Zuckermantel, proved supportive. Noticing the boy's gifts, Zuckermantel prepared him for the Ansbach Gymnasium. As the costs of the school surpassed the family's means, the boy was supported by public resources and spent his school years in a dwelling for poor students. He was given special attention and instruction by the rector of the Gymnasium, Georg Nikolaus Köhler, who sparked his interest in languages, loaned him Greek texts, and devised special exercises in which the boy had to reconstruct intelligible texts from fragments. Gesner later recalled his Gymnasium years the most pleasant in his life. He went on to study metaphysics, Semitic languages, and classical literature as a theology student at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

, working under Johann Franz Buddeus, who befriended Gesner and allowed the student to live in his own house. Despite Buddeus's support, however, he was passed over for a position in Jena. In 1714, he published a work on ''Philopatiis'' (ascribed to Lucian). In 1715, he became

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

and vice-principal at

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, where he became good friends with

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

(Bach later dedicated his ''Canon a 2 perpetuus'' BWV 1075 to Gesner), in 1729 (having been dismissed as librarian at Weimar) rector of the gymnasium at Ansbach, and in 1730 rector of the

Thomasschule St. Thomas School, Leipzig (german: Thomasschule zu Leipzig; la, Schola Thomana Lipsiensis) is a co-educational and public boarding school in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. It was founded by the Augustinians in 1212 and is one of the oldest schools ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. The faculty at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

refused Gesner teaching privileges, however. At the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

he became Professor of Poetry and Eloquence (1734) and subsequently librarian, continuing to publish works on classical languages and literature as well composing Latin poetry and publicizing the university. Having probably become familiar with a similar organization in Leipzig, in 1738 he founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft, devoted to the advancement of German literature. He died at

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

. Baumgarten, in his ''Aesthetics'' (1750), quoted passages from writers such as Horace,

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...

, Juvenalis, and

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

. According to Lessing, many of those passages were taken from Gesner’s ''Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus'' 'New Thesaurus of the Roman Language and Learning''(1747). "Baumgarten acknowledged that he was indebted to Gesner's dictionary for a large proportion of the examples in his 'Aesthetics.' " aumgarten bekannte, einen großen Theile der Beyspiele in seiner Aesthetik, Gesners Wörterbuche schuldig zu seyn./ref> Gesner won a wide reputation as a reformer, a scholar, and a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

Works

* 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) * * ''Index etymologicus latinitatis'' (1749) * ''Primæ lineæ isagoges in eruditionem universalem'' (1756) * ''Thesaurus epistolicus Gesnerianus'' (ed. Klotz, 1768—1770) * editions of the ''Scriptores rei rusticae'', of Quintilian, Claudian, Pliny the Younger, Horace and the Orphic poems (published after his death)

References

Sources

* 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 Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

in the 18th century * articles by FA Eckstein in ''Allgemeine deutsche Biographie ix''

External links

Gesner: ''Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus''
online edition in the projec

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gesner, Johann Matthias 1691 births 1761 deaths 18th-century Latin-language writers 18th-century German male writers German classical scholars People from the Principality of Ansbach People from Roth (district) Heads of schools in Germany Academic staff of the University of Göttingen University of Jena alumni St. Thomas School, Leipzig teachers