Lably
Skip to content

Merian family

  • 4 min read
  • 5 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Basel and Switzerland

The younger Basel line includes a Frankfurt sub-branch founded by the engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650), whose descendants became artists during the Baroque period and ran what became one of Europe's largest publishers in the 17th century. Matthäus Merian's daughter was the naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian.

Origin and distribution

The family name is not limited to Basel, and is also found (in variants like Meria, Merian, Meriam and von Merian) in Alsace, Lorraine, Provence, Lower Austria, and Mecklenburg. These families are probably not directly related to the Merians of Basel, but a common root is likely in the former Prince-Bishopric of Basel in the earliest forms of the name Merillate, Merylat, Miregla, Mureglat or Latinized Mariatte. The name probably derives from the office of Meier (meaning steward or estate manager); unlikely, however, is a speculated relationship to the community of Meria in Corsica or to an alleged Merian Abbey in the Archdiocese of Strasbourg, and the same is unlikely with reference to the Marioni nobility from Milan or to de Muriaux in the Bishopric of Basel.

The oldest written reference to the family in the bishopric dates from the year 1385 with the mention of a Jehannin dit Mariatte de Buratte ("'Johann, called Mariatte, citizens, bears witness'"), who resided in a dairy at Bure, Switzerland. This dairy farm had belonged since 1283 to the bishops of Basel, before the dukes of Alsace and the Counts of Mömpelgard/Montbéliard and von Pfirt/Ferrette.

Sign in to keep reading

4 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Scientists, inventors, and mathematicians

National Academy of SciencesScience branch of the US National AcademiesBill ClintonPresident of the United States from 1993 to 2001American Philosophical SocietyAmerican scholarly organization and learned societyBirth nameA birth name is the name of a person given when they are born. The term may be applied to National Institutes of HealthUS government medical research agencyGermansPeople of Germany