Montfaucon, Bernard de

▪ French scholar

born 1655, Soulage, near Brioude, Fr.

died 1741, Paris

      pioneer in the study of Greek paleography and archaeology and distinguished patristic scholar.

      He joined the Benedictine Congregation of Saint-Maur in 1676 and in 1687 was sent to Paris to edit the works of the Church Fathers. His major publications in this field were editions of Athanasius, 3 vol. (1698) and John Chrysostom, 13 vol. (1718–38). As a student of manuscripts in Paris and Italy, he carried the Maurist preoccupation with original sources into a new field. His Palæographia græca, sive de ortu et progressu litterarum græcarum (“Greek palaeography, or the origin and progress of Greek literature”) was published in 1708. As a student of antiquities he based his conclusions on the evidence of monuments; he might be said to be one of the founders of modern archaeology. He wrote the 15-volume L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (1719; Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams, 1721–25).

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