Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (1694–1748) was a natural law professor at the
Academy of Geneva. He was brought up in a family with long traditions
both of wealth and of political influence. Not only was Jean-Jacques’s
father a member of the ruling Genevan small council (petit conseil ), but
his grandfather had held a position in the council of two hundred (grand
conseil ) and his forefathers had been prominent in the politics of Lucca
in Italy, the area from which his family originally came. In 1709 JeanJacques began studying philosophy and law at the Academy of Geneva,
where he acquainted himself with Pufendorf ’s newly translated natural
law treatises. (Jean Barbeyrac’s famous French translations of Pufendorf’s two main natural law treatises were published in 1706 and 1707.)
In 1716 Burlamaqui became a lawyer, but instead of working as such he
started giving private lectures on natural law and in 1720 applied to the
small council for the title of honorary professor.
Burlamaqui’s lectures drew foreign students to Geneva, and his natural law treatise was translated into English, Latin, Dutch, Danish, Italian, and Spanish and republished in more than sixty different editions.
The English translation became a standard textbook both at Cambridge
and at the foremost American colleges. T