author
Pierre Besnier
1648–1705
A French Jesuit man of letters, he spent much of his life studying languages and philology and became known for an extraordinary memory. His best-known work tried to show how many languages could be learned through the mastery of one.
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About the author
Born in Tours in 1648, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1663 and devoted himself to philological study. Contemporary reference pages describe him as a French Jesuit and man of letters who spent a large part of his life abroad and was noted for both his remarkable memory and his knowledge of languages.
He is chiefly remembered for La reunion des langues, ou L'art de les apprendre toutes par une seule (1674), a work on language learning and comparison that was later translated into English. Bibliographic records also associate him with the Dictionaire étymologique ou Origines de la langue françoise and Discours sur la sciences des étymologies from 1694.
He died in Constantinople in September 1705. Available source pages confirm his dates and works, but I could not confirm a suitable portrait image from the page results I found.