Denis Lambin

Dionysius Lambinus

Denis Lambin (Latinized as Dionysius Lambinus; 1520 – September 1572) was a French classical scholar.

Life

Lambin was born at Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais. Having devoted several years to classical studies during a residence in Italy, he was invited to Paris in 1550 to fill the professorship of Latin in the Collège de France, which he soon afterwards exchanged for that of Greek. His lectures were frequently interrupted by his ill-health and the religious disturbances of the time. His death is said to have been caused by his apprehension that he might share the fate of his friend Pierre de la Ramée, who had been killed in the massacre of St Bartholomew.

Works

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia describes Lambin as "one of the greatest scholars of his age" and recommends his annotations of classical authors, while criticizing the vagueness of his citations to manuscripts. The encyclopedia describes him as conservative in his textual criticism, but mentions that others have found his emendations rash.

His chief editions are:

• Horace (1561)
• Lucretius (1563), on which see H. A. J. Munro's preface to his edition
• Cicero (1566)
• Cornelius Nepos (1569)
• Demosthenes (1570), completing the unfinished work of Guillaume Morel
• Plautus (1576)

Further reading

• Peter Lazer, De Dionysio Lambino narratio, printed in Orelli's Onomasticon Tullianum (i. 1836);
• Trium disertissimorum virorum praefationes ac epistolae familiares aliquot: Mureti, Lambini, Regii (Paris, 1579);
• John Edwin Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (1908, ii. 188);
• Adalbert Horawitz in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Denis Lambin". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

External links

• Titi Lucretii Cari De rerum natura libri sex, published in Paris 1563, later owned and annotated by Montaigne, fully digitised in Cambridge Digital Library
• Lambin's posthumously published Plautus edition at Google Books