From the History of the Decipherment of West Semitic Writing: Events and People. VII. Barthélemy the Orientalist: Between Scholarship and High Society. Part IV

The essay deals with Barthélemy’s stay in Italy in 1755–1758, his first impressions of direct acquaintance with the monuments of ancient Roman culture, his plans for future academic work. It also reveals his close and lifelong friendship with the family of the Duc de Choiseul that would later in Paris become a turning point in his difficult choice between his dedication to the scholarship and material well-being. Barthélemy’s correspondence with his friends allows us to imagine the abbot’s understandable desire for a comfortable life, how his sense of duty and gratitude to powerful patrons drew the scholar into the circle of high-society life and moved away from his former friends increasing the number of enemies.