Pierre de Frasnay

Aesop and the beasts inspire the poet, from de Frasnay’s collection of fables, 1750

Pierre de Frasnay (1676 in Nevers – 27 April 1753 in Nevers) was an 18th-century French writer, translator and local historian who on 15 May 1725 became baron de Neuvy-le-Barrois.

Work[edit]

De Frasnay worked in the finance department of local government. He began his career as a writer by publishing genre poems in classical style in the Mercure de France. Among these was his Fayence (chinaware), written as a boost to the Nevers pottery trade and soon translated into Latin as Vasa Faventina, also in the 1735 Mercure.[1] His subsequent researches into local history involved him in controversy concerning their accuracy, from which he soon withdrew.[2] His final work was a two-volume compilation of Aesopic poems, Mythologie ou recueil des fables grecques, esopiques et sybaritiques (Orléans, 1750), to which he added prose reflections drawing out the human lessons of the fables.[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Édouard Garnier, Histoire de la céramique, poteries, faïences et porcelaines chez tous les peuples depuis les temps anciens jusqu'à nos jours (Tours, 1882), p.274
  2. ^ Louis de Sainte-Marie, Recherches historiques sur Nevers (Nevers, 1810), pp.384-7
  3. ^ Volume 1 and Volume 2 on Google Books