Noël-Antoine Pluche

• Born — 13 November 1688 • Birthplace — Reims, Kingdom of France • Died — 19 November 1761 • Place of death — La Varenne-Saint-Maur, Kingdom of France • Subject — natural history • Notable Works — Spectacle de la nature

Pluche, son of a baker, was born in Reims, in a street now named after him. He became a teacher of rhetoric. The Bishop of Laon made him head of the town's college, a post he accepted to escape judicial consequences of opposing the papal bull Unigenitus (1713) He withdrew in 1749 to La Varenne-Saint-Maur, near Paris, where he died. His Spectacle de la nature, ou Entretiens sur les particularités de l'Histoire naturelle qui ont paru les plus propres à rendre les jeunes gens curieux et à leur former l'esprit was published in nine volumes 1732–1742, and widely translated all over Europe. Although it influenced many to become naturalists, it was a work of popularization, not of science.

• Illustration — Istoria del cielo considerato secondo le idee de' poeti, de' filosofi, e di Mosè, 1747 * * * * * * * *