Eckhel, Joseph Hilarius von
ECKHEL, JOSEPH HILARIUS VON
Jesuit historian, numismatist; b. Enzesfeld, Austria, Jan. 13, 1737; d. Vienna, May 16, 1798. Eckhel began his studies in the Society of Jesus in 1751 and was ordained in 1764. He taught grammar in Jesuit schools at Loeben, Steyr, and Vienna until 1766. Meanwhile, Father J. Khell, SJ, introduced him to the study of numismatics; and when, in 1772, Eckhel had to abandon his teaching career because of illness, he turned to the study of archeology and numismatics. He toured Italy and devoted himself to a careful study of the coin collections in Bologna, Florence, and Rome. After suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, he was appointed director of the numismatic section of the Imperial Museum at Vienna; and in 1776, professor of antiquities and auxiliary historical sciences at the University of Vienna. His Doctrina nummorum veterum (8 v. Vienna 1792–98) was his great work and is regarded as the beginning of the scientific study of numismatics, making that discipline an important source of history. He produced also Catalogus musei Caesarei Vindobonensis nummorum veterum (Vienna 1779) and Descriptio nummorum Antiochiae (Vienna 1786).
Bibliography: p. lacroix, Revue Belge de numismatique et de sigillographie 35 (1897) 45–49. l. koch, Jesuiten-Lexikon: Die Gesellschaft Jesu einst und jetzt 1:466–467. p. p. r. frankie, Neue deutsche Biographie 4:302–303.
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