Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher, author, and lexicographer. He is best known for his Historical and Critical Dictionary, whose publication began in 1697. Many of the more controversial ideas in the book were hidden away in the voluminous footnotes, or they were slipped into articles on seemingly uncontroversial topics. Bayle is commonly regarded as a forerunner of the Encyclopédistes of the mid-18th century.
Bayle c. 1675
Memorial stone for the Walloon graves on the General Cemetery in Crooswijk. Among them, Pierre Bayle.
Dictionnaire Historique et Critique
The Dictionnaire Historique et Critique was a French biographical dictionary written by Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), a Huguenot philosopher who lived and published in Rotterdam, in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, after fleeing his native France due to religious persecution. In 1689, Bayle began making notes on errors and omissions in Louis Moreri's Grand Dictionaire historique (1674), a previous encyclopedia, and these notes ultimately developed into his own Dictionnaire.
Image: Bayle dictionnaire 1696