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JOHANN ALBERT FABRICIUS (1668-1736)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 119 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHANN See also:

ALBERT See also:FABRICIUS (1668-1736)  , See also:German classical See also:scholar and bibliographer, was See also:born at See also:Leipzig on the 11th of See also:November 1668 . His See also:father, See also:Werner See also:Fabricius, director of See also:music in the See also:church of St See also:Paul at Leipzig, was the author of several See also:works, the most important being Deliciae Harmonicae (1656) . The son received his See also:early See also:education from his father, who on his deathbed recommended him to the care of the theologian Valentin See also:Alberti . He studied under J . G . Herrichen, and after-wards at Quedlinburg under See also:Samuel Schmid . It was in Schmid's library, as he afterwards said, that he found the two books, F . See also:Barth's Adversaria and D . G . See also:Morhof's Polyhistor Literarius, which suggested to him the See also:idea of his Biblioihecae, the works on which his See also:great reputation was founded . Having returned to Leipzig in 1686, he published anonymously (two years later) his first See also:work, Scriptorum receniiorum decas, an attack on ten writers of the See also:day . His Decas Decadum, sive plagiariorum et pseudonymorum ceniuria (1689) is the only one of his works to which he signs the name See also:Faber .

He then applied himself to the study of See also:

medicine, which, however, he relinquished for thatof See also:theology; and having gone to See also:Hamburg in 1693, he proposed to travel abroad, when the unexpected tidings that the expense of his education had absorbed his whole patrimony, and even See also:left him in See also:debt to his trustee, forced him to abandon his project . He therefore remained at Hamburg in the capacity of librarian to J . F . See also:Mayer . In 1696 he accompanied his See also:patron to See also:Sweden; and on his return to Hamburg, not See also:long afterwards, he became a See also:candidate for the See also:chair of See also:logic and See also:philosophy . The suffrages being equally divided between Fabricius and See also:Sebastian Edzardus, one of his opponents, the See also:appointment was decided by, See also:lot in favour of Edzardus; but in 1699 Fabricius succeeded See also:Vincent Placcius in the chair of See also:rhetoric and See also:ethics, a See also:post which he held till his See also:death, refusing invitations to Greifswald, See also:Kiel, See also:Giessen and See also:Wittenberg . He died at Hamburg on the 3oth of See also:April 1736 . Fabricius is credited with 128 books, but very many of them were only books which he had edited . One of the most famed and laborious of these is the Bibliotheca See also:Latina (1697, republished in an improved and amended See also:form by J . A . See also:Ernesti, 1773) . The divisions of the compilation are—the writers to the See also:age of Tiberius; thence to that of the Antonines; and thirdly, to the decay of the See also:language; a See also:fourth gives fragments from old authors, and chapters on early See also:Christian literature .

A supplementary work was Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae Aetatis (1734–1736; supplementary See also:

volume by C . Schottgen, 1746; ed . Mansi, 1754) . His chef-d'ceuvre, however, is the Bibliotheca Graeca (1705-1728, revised and continued by G . C . Harles, 179o-1812), a work which has justly been denominated See also:maximus antiquae eruditionis See also:thesaurus . Its divisions are marked off by See also:Homer, See also:Plato, See also:Christ, See also:Constantine, and the See also:capture of See also:Constantinople in 1453, while a See also:sixth See also:section is devoted to See also:canon See also:law, See also:jurisprudence and medicine . Of his remaining works we may mention:—Bibliotheca Antiquaria, an See also:account of the writers whose works illustrated See also:Hebrew, See also:Greek, See also:Roman and Christian antiquities (1713); Centifolium Lulheranum, a Lutheran bibliography (1728); Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica (1718) . His Codex Apocryphus (1703) is still considered indispensable as an authority on apocryphal Christian literature . The details of the See also:life of Fabricius are to be found in De Vita et Scriptis J . A . Fabricii Commentarius, by his son-in-law, H .

S . See also:

Reimarus, the well-known editor of Dio See also:Cassius, published at Hamburg, 1737 ; see also C . F . See also:Bahr in See also:Ersch and See also:Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopeidie, and J . E . See also:Sandys, Hist . Class . Schol. iii . (1908) .

End of Article: JOHANN ALBERT FABRICIUS (1668-1736)
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