Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer (10 December 1790 – 26 April 1861) was a German Tyrolean traveller, journalist, politician and historian, best known for his controversial discontinuity theory concerning the racial origins of the Greeks, and for his travel writings. Biography Education Fallmerayer was born the seventh of ten children in Pairdorf (), a village in Tschötsch () near Brixen in Tyrol. At the time of Fallmerayer's birth, the region was incorporated in the Habsburg monarchy, in 1805 it became a part of Bavaria, and it belongs today to Italy. His parents were small farmers. From the age of seven Fallmerayer attended the local school in Tschötsch and worked as a shepherd. In 1801 the family moved to Brixen, where Fallmerayer's father found employment as a day-laborer. Fallmerayer was enrolled in the Volksschule, where he impressed the priests with his talents. In 1803 he entered the cathedral school as a Gymnasiast, whence he was graduated in 1809 with a diploma in metaphysics, mathematics, and the philosophy of religion. (The Gymnasium in Brixen today bears Fallmerayer's name). He then left Tyrol, at the time in the midst of a freedom struggle against Bavaria, for Salzburg. In Salzburg, Fallmerayer found employment as a private tutor, and enrolled in a Benedictine seminary, where he studied classical, modern, and oriental philology, literature, history, and philosophy. After a year's study he sought to assure to himself the peace and quiet necessary for a student's life by entering the abbey of Kremsmünster, but difficulties put in his way by the Bavarian officials prevented the accomplishment of this intention. At the University of Landshut (today the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), to which he removed in 1812, he first applied himself to jurisprudence, but soon devoted his attention exclusively to history and classical and oriental philology. His immediate necessities were provided for by a stipendium from the Bavarian crown. Early career In the fall of 1813, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, Fallmerayer decided to seek his fame in military service and joined the Bavarian infantry as a subaltern. He fought with distinction at Hanau on 30 October 1813 and served throughout the campaign in France. He remained in the army of occupation on the banks of the Rhine until the battle of Waterloo, when he spent six months at Orléans as adjutant to General von Spreti. Two years of garrison life at Lindau on Lake Constance convinced