Burigny, Jean Lévesque de
BURIGNY, JEAN LÉVESQUE DE
French scholar; b. Reims, 1692; d. Paris, Oct. 8,1785. He came to Paris in 1713 and acquired an immense erudition in ancient and modern history, philosophy, and theology, and a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He and his brothers formed an academy that compiled a 12-volume encyclopedia in MS. In 1720 they went to the Hague and worked with Saint-Hyacinthe on the journal Europe savante (1718–20). Almost all of Burigny's writings deal with religious matters and have a Gallican, even Presbyterian, slant. His treatise on the authority of the pope (4 v. in 12, 1720) is a good example of his doctrine and method. He also wrote two volumes on pagan theology (1724), a noteworthy two-volume history of Sicily (1745), three volumes on Byzantine revolutions (1750), and biographies of Plotinus, Grotius, Erasmus, Bossuet, and Cardinal J. Du Perron. In 1756 he was made a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres.
Bibliography: c. constantin, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 2.1:1264–65. j. carreyre, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 10:1375–76.
[w. e. langley]