A New and General Biographical Dictionary

A New and General Biographical Dictionary. This reference work offers a concise, alphabetically organized collection of biographical sketches and critical notices covering eminent figures from ancient Greece and Rome through the medieval and early modern periods in Europe and the Mediterranean world. Each entry presents a life and writings, major works, career highlights, notable actions or beliefs, and occasional judgments by later scholars. The excerpt emphasizes how invention, religion, philosophy, art, and statecraft intertwined to shape intellectual and cultural life; it charts the transmission of classical learning and the contested reception of Christian authors and Church history, as well as religious controversies and scholarly disputes. It also highlights the role of travel, patronage, and ecclesiastical or courtly power in enabling or hindering a figure’s work and influence. Representative figures are grouped in illustrative sampling (e.g., Porphyrius, Poussin, Puffendorf, Proclus, Procopius, Salmasius, Spinoza, Rubens, Sophocles, Sancroft, and Molinos), illustrating the breadth across philosophers, painters, theologians, jurists, historians, poets, and editors.