CLUVIER, PHILIP, in Latin Cluverius, a celebrated geographer, born at Dantzic in 1580. He was originally intended for the bar, but nature had designed him for different pursuits. He travelled into Germany and the Netherlands, in order to study law; but while at Leyden, Joseph Scaliger persuaded him to give way to his genius for geography. Cluver followed his advice, and for this purpose visited the greater part of the European states. He was well versed in many languages, and wherever he
went he obtained friends and protectors. On his return to Leyden, he taught there with great applause; and died in 1623, at the age of forty-three. He wrote, 1. De tribus Rheni alicis atque asiis, et de quinque populis quondam accolis, inserted in the Recueil des Antiquités de la Germanie Inférieure, Leyden, 1611, 4to; 2. Germania Antiqua libri tres, necnon Vindelicia et Noricum, Leyden, 1616, 2 vols. fol.; 3. Sicilia Antiqua libri duo, Sardinia ac Corsica Antiqua, Leyden, 1619, fol.; 4. Italia Antiqua, Leyden, 1624, two vols. in one, fol.; 5. Introductiones in Universam Geographiam tam veterem quam novam, libri sex, Leyden, 1629, 12mo. The best edition of this last work is that of Amsterdam, 1729, in quarto, with notes by Bunon, Hekel, and De la Martinière.