Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie (12 August 1774 – 8 September 1857) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 classical scholar.

He was born at Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez

Charles François Dumouriez

Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars. He shared the victory at Valmy with General François Christophe Kellermann, but later deserted the Revolutionary Army and became a royalist intriguer during the reign of Napoleon.-Early life:Dumouriez...

. Driven out in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte

Lucien Bonaparte

Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano , born Luciano Buonaparte, was the third surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino....

, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of the Upper Marne. He then resigned public employment permanently, in order to devote his time to the study of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

. In 1809 he was appointed deputy professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular professor in 1813 on the death of Pierre Henri Larcher

Pierre Henri Larcher

Pierre Henri Larcher was a French classical scholar and archaeologist.Born at Dijon, and originally intended for the law, he abandoned it for the classics. His translation of Chariton's Callirhoe marked him as an excellent Greek scholar...

. In 1828 he succeeded Jean-Baptiste Gail

Jean-Baptiste Gail

Jean-Baptiste Gail was a French Hellenist scholar, member of the Institut de France .-Early years:Gail was born in Paris on July 4, 1755. In 1791 he was appointed deputy, and in 1792 titular professor at the Collège de France...

 in the chair of Greek at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

. He also held the offices of librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi, and perpetual secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions. Boissonade is the father of Gustave Emile Boissonade

Gustave Emile Boissonade

Gustave Emile Boissonade de Fontarabie was a French legal scholar, responsible for drafting much of Japan's civil code during the Meiji Era, and honored as one of the founders of modern Japan's legal system.-Biography:...

.

Boissonade chiefly devoted his attention to later Greek literature:

• Philostratus
  Philostratus
  Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus , , called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab . His death...
  
  , Heroica (1806) and Epistolae (1842)
• Marinus
  Marinus of Neapolis
  Marinus was a Neoplatonist philosopher born in Flavia Neapolis , Palestine in around 450 AD. He was probably a Samaritan, or possibly a Jew....
  
  , Vita procli (1814)
• Tiberius Rhetor, De Figuris (1815)
• Nicetas Eugenianus, Drosilla et Charicles (1819)
• Herodian
  Aelius Herodianus
  Aelius Herodianus or Herodian was one of the most celebrated grammarians of Greco-Roman antiquity. He is usually known as Herodian except when there is a danger of confusion with the historian also named Herodian....
  
  , Partitiones (1819)
• Aristaenetus
  Aristaenetus
  Aristaenetus was an ancient Greek epistolographer who flourished in the 5th or 6th century AD. He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea , who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, 358, but internal evidence points to a much later date...
  
  , Epistolae (1822)
• Eunapius
  Eunapius
  Eunapius was a Greek sophist and historian of the 4th century. His principal surviving work is the Lives of the Sophists, a collection of the biographies of twenty-three philosophers and sophists.-Life:He was born at Sardis, AD 347...
  
  , Vitae Sophistarum (1822)
• Babrius
  Babrius
  Babrius was the author of a collection of fables written in Greek. He collected many of the fables that are known to us today simply as Aesop's fables .Practically nothing is known of him...
  
  , Fables (1844)
• Tzetzes
  John Tzetzes
  John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century.Tzetzes was Georgian on his mother's side...
  
  , Allegoriae Iliadis (1851)
• a Collection of Greek Poets in 24 vols.

The Anecdota Graeca (1829-1833) and Anecdota Nova (1844) are important for Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 history and the Greek grammarians.

A selection of his papers was published by Ferdinand Colincamp, Critique littéraire sous le premier Empire (1863), vol. I of which contains a complete list of his works, and a "Notice Historique sur Monsieur B." by Joseph Naudet

Joseph Naudet

Joseph Naudet was a French historian who was a native of Paris.He initially worked at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and was later a teacher of Latin poetry at the Collège de France...

.