Education:
Study at Utrecht & Leiden.
Professional Experience:
Professor of Eloquence & history, Franeker, 1735-42; professor of poetry, 1741-2; professor of history and philology, Athenaeum (Amsterdam), 1742-77; professor of poetry, general librarian, and inspector of the gymnasium; meme. German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina.
Publications:
P. Virgilii Maronis Opera, 4 vols. (Amsterdam: Jacob Wetsten, 1780).
Notes:
Burman was the nephew of Pieter Burman the Elder (1668-1741) and was raised by his uncle in Utrecht. For a time he studied law and philology under the jurist and philologist Carl Andreas Duker (1670-1752) and the jurist and editor of Livy, Arnold von Drakenborch (1684-1748), but his principal mentor was his uncle. He surpassed his uncle in his knowledge of Greek (as evidenced by his edition of Aristophanes) and was somewhat more restrained in his willingness to emend texts. He was, however, a tireless and irascible champion of his senior against the criticisms of others and piously completed his editions of Virgil and Claudian, much as L. van Santen would complete the Younger's edition of Propertius, only half completed at his death. Burman was hired at the University of Fraeneker, the second Protestant university in the Netherlands and in 1741 he was also named professor of poetry, but he moved to Amsterdam a year later, where he assumed a number of duties. He displayed the family temper disputes with the German Christian Adolph Klotz (1738-71) at Jena. but he is best known for his Latin Anthology, but he also produced notable editions of Ad Herrennium and De Inventione had successive editions.
