Arthur Schott: A True Renaissance Man in The Americas

Abstract

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Arthur Carl Victor Schott’s birth, this article takes a holistic approach to the career of this travelling intellectual, which encompassed various natural disciplines as well as human sciences and artistic expressions. Contrary to those of other better-known Homines Universales, who followed the Humboldtian example to explore the Americas in an all-inclusive way, Schott’s life and work has been until now only segmentally evaluated. While in Romania his ethno-linguistic contributions and rescuing of local folktales are valued, and in the United States he is regarded for his work on the Mexican-American border, his time in Colombia and in the Yucatán peninsula has been completely forgotten. As this article emphasizes, Schott’s multi-faceted vocation found various forms of manifestation while in the Southeast of Mexico, leaving for us eloquent testimonies of the multi-ethnic society in which that immigrant lived and worked.