Turnèbe, Adrien

(1512-1565)

   French humanist and classical scholar. A native of Normandy, he studied in Paris, receiving his M.A. degree in 1532. He became professor of Greek at the Univer-sity of Toulouse and in 1547 succeeded Jacques Toussain, one of the two original royal lecturers in Greek at Paris. In 1561 he moved to the lectureship in Greek and Latin philosophy. Turnèbe was director of the royal press from 1552 to 1556 and published new editions of the Greek dramatists Aeschylus and Sophocles. He also edited an an-thology of early Greek gnomic poets, including Theognis. In Latin scholarship, Turnèbe produced editions and commentaries on Auso-nius, Horace, Juvenal, Lucretius, Martial, Persius, and Varro. His scholarship on Cicero was especially important because he investi-gated the Greek sources of Cicero's philosophical works. Also of great importance for the development of classical scholarship was his Adversaria, a collection of emendations and scholia on classical authors (three parts, 1564, 1565, and 1580). Turnèbe exerted great influence on the leading French classical scholar of the next genera-tion, Josephus Justus Scaliger.