Nicolas Peiresc (1580-1637) is a man who deserves to be remembered, because he was a good man and a generous supporter of learned men. This is the reason why I, Olivier Thill, have copied and republished the story of his life by Gassendi, his friend. You can read it below.

He was a senator of the Parliament of Provence. He spent most of his life in Aix and Belgentier, in the southeast of France.

He was well-educated. He had many fields of interest : law, biology, antiquity, coins, oriental books, physics, astronomy, geography, geology, poetry, theology.

He wrote many letters. Some of his friends and correspondents are: Girolamo Aleandro, Francesco Barberini, John Barclay, Isaac Casaubon, Pierre & Jacques Dupuy, Guillaume Du Vair, Pierre Gassendi, Henri Gournay de Marcheville, Hugo de Groot, Paolo Gualdo, Lukas Holsten, Charles de L'Ecluse, François de Malherbe, Marin Mersenne, Theophyle Minuti, Gabriel Naudé, Adolf Occo, Giulo Paci di Beriga, Lelio Pasqualini, Samuel Petit, Lorenzo Pignoria, Giovanni-Vincenzo Pinelli, Pierre-Paul Rubens, Claude Saumaise, Joseph-Juste Scaliger, John Selden, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, Mark Welser.

Table of contents

The Epistle Dedicatory by William Rand
Gassendi to Louis de Valois

The First Book.
Ancestors - His uncle, Claudius; his father, Reginaldus; and his mother, Margareta - 1580. Birth - A witch - 1582. Brother, stepmother, and half sisters - Childhood - 1587 - 1595 - First coin - 1596. Jesuit college at Tournon. Astronomy - First letters and gifts - Studying Law - Friendship with antiquaries - 1598. Growth of stones - Preparing his journey to Italy - 1599. Going to Padua - 1600. Venice - Ferrara, Bologna - Florence - Rome - 1601. Naples - Returning to Padua - Coins and oriental languages - Galileo and Aquapendente, rainbows, geology, and biology - Death of Pinellus - 1602. Back to France - Montpellier. 1603.1604.

The Second Book.
Soon, a senator of the parliament of Aix - To Pallas and the Muses - Frejus, coins, fishes, and plants - Thinking about the foundation of a convent - Desiring Pacius would become professor at Aix - Sickness of the skin - Villanova, Malherbe, and Grotius - The nova - 1605. A new myrtle tree and a new mushroom - Du Vair - Paris - Casaubon - Other Parisians - A mysterious inscription - Saint Denis - 1606. Journey to England - A drinking match - Camden and others, etimology - Journey to Holland - Scaliger - Charles de l'Ecluse and others at Leiden - Amsterdam, Enchuysen, The Hague, Scheveningen, trying a sand yacht - Delft, Gorlaeus, open mind of the Hollanders - Belgium - Fontainebleau - Dauphiné - 1607. Aix, Carthage, coins, weights, eye sickness - Admission to the parliament of Aix - Portraits of the kings of France - Digne, Snakes, Hot waters, Popes in Avignon - Back to Aix - Dissecting a tortoise - Fossils - Death of Baronius - Coins - 1608. Death of his uncle - Questions about history - Fishes - Stones - Amber - A bloody rain - Looking for Samaritan books for Scaliger - Advice to his traveling brother - 1609. Cured by melons - Assisting learned men - The death of Scaliger, de L'Ecluse, and Gorlaeus - Sickness of Du Vair - Monetary reform - Weights and measures - 1610. A dream come true - The death of the king, Henri IV - The telescope - Computing the longitude - 1611. Tulips and sick dogs - Magicians - A trout and birds for Du Vair.

The Third Book.
1612. Paris - Astronomy - Ancient history - Flamingos - 1613. Aix - A giant - 1614. Death of friends - New friends - The history of Provence - 1615. A neurological disease - 1616. Accompanying Varius to Paris - John Barclay - Publishing an inscription - Varius no longer keeper of the great Seal - 1617. Letters - Calendar - Death of Jacques-Auguste de Thou - Rouen - 1618. Genealogy of the Habsburg family - Reims - Old manuscripts about the history of France - Appointed Abbot of Notre-Dame de Guîtres - Publishing Barberini's poems - Comet - 1619. Geography - Helping learned men - The agate of the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris - Letters - 1621. Death of Varius - Death of Barclay - Death of Henri de Lorraine - Northern lights - Death of Bellarmin and Gualdus - A bridge in fire in Paris - 1622. Friends - 1623. Snow - Fountains - About to leave Paris - His friend Barberini is elected pope - Aix.

The Fourth Book.
Back to Aix - His rarities have been stollen - 1624. Grotius - Portraits - Taking the reliques of St Magdalen - Coral - 1625. Barberini - The disease of his father - 1626. Helping friends - Hypotheses of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe - Prohibiting a book - Upon return of the legate from Spain - Letters - 1627 - 1628. Christian names for the planets - Rudolphine tables - Eclipse of the moon - Eclipse of the sun - Unfinished manuscripts of learned men - Aselli, Harvey, and Aquapendente - The microscope - Many headed fishes - Resting at Belgentier - Malherbe, Chapelain - History - A channel - Looking for books and coins in the Middle East - Medicine - Antiquity - Parhelia - 1629. Visits - The plague at Aix - 1630. Visits - Eclipse - Importing plants - Geology and fossils - A giant - A tripod - Coptic books - Mummies - Coins - 1631. Gabriel Naudé - Wedding of his nephew - A palsy - Looking for Oriental books - An elephant - The death of Aleander and of Pignoria - Mercury - Curative water - Vessels, weigths and measures - Astronomy - Heraldry.

The Fifth Book.
Aix - Books from the East - 1633. Weights and measures - Politics - Hieroglyphs - Astronomy - The Coran - Having copies made for his friends - Coptic - Volcanoes - Apes - 1634. Abyssinia - Anatomy of the eyes - Milky veins - Wind - Motion of the sea - Thunder - Alzaro - Astronomical observatory - Campanella - Weights and measures - Henri de Valois - 1635. Inscriptions - Death of Pacius - Visits - The Linus clock - Military outfit - Arabian books - Date of the Gospels - Sending books to Egypt - Description of the moon - Determining the longitude - Dismissed and restored in his position at the parliament - 1636. Greek authors - The nature of light - The first of all languages - History of Provence - Ptolemy - Oldest men - Tritons - Grafts - Crocodiles - Setting up a huge gnomon at Marseilles - Correcting the hydrographical tables - Music - Death of Petrus La Sena - A new president at the parliament of Aix - Visiting an archbishop and a bishop - 1637. Receiving long-awaited antique items - Chameleons - Encouraging the studies of ancient authors - Altitude of the pole - Knowledge of Etna - Pirates - Jacques Godefroy - Visits - His death.

The Sixth Book.
His physical appearance - His diet - A sober life - Studying late in the night - A body like a sheet of paper - The pleasant verdure - No music - Dogs and cats - His own physician - Not more grievous - An angry nature - His liberality - Visits - Consellor - His stepmother: Catherine Vassal de Caradet - His brother and other relatives - His patriotism towards France and Provence - His religion - His studies - Books - Marbles and coines - Binding up letters in bundles - The reading of books - His studies of Law - History vs philosophy - Foreign sources for the knowledge of history - The usefulness of his studies - Disagreeing about natural philosophy - Disliking speculations about God - A citizen of the world - Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography, Optics - Arts - The books he never wrote - Moderating quarrels and stiring affection - In French and Italian, rather than in Latin - A premonitory dream - Malignant fevers in the city - The first 12 days of the sickness - His will - The last days - His autopsy - His funeral - His brother at Paris, and the Cardinal of Richelieu hearing the news - Declarations of grief coming from everywhere - Epitaph - At Rome - From his friend, Gassendi - This biography was made possible by Louis de Valois.

Appendices.
THE PRAYSE OF PEIRESKIUS, In a Funeral Oration pronounced in the Romane Academy, December the 21. 1637. By Jacobus Buccardus of Paris.
A LETTER OF Gabriel Naudaeus TO Petrus Gassendus, Concerning the Death of Peireskius.
Out of the Preface of the Renowned Salmasius, before Cebes his Table in Arabick.
An ADDITION To the Life of the Renowned PEIRESKIUS. To the famous Franciscus Henricus, that great Favourer of Learning, and my singular good Friend, Petrus Borellus Casirensis, Doctor of Physicks, sends Greeting.
Out of a Book of Athanasius Kircherus, called Lingua Aegyptiaca restituta, Printed at Rome in Quarto, Anno 1644.
Out of the Obelissus Pamphilius of the said Kircherus, printed at Rome in Folio, Anno, 1650.
To Petrus Borellus, Dr. of Physick, his loving friend F. H. P. L.
A CATALOGUE of Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius, Lord of Peiresk, and Senator of Aix, his own proper Manuscripts. Printed from the Original Copy or Petrus Puteanus his own hand-writing, being diligently compared with the Books themselves, which are at this day in the Custody of the Baron of Rians.

The Mirrour of True Nobility & Gentility, Being The Life Of The Renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius, Lord of Peiresk Written by Petrus Gassendus, Englished by William Rand for John Evelyn. Reprint of the biography of Peiresc, first published in 1657. ISBN 0-7414-1752-9, Infinity Publishing, Oct. 2003, available at www.buybooksontheweb.com, or at www.amazon.com, 5.5 x 8.5 inches (14 x 21.6 cm), 329 pages with the index.