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Description: | Author and philosopher, born Paris, France, November 21st 1694.
Educated at the Jesuit College Louis-le-Grand he left school destined for the law but his wit, humour and remarkable gift for literature led to him becoming the toast of Parisian Society. An advocate of religious and political tolerance he became a major figure of the Enlightenment. In 1716 he was banished from Paris for several months for satirizing the Duc d?Orleans and in 1717 he was arrested for writing satirical verses ridiculing the government. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and wrote his first major play Oedipe during his time there. In 1726, after insulting the powerful nobleman the Chevalier de Rohan, he was exiled and lived in England until 1729. Voltaire was attracted to the ideas of the scientist Isaac Newton and he published Elements of the Philosophy of Newton in 1738.
Back in France he built up a large fortune through various speculative ventures but was banished a second time. In 1750 he was invited to Berlin by Frederick the Great and became the King?s Chamberlain but left in 1753 after offending Frederick. In 1758 he purchased an estate called Ferney near Geneva. Visited by great literary men and learned professors it soon became the intellectual capital of Europe.
In 1778 he was invited to return to Paris where he was hailed as a hero of liberalism. He died the same year. Throughout his life Voltaire produced an almost constant stream of books, plays, poems, pamphlets and letters. His chief works include Henriade, Letters on the English, Candide, Irene and the Dictionnaire Philosophique.
In 1791 his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris but in 1814 a group of right wing religious fanatics dumped his remains in a rubbish heap. His heart lies in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | HISTPER : DEATH_MASK : HISTORICAL COLLECTION : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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