Joseph de Jouvancy

Joseph de Jouvancy (also Jouvency; Latinised Josephus Juvencius) (14 September 1643 – 29 May 1719 Rome ) was a French poet, pedagogue, philologist, and historian.

In 1699 he was called by his superiors to Rome to continue the history of the Society of Jesus begun by Niccolò Orlandini, and was engaged on this work until his death.

He procured the translation into Latin of many works in other languages, such as the funeral oration for Prince Henri de Bourbon, oldest son of Louis XIV[citation needed],[2] delivered in December 1683 in Paris, by the celebrated pulpit orator Louis Bourdaloue, Cleander et Eudoxius, a translation of the Entretiens de Cléandre et d'Eudoxe of Father Daniel.

Jouvancy also translated into Latin biographies, written by other Jesuits, of the saints of the order, St. Stanislaus Kostka and St. John Francis Regis.

This work, based on Isocrates, Demosthenes, and the leading Greek authors, was intended to encourage the cultivation of the mother tongue, as well as the study of the two classical languages.

After careful examination of the manuscript by a commission of the order, it was published in Florence in 1703 as an official textbook under the title: Magistris scholarum inferiorum Societatis Jesu de ratione discendi et docendi.

In this pioneer work Jouvancy took the first steps in the method for the study of philology which was developed by the great investigators of antiquity of the nineteenth century at the German universities.