Daniel Philippidis

Daniel Philippidis (Greek: Δανιήλ Φιλιππίδης; Romanian: Dimitrie Daniil Philippide; c. 1750 – 1832) was a Greek scholar, figure of the modern Greek Enlightenment and member of the patriotic organization Filiki Etaireia. He was one of the most active scholars of the Greek diaspora in the Danubian Principalities and Western Europe. Philippidis mainly wrote geographical and historical works as well as translated important handbooks of science and philosophy.

Philippidis was born in Milies, a village in Thessaly, Ottoman Empire (present-day Greece), and received early schooling in his home town. He attended the Athonite Academy, in Mount Athos but the poor quality of teaching after the departure of Eugenios Voulgaris frustrated him and in 1779 he continued his studies at the School of Saint Minas in Chios. A year later he moved to Romania and studied at the Princely Academy of Bucharest under notable scholars such as Neophytos Kavsokalyvitis. Philippidis remained in Bucharest until 1784 and became a teacher at the Princely Academy of Iaşi from 1784 to 1786.

In 1788 he moved to Vienna, where he became acquainted with Anthimos Gazis, scholar and publisher of the periodical Hermes o Logios. Two years later he is found in Paris, where he witnessed the outbreak of the French Revolution. His stay in Paris was crucial for the development of his philosophical and scientific views. There he had the opportunity to attend lessons presented by important scientists such as the astronomer Jérôme Lalande and the geographer Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage. Philippidis left Paris in 1794, possibly because of the violent developments following the French Revolution, which had disappointed him. After a series of moves he settled again in Iaşi (1796). For a short period (1803–06) he taught in the local Princely Academy, despite the objections of its conservative scholar and thanks to the support of the prince Alexander Mourousis, who intended to upgrade the Academy.

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