Gottfried Sellius

[2] and to be one of the three original initiators of an encyclopedia project, which subsequently turned into the Encyclopédie.

He taught experimental physics at Halle, but money troubles caused him to move away.

[7] In Paris Sellius took on translation work, in particular of the Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers.

[1] This project came to a brusque end, when the prospective publisher André le Breton rejected the draft translation of Sellius and John Mills, leading to a violent clash and litigation.

It did clear the way for the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, conceived around 1750 as a new adaptation of the work of Chambers, though subsequently taking its own course.