Full Name: Michel Eyquem de MontaigneKnown AS: Michel de Montaigne
Nickname: Don't have a Nickname
Father: Pierre Eyquem (1495-1568)
Mother: Antoinette López de Villanueva
Wife: Françoise de la Chassaigne (m. 1565)
Daughter: Léonore
Date of Birth: 28 February 1533
Birth Place: Château de Montaigne, France
Date of Death: 13 September 1592
Death Place: Château de Montaigne, France
Cause of Death: Unspecified
Remains: Buried, Église de Foeuillens, Bordeaux, France
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Education: College of Guienne
Occupation: Philosopher, Scholar, Journalist, Essayist
Region: Western Philosophy
Notable Ideas: The essay, Montaigne's wheel argument
Influenced By: Horace, Heraclitus, Sextus Empiricus, Seneca, Plutarch, Cato
Major Writings: Essais (1580, essays), An Apology for Raymond Sebond, The essays of Michel de Montaigne, The essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne, The Complete Works, On Friendship (1915), Montaigne, Selected Essays / Essais choisis etc.
The French philosopher, scholar, journalist and author Michel Eyquem de
Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592) is known for
popularizing the essay as a literary genre, in which he used
self-portrayal as a mirror of humanity in general and commonly thought
of as the father of modern skepticism. Montaigne writing influenced
directly on writers all over the world, including René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Hazlitt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Francis Bacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer, Isaac Asimov and possibly on the later works of William Shakespeare.
Early Life & Childhood: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born on 28 February 1533 in Château de
Montaigne, not far from Bordeaux, France. His family was very rich. His
father, Pierre Eyquem (1495-1568) was a French Roman Catholic soldier in
Italy as well as the mayor of Bordeaux. His mother, Antoinette López de
Villanueva was a convert to Protestantism. Montaigne’s intellectual
education was assigned to a German teacher. His father conjointly
appointed servants who might speak Latin fluently and conjointly gave
serious directions to any or all of them to talk to the boy solely in
Latin. A similar directions were totally directed at every person whom
typically interacted having with him. At six years old Montaigne was
sent to the collège de Guienne at Bordeaux, to study under the guidance
of the greatest Latin scholar of that time, George Buchanan. In the school,
he learned the entire curriculum by the end of his 13th year. Then he
studied law in Toulouse and began a career in the local legal system.
Personal Life: By pressured of his family, Michel de Montaigne married Françoise de la
Chassaigne, daughter of a member of the Bordeaux parlement in 1565. The
couple had six daughters, but only the second-born daughter, Léonore who
survived childhood.
Later Life & Death: In 1557, Michel de Montaigne was a counselor of the Court des Aides of
Périgueux and then was appointed counselor of the Parlement in Bordeaux.
From 1561 to 1563, he was a courtier at the court of Charles IX. He was
awarded the highest honour of the French nobility, the collar of the
order of St. Michael. In 1568, his father died and his translation work
of the Catalan monk Raymond Sebond's Theologia naturalis got
published. In 1570, he came back to his birthplace in Château de Montaigne
after inheriting the family's estate. He became the Lord of Montaigne.
In 1571, he retired from public life to the Tower of the Château. In
1578, Montaigne contracted kidney stones. In 1580, he published first
volume of Essais. From 1580 to 1581, Montaigne travelled to France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. He finished the third volume of Essais in 1588. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne died 13 September 1592 and was buried at Église de Foeuillens in Bordeaux, France.
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