Primary Contributors:

Cultures of Knowledge, based on metadata collated from the inventory published in ‘François Jacquier. Un savant des Lumières entre le cloître et le monde’, ed. Gilles Montègre and Pierre Crépel (Nancy, 2017)

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François Jacquier (1711–1788)

Born in Vitry-le-François in north-eastern France, François Jacquier entered the Order of Friars Minor at the age of sixteen and after his profession of faith was sent to Rome to complete his studies in the Convent Trinità dei Monti. There, with the permission of his superiors, he specialized in mathematics while also becoming proficient in the ancient languages Greek and Hebrew.

Soon acquiring the patronage of Cardinals Alberoni and Portocarrero, Jacquier was given the chair of sacred scripture at the Pontifical College for the Propaganda of the Faith. By now becoming increasingly recognized scientifically, Jacquier was named professor of physics at the University of Turin by the King of Sardinia in 1745. However, before he could take up this position, Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, Secretary of State to Pope Benedict XIV, assigned Jacquier to the chair of experimental physics at the Collegio Romano. After later instructing the young Prince Ferdinand of Parma in mathematics and physics, Jacquier was elevated to the chair of mathematics at the Collegio Romano in 1773.

Over the years, he conducted correspondence with the greatest scientific figures of his age, including Voltaire, Maupertuis, d’Alembert, Madame du Châtelet, and Cramer. With his fellow Franciscan Thomas Le Seur, he collaborated in producing a major commentary on Newton’s Principia (four parts in three volumes; Geneva: 1739–42). Among his many other works can be named his Institutiones philosophicae ad studia theologica potissimum accommodatae (six volumes; Rome, 1757), and his Eléments du calcul integral (Parma, 1768). By the time of his death in Rome on 3 July 1788, Jacquier was an esteemed member of the most illustrious scientific societies in Europe, including the Royal Society, to which he was elected in 1741.

 

 

Partners and Additional Contributors

At the suggestion of Dr Philip Beeley, metadata for the correspondence of François Jacquier were collated from the inventory of correspondence published in 2017 by Gilles Montègre and Pierre Crépel (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy; for full bibliographic details, please see the section below). To date, one further letter has been identified and the details to describe it added to the listing: a letter in the care of the Library and Archives of the Royal Society of London.

Cultures of Knowledge would like to thank Dr Beeley for his advice regarding this correspondence and for his help with the text for this introductory page, and Millie Gall for her meticulous work in setting out the metadata.

Key Bibliographic Source(s)

François Jacquier. Un savant des Lumières entre le cloître et le monde, ed. Gilles Montègre and Pierre Crépel (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy – Éditions universitaires de Lorraine, 2017).

Further resources

Bibliography

Gilles Montègre and Pierre Crépel, eds, François Jacquier: Un savant des lumières entre le cloître et le monde (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy 2017).

Federica Favino, ‘Minimi in “Sapienza”. François Jacquier, Thomas Le Seur e il rinnovamento dell’insegnamento scientifico allo “Studium Urbis”’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, 117/1 (2005), pp. 159–87.

François de Gandt, Cirey dans la vie intellectuelle: la réception de Newton en France (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2001).

Niccolò Guicciardini, ‘Editing Newton in Geneva and Rome: The Annotated Edition of the Principia by Calandrini, Le Seur and Jacquier’, Annals of Science, 72 (2015), pp. 337–80.

Ernest Jovy, Une illustration scientifique vitryate: le P. François Jacquier et ses correspondants (Vitry-le-François: Brulliard, 1922).

Gilbert Maheut, ‘François Jacquier, 1711–1788’, Mémoires de la Société des sciences et arts de Vitry-le-François, 387 (1988), pp. 135–59.

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