Biography
Benjamin Henry Latrobe was born on May 1, 1764 at the Fulneck Moravian Settlement, near Pudsey in West Yorkshire, England, to Reverend Benjamin Latrobe and Anna Margaretta Antes. Antes was born in the American colony of Pennsylvania, but was sent to England by her father, a wealthy landowner, to attend a Moravian school at Fulneck. Latrobe's father, responsible for all Moravian schools and establishments in Britain, had an extensive circle of friends in the higher ranks of society. He stressed the importance of education, scholarship, and the value of social exchange, while Latrobe's mother instilled curiosity and interest in America. From a young age, Latrobe enjoyed drawing landscapes and buildings. He was a brother of Christian Ignatius Latrobe.
In 1776, at the age of 12, Latrobe was sent away to a Moravian School at Niesky in Silesia, near the border of Saxony and Prussia. At age 18, Latrobe spent several months traveling around Germany, and then joined the Prussian army, becoming close friends with a distinguished officer in the army of the United States. Latrobe may have served in the Austrian army, and suffered some injuries or illness. After recovering, he embarked on a continental Grand Tour, visiting eastern Saxony, Paris, Italy, and other places. Through his education and travels, Latrobe mastered German, French, Greek, and Latin, had advanced ability in Italian and Spanish, and knowledge of Hebrew.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Henry Latrobe
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)