'Édition la meilleure qui ait paru jusqu'ici'. (BRUNET 2,2 1524). Johann Friedrich, born 1611, fter travelling and studying in Europa, was appointed professor in eloquence and history at the 'Athenaeum Illustre' of Deventer in 1642. Here he started a period of continuous and fruitful scholarly activity and published his first edition of Gellius in 1651. In 1658 he came to Leiden to succeed Daniel Heinsius as professor of Greek and History. In 1687 the son of Johann Friedrich, Jacobus (Jakob) Gronovius, 1645-1716, who was professor of classics at Leiden from 1679 till his death, produced a new edition of his father's Gellius. He added to it the commentary written by his father at an earlier date. This commentary only covers the books I-IX. In 1706 Jacobus Gronovius published another revised and augmented edition. 'The 'Noctes Atticae' (of which we lack the start of the preface, the end of bk. 20, and all bk. 8 except the chapter headings) is a collection of mainly short chapters, based on notes or excerpts he had made in reading, on a great variety of topics in philosophy, history, law, but above all grammar in its ancient sense, including literary and textual criticism. According to his preface, Gellius conceived the notion of giving literary form to his notes during the long winter's nights in Attica (whence the title), but completed the project (some 30 years later) as an instructive entertainment for his children. Variety and charm are imparted by the constant changes of topic, purportedly reproducing the chance order of Gellius' notes (...), and by the use of dialogue and reminiscence as literary forms for conveying information, the dramatizations are generally fictious, though in settings based on Gellius' own experience. (...) Gellius is well read in Latin, less so in Greek (...); his judgement is sensible rather than incisive. His style blends the archaic (...), the self-consciously classical, and the new; he lifts words in from early authors but also invents new ones (...). He has never lackerd readers who relish not only the information he conveys, the quotations he preserves, and the reflections he arouses, but also the charm of his styleand his infectuous love of books.' (LA. HOLFORD-STREVENS in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., pp.627-628).