Peter Wesseling - Professor at Utrecht

Professor at Utrecht University until his death in 1764.

He is best known for his editions of Diodorus (1746) and Herodotus (1763).1

Petrus Wesseling was the son of Gerhard Wesseling and Anna Reiner, a fairly affluent family. He lost his father when he was 10, following which he was sent to his uncle in Emden, where he attended Latin school. He later went to the Gymnasium Arnoldinium in Steinfurt. Wesseling began studying theology at the University of Utrecht in 1712, but in 1714 transferred to Franeker University from which he later graduated. In 1724 he became Professor of History and Rhetoric at the latter. On June 13, 1735, he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric, History and Greek at the University of Utrecht, of which he was also Rector in 1736-37 and 1749-50. 

He was married to Anna Apollonia (d. 1757) with whom he had one son, Johannes (d. 1750), and two daughters, Cornelia Elizabeth (d. 1792) and Anna Apollonia, the latter of whom married Professor Gisbert Bonnet.

• 1Sandys, John E. (1915). A Short History of Classical Scholarship, p. 281, Get it at