Louis Moréri

Louis Moréri
Louis Moréri, frontispiece, etching by Gerard Edelinck after a drawing by De Troyes, 17th century
Born	25 March 1643 Bargemon, France
Died	10 July 1680 (aged 38) Paris, France

Louis Moréri (25 March 1643 – 10 July 1680) was a French priest and encyclopedist.

Moréri was born in 1643 in Bargemon, a village in the ancient province of Provence. His great-grandfather, Joseph Chatranet, a native of Dijon, had settled in Provence under King Charles IX of France and taken the name of the village of Moréri, which he acquired through marriage.

Louis Moréri studied humanities in Draguignan and later rhetoric and philosophy at the Jesuit College of Aix-en-Provence. He then studied theology, obtaining his doctoral degree, and was ordained a priest in Lyon. During his stay in Lyon, he published several works, among them La pratique de la perfection chrétienne et religieuse (1667), a translation of the work of the Spanish Jesuit theologian, Alonso Rodriguez. It was probably in Lyon that he met Samuel Chappuzeau, who claimed to have first given him the idea of writing his encyclopedia.

In 1675, shortly after publishing the first edition of his encyclopedia, Moréri accompanied his bishop to Paris, where he became acquainted with Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, then the minister of foreign affairs. Three years later, he was hired to be a tutor for Pomponne's children. During this time, he worked on a second edition of his encyclopedia. In 1680, midway through the printing of the second edition, he died of tuberculosis.