JEAN

See also:

• FRANCOIS (1558-1614)

FRANCOIS BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE (1774-1857)  , French classical scholar, was born at Paris on the 12th of August 1774 . In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez . Driven from it in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of the Upper Marne . He then definitely resigned public employment and devoted him-self to the study of Greek . In 1809 he was appointed deputy professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular professor in 1813 on the death of P . H . Larcher . In 1828 he succeeded J . B . Gail in the chair of Greek at the College de France . He also held the offices of librarian of the Bibliotheque du Roi, and of perpetual secretary of the Academie des Inscriptions . He died on the 8th of September 1857 .

Boissonade chiefly devoted his

attention to later Greek literature: Philostratus, Heroica (1806) and Epistolae (1842); Marinus, Vita procli (1814); Tiberius Rhetor, De Figuris (1815) ; Nicetas Eugenianus, Drosilla et Charicles (1819); Herodian, Partitiones (1819); Aristaenetus, Epistolae (1822); Eunapius, Vitae Sophistarum (1822); Babrius, Fables (1844); Tzetzes, Allegoriae Iliados (1851); and a Collection of Greek Poets in 24 vols . The Anecdota Graeca (1829–1833) and Anecdota Nova (1844) are important for Byzantine history and the Greek grammarians . A selection of his papers was published by F . Colincamp, Critique litteraire sous le premier Empire (1863), vol. i. of which contains a complete list of his works, and a " Notice Historique sur Monsieur B.," by Naudet .