Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury, England, in 1588 and died in Hardwick in 1679. From 1603 to 1608, he studied at Oxford and then became the private tutor of the eldest son of Lord Cavendish, a lifelong connection. He undertook two major trips to Europe (1629-1631 and 1634-1637), where he met significant figures of the intellectual world, including Mersenne, Galilei, Gassendi, and Descartes. In 1640, as the civil war approached, he left for Paris, where he stayed for eleven years. After returning to England, he lived in seclusion, having already published his major political treatises, namely The Elements of Law (1640), De Cive (1642), and Leviathan (1651). Among his philosophical works, De Corpore (1655) holds a central place. Notably, Hobbes began his literary career with a translation of Thucydides (1628) and concluded it with a verse translation of the Odyssey (1675) and the Iliad (1676).