Belsazar Hacquet

Belsazar de la Motte Hacquet (also Balthasar or Balthazar Hacquet) (c. 1739 – January 10, 1815) was a Carniolan physician of French descent in the Enlightenment Era. He was a war surgeon, a surgeon in the mining town of Idrija, and a professor of anatomy and surgery in Laibach (now Ljubljana). He researched the geology and botany of Carniola, Istria, and nearby places, and was the first explorer of the Julian Alps. He also did ethnographical work among the South Slavic peoples, particularly among the Slovene-speaking population. He self-identified primarily as a chemist and introduced the methods of chemical analysis to Carniola.

Hacquet was mysterious about the time and place of his birth and the two have remained uncertain, although sources agree that he was an illegitimate child. Most sources have cited the information from his autobiography that he was born in 1739 or 1740 in Le Conquet, Brittany to an aristocratic father. When he lived in Ljubljana, he told Sigmund Zois that he was born to a Russian grandee, but this has not been supported by any sources. In 1821, the German lexicon Das Gelehrte Teutschland mentioned that he had been born in Metz, Lorraine. A 2003 investigation in the town archives in Metz has given further credence to the claim that Hacquet had been born in this town or its vicinity. The author hypothesised that Balthasar Hacquet was a son of a poor mother and an unknown father, baptised on 11 August 1736 as Jean. However, the question remains unsettled pending further research.

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