GIBBON, EDWARD. - English historian, b. at Putney-on-Thames on 8 May 1737, d. in London on 16 Jan. 1794. Having entered Oxford in 1752 to pursue his studies there, he converted to Catholicism, but, sent by his father to Lausanne (1753), he soon returned to Protestantism. In 1758 he was in London, where he continued his studies.
In 1763 he set out on an educational journey, stopped in Paris, where he formed ties with D'Alembert and Diderot, then in Lausanne, and from there went to Rome, where it seems he conceived the design of his great work, the History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Having returned to England (1765), he devoted himself to it, as well as to literary studies of slight importance. Elected a member of Parliament in 1774, he published in 1776 the first volume of the History, received with great acclaim but also with lively opposition for its disparagement of Christianity. In 1779 he wrote, on commission from the ministry, a Mémoire justificatif of anti-French polemic, obtaining in recompense for it, for a short time, a post at the Board of Trade. In 1781 he published the II and III vols. of his History. In 1783 he was again in Lausanne, whence he would return to England in 1788 for the publication of the last three volumes of the work.
His History is divided into two parts: the first (A.D. 180-641), rich in documentation, is conducted with scientific rigor, while the second (641-1453) is a summary in which he entirely disparages the history of the Byzantine Empire. As a whole the work is animated by a rationalistic spirit and aims to strip the facts of every extrahuman element (it was placed on the Index in 1783).
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Sergio Cotta