Charles Borgeaud

Charles Borgeaud (Le Sentier, 15 agosto 1861 – Onex, 6 ottobre 1940) was a Swiss historian and Jurist.

Sculpture of Charles Borgeaud in the University Of Geneva

He was born in 1861 in Le Sentier, in the Vallée de Joux, into a family of notables from Pully. In 1878 he became a student at the University of Geneva, and then continued his studies in Germany, at the University of Jena. Here he will obtain his degree in Philosophy. He returned to Geneva where he wrote his thesis on Law.

In the following 10 years he will go to Paris and London. In London he found important documents that would form his doctrine and guide him in his next work. In fact, modern democracies emerged thanks to the religious reforms and policies of the sixteenth century.

In 1896 the University of Geneva offered him the chair in History of Swiss Institutional Politics. During this period he began to write the history of the University of Geneva. It will be finished in 1934 with all 4 volumes. However, thanks to the first volume, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901.

On October 24, 1924, the illustrious scholar received the honorary degree of the Geneva bourgeoisie, a supreme tribute to this man whose name remains inseparable from the history of Geneva today.