Jacques Sirmond (12 or 22 October, 1559 - October 7, 1651) was a French scholar and Jesuit.

Biography

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Jacqes Simond was born at Riom, Auvergne.

He was educated at the Jesuit College of Billom; having been a novice at Verdun and then at Pont-Mousson, he entered into the order on the 26th of July 1576. After having taught rhetoric at Paris he resided for a long time in Rome as secretary to Claudio Acquaviva (1590-1608). In 1637 he was confessor to Louis XIII.

Works

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Father Sirmond was a most industrious scholar, and his criticisms were as enlightened as was possible for a man living in those times. He brought out many editions of Latin and Byzantine chroniclers of the Middle Ages:

• Ennodius and Flodoard (1611)
• Sidonius Apollinaris (1614)
• the life of St Leo IX by the archdeacon Wibert (1615)
• Marcellinus and Idatius (1619)
• Anastasius the Librarian (1620)
• Eusebius of Caesarea (1643)
• Hincmar (1645)
• Hrabanus Maurus (1647)
• Rufinus and Loup de Ferrières (1650)
• above all his edition of the capitularies of Charles the Bald (Karoli Calvi et successorum aliquot Franciae regum capitula, 1623)
• edition of the councils of ancient France (Concilia antiquae Galliae, 1629, 3 vols., new ed. incomplete, 1789).

An essay in which he denies the identity of St Denis of Paris and St Denis the Areopagite (1641), caused a very lively controversy from which his opinion came out victorious. His Opera varia, where this essay is to be found, as well as a description in Latin verse of his voyage from Paris to Rome in 1590, have appeared in 5 vols. (1696; new ed. Venice, 1728). To him is attributed, and no doubt correctly, Elogio di cardinale Baronio (1607).

References

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1559 births | 1651 deaths | Natives of Auvergne | Jesuits

Jacques de Sirmond