Árni Magnússon (redirected from Arne Magnussen)

Magnússon, Árni 

(in Latin, Arnas Magnaeus). Born Nov. 13, 1663, in Kvennabrekka, Iceland; died Jan. 7, 1730, in Copenhagen. Icelandic scholar. Professor at the University of Copenhagen (1701).

From 1702 to 1712, Magnússon lived in Iceland, where he conducted a census of the Icelandic population (the first in northern Europe) and an inventory of all Icelandic households and land resources. The ancient Icelandic and ancient Norwegian manuscripts that Magnússon collected and later bequeathed to the University of Copenhagen constitute the famous Arnas Magnaeus Collection.