Muretus

Marcus Antonius (Marc Antoine Muret). A celebrated French classical scholar, born at Muret, April 12, 1526. In early life he studied jurisprudence and lectured on the civil law, but later took up literature. In 1576 he entered the priesthood, and then resided in Rome until his death, which occurred June 4, 1585. Muretus was a brilliant stylist of the Italian or “Ciceronian” school of modern Latinity, and wrote Latin with the ease and purity of an ancient Roman. Many of his orations are absolutely faultless, so that for many generations they were read in the schools of Europe side by side with Cicero and Livy. His Latin verse was also very graceful and fluent, though now little read. He published five volumes of Variae Lectiones, full of much acute criticism and still often referred to. His works have been edited by Ruhnken (1789), Frotscher (1834-41), and two volumes of selected writings by Frey (1871-73). See the life in French by Dejob (Paris, 1881); and the paper by Pattison in his Essays (Oxford, 1889).