Edward Gibbon

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). According to Gibbon (1737-94) , the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe.

The image above is of Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton, oil on mahogany panel, 1773.

With

David Womersley The Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford

Charlotte Roberts Lecturer in English at University College London

And

Karen O’Brien Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:50.1	Hello on the 15th of October, 1764, Edward Gibbon sat amidst the ruins of Rome while
0:56.2	barefooted friars were seeing investors in the temple of Jupiter.
0:59.7	Then an idea came to him. This was to write the history of the decline and fall of the Roman
1:05.4	Empire, covering 13 centuries, an enormous intellectual undertaking that became a phenomenal
1:11.3	success. It ran to six large volumes and was published
1:15.0	within 1776 and 1789. And in doing so he reinvented what it meant to write
1:21.1	history, to be a historian and the importance of
1:23.7	sources so it's worth saying that the source of the Beaufort friar's
1:27.2	anecdote is Gibbon's own we'd need to discuss Edward Gibbonne I David Wommersley
	...

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