Bernard De Montfaucon

1655-1741. French scholar. Born of a noble family in Soulage, he joined the Maurist Benedictines in Toulouse (1676) after a brief period of military service. Having studied Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac at Saint- Germain-des-Prés, Paris, he researched in Italian libraries (1698- 1701), and this led to his L'Antiquité expliquée et representée en figures (10 vols., 1719) and Les Monuments de la monarchie francaise (5 vols., 1729- 33). He produced excellent editions of Athanasius (3 vols., 1698), Origen's Hexapla (2 vols., 1713) and John Chrysostom (13 vols., 1718-38). His Palaeographia graeca (1708) virtually created the science of paleography. Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum, a manuscripts survey, is perhaps best known. He defended the Benedictine edition of Augustine against Jesuit attacks (1699). The Bernardines, a younger generation of Benedictine students, he influenced heavily.