81. - Graevius, Johannes Georgius (1632–1703)

Summary

Johannes Georgius Graevius (Johann Georg Greffe) was born in Naumburg (Saxony) on January 29, 1632. He died on January 10, 1703 in Utrecht. Graevius was a classical scholar, philologist, historian, orator, and prolific letter writer. He was a pupil of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius, whom he succeeded as professor of eloquence and history in Deventer in 1658. In 1661 Graevius was appointed to the same chair in Utrecht, through the discreet intercession of Lambert van Velthuysen. There he became a key figure in a covert group of Cartesian professors and intellectuals, who organized themselves in a scholarly society of a Cartesian, anti-Orangist, and Coccejan disposition, beyond the reach of the dominant orthodox party of the Voetians. The group was nicknamed the “college of savants” (see Gootjes 2019). Among its other members were Van Velthuysen and the professors Johannes de Bruyn, Regnerus van Mansveld, Francis Burman, and Louis Wolzogen. The society’s palmy days were between 1665 and 1674.