Friedrich Feuerbach was born on 29 September 1806 in Munich. He was the youngest son of the distinguished jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach (1775–1833) and uncle of painter Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880). His older brothers were all distinguished scholars. In 1826 he began his studies at the university of Erlangen. At first he studied theology, then history and finally philology and philosophy, specializing in Sanskrit literature. His supervisor was Friedrich Rückert. At Erlangen he was a member of a liberal nationalist student fraternity. In 1831, shortly after graduating, he went to Paris to work with the noted philologists and linguists Chézy, Bournouf and Remusat. France had recently experienced the July Revolution, and Friedrich met with some of the French utopian socialists of the time (e.g., Pierre Leroux). He also seems to have travelled to Switzerland, where he met the radical followers of Wilhelm Weitling; some of them subsequently studied his writings on religion. There is no evidence, however, that Friedrich Feuerbach himself ever participated in any revolutionary association (nor would this have been in character with his diffident nature).