Daniel, Peteu

, a scholar and antiquary of the sixteenth century, was an advocate at Orleans, where he mostly resided, and assessor to the abbey of St. Benoitsur-Loire, which he was frequently obliged to visit, in the discharge of his office. His taste for polite literature, and general reputation for such learning as was not very common in his time, recommended him to the esteem of the cardinal de Chatillon, a liberal Maecenas of that age. The abbey of St. Benoit having been pillaged during the war in 1562, Daniel with great difficulty saved some manuscripts, and purchased others from the soldiers, and removed them to Orleans. Among these was the Commentary of Servius on Virgil, which he published in 1600 and the “Aulularia” of Plautus, which he had printed immediately after rescuing these Mss. in 1564. He prepared also an edition of Petronius, but it was not published until 1629, after his death. This event took place at Paris, in 1603, when his friends Paul Petau, and James Bongars, purchased his library for 15OO livres, and divided the Mss. between them. Among other eminent men, Daniel was particularly intimate with Buchanan, and has been highly praised by Scioppius, Scaliger, and Turnebus. ²