Origins & Early Life

Isaac Casaubon (; French: [kazobɔ̃]; 18 February 1559 – 1 July 1614) was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England. His son Méric Casaubon was also a classical scholar. He was born in Geneva to two French Huguenot refugees. The family returned to France after the Edict of Saint-Germain in 1562, and settled at Crest in Dauphiné, where Arnaud Casaubon, Isaac's father, became minister of a Huguenot congregation.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

Until he was nineteen, Isaac had no education other than that given him by his father. Arnaud was away from home for long periods in the Calvinist camp, and the family regularly fled to the hills to hide from bands of armed Catholics who patrolled the country. It was in a cave in the mountains of Dauphiné, after the St Bartholomew's Day's Massacre, that Isaac received his first lesson in Greek, based on Isocrates' Ad Demonicum. At the age of nineteen Isaac was sent to the Academy of Geneva, where he read Greek under Franciscus Portus, a Cretan. Portus died in 1581, recommending Casaubon, then only twenty-two, as his successor.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

He remained at Geneva as professor of Greek until 1596. There he married twice, his second...

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