Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer (10 December 1790 – 26 April 1861) was a Tyrolean traveller, journalist, politician and historian, best known for his controversial theories concerning the racial origins of the Greeks, and for his travel writings.

Fallmerayer was born, the seventh of ten children, in Weiler Pairdorf, a village in Tschötsch near Brixen in Tyrol. The region was at the time of Fallmerayer's birth subject to the Habsburg Monarchy, in 1805 it became a part of Bavaria, and is today located in Italy. His parents were small farmers. From the age of seven Fallmerayer attended the local school in Tschötsch and worked as a shepherd.

In 1801 the family moved to Brixen, where Fallmerayer's father found employment as a day-laborer. Fallmerayer was enrolled in the Volksschule, where he impressed the priests with his talents. In 1803 he entered the cathedral school as a Gymnasiast, whence he was graduated in 1809 with a diploma in metaphysics, mathematics, and the philosophy of religion. (The Gymnasium in Brixen today bears Fallmerayer's name). He then left Tyrol, at the time in the midst of a freedom struggle against Bavaria, for Salzburg.

In Salzburg Fallmerayer found employment as a private tutor, and enrolled in a Benedictine seminary, where he studied classical, modern, and oriental philology, literature, history, and philosophy. After a year's study he sought to assure to himself the peace and quiet necessary for a student's life by entering the abbey of Kremsmünster, but difficulties put in his way by the Bavarian officials prevented the accomplishment of this intention.

At the University of Landshut (today the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich), to which he removed in 1812, he first applied himself to jurisprudence, but soon devoted his attention exclusively to history and classical and oriental philology. His immediate necessities were provided for by a stipendium from the Bavarian crown.

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