Eckhel, Joseph Hilary

, an eminent antiquary and medallist, was born at Entzesfield in Austria, Jan. 13, 1737, and in 1751 entered the order of the Jesuits at Vienna, with whom he studied philosophy, mathematics, divinity, and the learned languages. His skill in medals, which appeared very early, induced his superiors to give him the place of keeper of their cabinet of medals and coins. In 1772, he was sent to Rome, where Leopold II. grand duke of Florence, employed him to arrange his collection, and on his return in 1774, he was appointed director of the imperial cabinet of medals at Vienna, and professor of antiquities. In 1775 he published his first valuable work, under the title of “Nummi veteres anecdoti ex museis Csesareo Vindobonensi, Florentine magni Ducis Etruriw, | Granelliaho nunc Ceesareo, aliisque,” Vienna, 4to, in which he arranges the various articles according to the new system which he had formed, and which promises to be advantageous from its simplicity, although it has some trifling inconveniencies. This was followed by his “Catalogus Musei Caesarei Vindobonensis Nummorum veterum,” Vienna, 1779, 2 vols. fol. This has only eight plates, containing such articles as had never been published, or were not noticed in his preceding work. In 1786 he published^ “Sylloge nnmmorum veterum anecdotorum thesauri CBBsarei,” Vienna, 4to, and “Descriptip nuinmorum Antiochae Syriae, sive specimen artis criticse numerariff,” ibid. In 1787 he published, in German, a small elementary work on coins for the use of schools, but which has been thought better adapted to give young persons a taste for the science than to initiate them in it. This was followed, in 1788, by his “Explanation of the Gems” in the Imperial collection, a very magnificent book. In 1792 he published the first volume of his great work on numismati<:al history, entitled “Doctrina munmorum veterum,” and the eighth and last volume in 1798; the excellent method and style of this work, and the vast erudition displayed, place aim at the head of modern writers on this subject, and have occasioned the remark that he is the Linnæus of his science. This very eminent antiquary died May 16, 1798. ¹