Casaubon, Isaac

CASAUBON, cɑ-sō´bon or, cɑ̄´´zō´´bōn´, ISAAC: Scholar; b. in Geneva Feb. 18, 1559; d. in London July 12, 1814. His father was a poor Huguenot preacher, who could give his son little education, nevertheless he came to be considered the most learned man in Europe after Joseph Scaliger. He was professor of Greek at Geneva, 1582–96, at Montpellier, 1596–99; in 1600 he went to Paris, where he might have been professor in the university if he had embraced Roman Catholicism; this, however, he refused to do, although he offended the rigid Calvinists by denying their extreme positions. He was given a pension by Henry IV. (1600), and in 1604 became sublibrarian of the royal library. In 1610 he went to England, where he was well received by King James and the Anglican bishops and was made prebendary of Canterbury and Westminster. His works belong for the most part to the field of classical scholarship, but he edited a Greek New Testament (Geneva, 1587), and published some minor pamphlets of theological interest; his criticism of the Annales of Baronius, begun at the request of King James, was left unfinished. His letters (in Latin), with life, were published by d’Almeloveen (Rotterdam, 1709); his diary, Ephemerides, ed. Russell, was printed at Oxford, 1850.

Bibliography: Mark Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, London, 1875, 2d ed., by Nettleship, 1892.