, canon of the cathedral church at Vienna, was born in that metropolis, the
th of March 1704. He shewed an early inclination for
literature and bibliographical inquiries, and wrote some
verses, which he afterwards judiciously suppressed. His
first publication, in 1739, was a piece entitled “Relation,
d'une assemblee tenue au bas de Parnasse, pour la reforme
des Belles Lettres,
” 12mo. Mr. Sabathier, with more
spleen than reason, observes that the place for this assembly was very happily chosen. But Artigni is more
advantageously known by his “Memoires d'histoire, de
critique & de litterature,
” Paris, 1749, & seqq. 7 vols. 12mo.
Though this book is a compilation, it sufficiently proves
him to have been endowed with the spirit of disquisition
and criticism. It is, however, necessary to mention that
the most interesting articles are taken from the manuscript
history of the French poets by the late abbé Brun, dean
of S. Agricola at Avignon. This history existed in ms.
in the library belonging to the seminary of S. Sulpice de
Lyon, where the abbe le Clerc, the friend of abbe* Brun,
had lived a long time and it was by means of some
member of the seminary that the abbe* d' Artigni procured
it. Before his death he was employed on an abridgement
of the Universal History, part of which was found among
his manuscripts. He died at Vienna the 6th of May 1768,
in his 65th year. He was of a polite, obliging, and cheerful temper and his conversation was rendered highly
agreeable by the great number of anecdotes and pleasant
stories with which his memory was stored.