Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
QUINET, EDGAR. — French historian and politician, b. at Bourg-en-Bresse on 17 February 1803, d. in Paris on 27 March 1875. In 1839 he was called to teach foreign literature at the Academy of Lyons, from which in 1841 he moved to the chair of Romance literatures at the Collège de France. Suspended in 1846 by Guizot for his violent positions against the Jesuits and Ultramontanism (Catholic Church), he took part in the February Revolution and was a deputy to the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies; an exile from 1852 in Brussels and French Switzerland, he returned to Paris upon the fall of Napoleon III and once again sat on the extreme left of the Legislative Assembly.
From childhood he had enthusiastically read the masterpieces of Italian and English literature, especially those of the Renaissance. He translated Herder’s Philosophy of History, and travelled in England, Germany, Greece, and Italy, developing there a Romantic taste which he freely expressed in the mystery Ahasvérus (on the legend of the Wandering Jew), and he set forth acute observations on the future of Europe in books and articles. Removed from teaching, he developed his ideas on Italian history in an organized form in the two volumes on the Révolutions d’Italie (1848–52), which had a considerable influence on the subsequent works of Giuseppe Ferrari (1858) and Francesco De Sanctis (1872). Among the other works of his exile, Histoire de mes idées; Philosophie de l'histoire de France (1858); La Révolution (1865), he continued to dedicate some to our country: France et Italie; La Question Romaine devant l'histoire (1867).
The works of Q. that most strongly reflect his violent spirit against the Catholic Church are on the Index: Ahasvérus (decr. 29 January 1835); Le génie des religions (decr. 8 August 1844); Allemagne et Italie (decr. 15 April 1848); La Révolution (decr. 17 December 1866).
His wife published his complete works posthumously, in thirty volumes (Paris 1877–82), and composed a biography of him in two parts, Avant and Depuis l'exil (there 1888–1889).
BIBL.: J.-J. Kaspar, La révolution religieuse d'après E. Q., Paris 1906; C. Pellegrini, E. Q. e l'Italia. Pisa 1919; A. Valès, E. Q., sa vie, son oeuvre, Carrières-sous-Poissy 1936; H. Tronchon, Le jeune E. Q., Strasbourg-Paris 1937; G. Petronio, De Sanctis e Q., in Romana, 3 (1939), pp. 321–45; E. Santarelli, Attualità del Q., in Il Ponte, 4 (1948), pp. 421–28.
Enzo Bottasso
Cite this article
“QUINET, EDGAR.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X (1953), p. 253. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/quinet-edgar.
