PRICE (PRICAEUS), JOHN (1600? - 1676), classical scholar and divine

Born in London, c. 1600, of Welsh parentage. He was educated at Westminster, whence he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1617, but, being a Roman Catholic, he did not matriculate, and left the University without a degree. He accompanied Thomas Howard, one of the sons of the earl of Arundel, to Italy, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Laws. After returning to England he went to Ireland with the earl of Strafford, and became the friend of archbishop Ussher. During the Civil War he wrote some pamphlets, the titles of which are not now known, in the Royalist interest, and in consequence suffered imprisonment. After his release he returned to the Continent, and about 1652 settled at Florence, where the grand duke Ferdinand II made him his keeper of medals and afterwards gave him the professorship of Greek at the University of Pisa. He finally settled in Rome, where cardinal Francesco Barberini was his patron. He spent the last years of his life in the monastery of S. Augustine, Rome, dying there in 1676. Price, or Pricaeus, as he Latinized his name, was one of the most eminent classical scholars of his day, and he added to his classical scholarship a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. He published editions of the Apologia (1637) and Metamorphoses (1650) of Apuleius, and made excerpts from the Greek manuscripts in the Imperial library at Vienna, some of which are now in the British Museum. He also prepared an edition of Hesychius of Alexandria, but his publication of the work was forestalled by that of Leyden (1668), which, however, incorporated Price's Index. In addition, he published commentaries on many books of the New Testament, which were later included in Pearson's Critici Sacri. Two of his letters to Jean Bourdelot, the French classical scholar, are published in Deux lettres inédites de Jean Price à Bourdelot, publiées et annotées par P. T. de Larroque (Paris, 1883).

Author

• John James Jones, (1892 - 1957)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and authorities cited therein
• Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1813–20)
• Barker and Stenning, The record of old Westminsters a biographical list of all those who are known to have been educated at Westminster school from the earliest times to 1927 (London 1928)
• Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford
• H. Blackwell, NLW MS 9270A: A Dictionary of Welsh Biography
• British Museum. Catalogue of Printed Books (1882)

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: John Price

Additional Links

• VIAF: 25672399
• Wikidata: Q6253395

Published date: 1959

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