Georg Fabricius

Georg Fabricius (Latin: Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis; 23 April 1516 – 17 July 1571) was a Protestant German poet, historian and archaeologist who wrote in Latin during the German Renaissance.

Life

Fabricius was born as Georg Goldschmidt in Chemnitz in Saxony on 23 April 1516.[1] He was educated at the University of Leipzig. In 1546 he was appointed rector of Saint Afra in Meissen.[2]

Travelling in Italy with one of his pupils, he made an exhaustive study of the antiquities of Rome. In 1549 Fabricius edited the first short selection of Roman inscriptions focusing specifically on legal texts. This was a key moment in the history of classical epigraphy: for the first time in print a humanist explicitly demonstrated the value of such archaeological remains for the discipline of law, and implicitly accorded texts inscribed in stone as authoritative a status as those recorded in manuscripts.[2] He published fuller results in his Roma, in which the correspondence between every discoverable relic of the old city and the references to them in ancient literature was traced in detail. In his sacred poems he affected to avoid every word with the slightest savour of paganism; and he blamed the poets for their allusions to pagan divinities.[2]

He encouraged music at his school, although he was not himself a musician. Some of his writings were set to music by composers such as Martin Agricola, Johann Walter, Mattheus Le Maistre, Antonio Scandello, Johann Reusch [de] and Wolfgang Figulus.[3]

Fabricius died at Meissen on 17 July 1571.[1]

Works

Fabricius was a prolific author. Editions of Fabricius's own works include:

He also produced editions of the following works with his own commentaries:

His letters have also been posthumously published. His "In Praise of Georgius Agricola" includes the quote "Death comes to all but great achievements raise a monument which shall endure until the sun grows old."[4]

Legacy

A life of Georg Fabricius was published in 1839 by D. C. W. Baumgarten-Crusius, who in 1845 also issued an edition of Fabricius's Epistolae ad W Meurerum et alios aequales with a short sketch De Vita Ge. Fabricius de gente Fabriciorum. See also F. Wachter in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie.

References

  1. ^ a b Gabetti, Giuseppe (1932), "Fabricius, Georg", Enciclopedia Italiana (in Italian), Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
  2. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fabricius, Georg". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 119.
  3. ^ Hüschen, Heinrich (2001). "Fabricius [Goldschmidt], Georg". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  4. ^ "Quotations by Author: George Fabricius". The Quotations Page. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
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