ZEUSS, JOHANN KASPAR. - Historian and philologist, b. at Vogtendorf (Franconia) on 22 July 1806, d. there on 10 Nov. 1856.
After completing his secondary studies at Bamberg and graduating from the University of Munich, he successively held positions as professor of history at a gymnasium in Munich and at the lycées of Speyer and Bamberg. A scholar of prodigious learning, he devoted himself to history and ethnology, but especially to philology, achieving world renown for his research on the language of the Celts. He won the admiration of scholars with his early work *Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme* (Munich 1837), a comprehensive compilation of all passages in Greek and Latin literature relating to the Germanic peoples of Central Europe (a valuable working tool also for its abundant critical notes, it was reprinted several times until 1925). Two years later, Zeuss published another major work, *Die Herkunft der Baiern von den Markomannen gegen die bisherigen Muthmassungen bewiesen* (ibid. 1839; 2nd ed. 1857), followed by *Traditiones possessionesque Wissenburgenses* (Speyer 1842) and *Die Freie Reichstadt Speier vor ihrer Zerstörung nach urkundlichen Quellen geschildert* (ibid. 1843). But his masterpiece was the *Grammatica Celtica e monumentis vetustis tam Hibernicae linguae quam Britannicae rum dialectorum Cambriae, Cornicae, Aeromicae comparatis Gallicae priscae reliquiis* (Berlin 1853; 2nd ed. 1871), in which, as the title indicates, he examined, through extensive research in the principal European libraries, all surviving fragments of the most ancient and nearly forgotten Celtic languages, so that it may be said that Zeuss revived the study of Celtic philology, which had never before been attempted.
Though remaining in the world, contrary to the wishes of his family who had hoped he would become a priest, Zeuss was a man of sincere and practiced piety in an age and environment dominated by positivism.
Renzo U. Montini