Editing Johann Matthias Gesner

{{Short description|German classical scholar and schoolmaster (1691–1761)}}
[[File:Johann Mattias Gesner - Titelkupfer.jpg|thumb|160px|Frontispiece of Gesner's ''Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus'', 1747.]]

'''Johann Matthias Gesner''' (9 April 1691 – 3 August 1761) was a German [[classical scholar]] and [[schoolmaster]].

==Life==
{{More citations needed|section|date=October 2021}}
He was born at [[Roth an der Rednitz]] near [[Ansbach]]. His father, Johann Samuel Gesner, a pastor in [[Auhausen]], died in 1704, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. Gesner's mother, Maria Magdalena (born Hußwedel), remarried, and Johann Matthias's stepfather, Johann Zuckermantel, proved supportive.

Noticing the boy's gifts,
Zuckermantel prepared him for the Ansbach [[Gymnasium (Germany)|Gymnasium]]. As the costs of the school surpassed the family's means, the boy was supported by public resources and spent his school years in a dwelling for poor students. He was given special attention and instruction by the rector of the Gymnasium, Georg Nikolaus Köhler, who sparked his interest in languages, loaned him Greek texts, and devised special exercises in which the boy had to reconstruct intelligible texts from fragments. Gesner later recalled his Gymnasium years the most pleasant in his life.<ref>[[Reinhold Friedrich]], ''Johann Matthias Gesner: Sein Leben und sein Werk'' (Roth: Genniges, 1991), {{pp.|21, 23}}.</ref>

He went on to study metaphysics, Semitic languages, and classical literature as a theology student at the [[University of Jena]], working under [[Johann Franz Buddeus]], who befriended Gesner and allowed the student to live in his own house. Despite Buddeus's support, however, he was passed over for a position in Jena. In 1714, he published a work on ''Philopatiis'' (ascribed to [[Lucian]]).{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In 1715, he became [[librarian]] and vice-principal at [[Weimar]],<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Gesner, Johann Matthias|volume=11|page=909}}</ref> where he became good friends with [[Johann Sebastian Bach]] (Bach later dedicated his ''Canon a 2 perpetuus'' BWV 1075 to Gesner),{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}} in 1729 (having been dismissed as librarian at Weimar) rector of the gymnasium at Ansbach, and in 1730 rector of the [[Thomasschule zu Leipzig|Thomasschule]] at [[Leipzig]].<ref name="EB1911"/> The faculty at the [[University of Leipzig]] refused Gesner teaching privileges, however.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

At the [[University of Göttingen]] he became Professor of Poetry and Eloquence (1734) and subsequently librarian, continuing to publish works on classical languages and literature as well composing Latin poetry and publicizing the university. Having probably become familiar with a similar organization in Leipzig, in 1738 he founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft, devoted to the advancement of German literature.<ref>Paul Otto, ''Die deutsche Gesellschaft in Göttingen'', Volume 1 (C. Haushalter, 1898), p. 5.</ref> He died at [[Göttingen]].

[[Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten|Baumgarten]], in his ''Aesthetics'' (1750), quoted passages from writers such as [[Horace]], [[Virgil]], [[Catullus]], [[Juvenalis]], and [[Cicero]]. According to [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]],<ref>''Laocoön'', Preface</ref> many of those passages were taken from Gesner’s ''Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus'' [''New Thesaurus of the Roman Language and Learning''] (1747).<ref>"Baumgarten acknowledged that he was indebted to Gesner's dictionary for a large proportion of the examples in his 'Aesthetics.' " [Baumgarten bekannte, einen großen Theile der Beyspiele in seiner Aesthetik, Gesners Wörterbuche schuldig zu seyn.]</ref>

Gesner won a wide reputation as a reformer, a scholar, and a [[Christian humanism|humanist]].

== Works ==
* an edition of [[Basilius Faber]]'s ''Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae'' (1726), afterwards continued under the title ''Novus linguae et eruditionis Romanae thesaurus'' (1749)
* ''Opuscula minora varii argumenti'' (1743—1745)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gesner |first=Jo Matthias |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K74_kgAACAAJ |title=Opuscula minora varii argumenti, Tomus 1-8 |date=1743 |language=en}}</ref>
* {{Cite book |title=De corporum motu et viribus |volume= |publisher=David Gessner |location=Zürich |year=1746 |language=la}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=De corporum motu et viribus |url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=8670182.xml&dvs=1687389321790~869&locale=en&search_terms=&show_metadata=true&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=7&divType= |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=gutenberg.beic.it}}</ref>
* ''Index etymologicus latinitatis'' (1749)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gesner |first=Johann Matthias |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4JEAAAAcAAJ&q=Index+etymologicus+latinitatis |title=Index etymologicus latinitatis |date=1749 |publisher=Fritsch et Breitkopf |language=la}}</ref>
* ''Primæ lineæ isagoges in eruditionem universalem'' (1756)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gesner |first=Johann Matthias |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRhCAAAAcAAJ&q=Prim%C3%A6+line%C3%A6+isagoges+in+eruditionem+universalem |title=Primae lineae isagoges in eruditionem universalem: Nominatim Philologiam, Historiam Et Philosophiam In Usum Praelectionum Ductae : Accedunt Nunc Praelectiones Ipsae Per Io. Nicolaum Niclas |date=1775 |publisher=Fritsch |language=la}}</ref>
* ''Thesaurus epistolicus Gesnerianus'' (ed. Klotz, 1768—1770)<ref>{{Cite book |last=GESNER |first=Johann Matthias |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tu4YMwEACAAJ |title=Thesaurus Epistolicus Gesnerianus. Collegit Et Præfatus Est C.A. Klotzius |date=1768 |language=en}}</ref>
* editions of the ''Scriptores rei rusticae'', of [[Quintilian]], [[Claudian]], [[Pliny the Younger]], [[Horace]] and the Orphic poems (published after his death)<ref name="EB1911"/>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Sources ==
* [[Johann August Ernesti|JA Ernesti]], ''Opuscula oratoria'' (1762), p.&nbsp;305
* [[Hermann Sauppe|H Sauppe]], ''Göttinger Professoren'' (1872)
* CH Pöhnert, ''J.M. Gesner und sein Verhaltnis zum Philanthropinismus und Neuhumanismus'' (1898), a contribution to the history of [[pedagogy]] in the 18th century
* articles by [[Friedrich August Eckstein|FA Eckstein]] in ''Allgemeine deutsche Biographie ix''

==External links==
*[http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/gesner.html Gesner: ''Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus''] online edition in the project [http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenahtdocs/camena.html Camena]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gesner, Johann Matthias}}
[[Category:1691 births]]
[[Category:1761 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:18th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:German classical scholars]]
[[Category:People from the Principality of Ansbach]]
[[Category:People from Roth (district)]]
[[Category:Heads of schools in Germany]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Göttingen]]
[[Category:University of Jena alumni]]
[[Category:St. Thomas School, Leipzig teachers]]
[[Category:18th-century German scholars]]