Montfaucon

A French classical scholar, born in 1655. After serving in the army he entered the Benedictine Order and gave his time to the study of classical antiquity. He died at Paris in 1741. He was the author of critical editions of several of the Greek Fathers and of the following great works: Palaeographia Graeca (1708); L'Antiquité Expliquée et Representée en Figures (15 vols. 1719-1724); and Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum MSS. Nova (2 vols. 1739). The first establishes palaeography as a science, and is based upon a careful examination of nearly 12,000 manuscripts. The second is still consulted by all archaeologists; and the third is a list of the manuscripts examined by him in the course of forty years of study. See De Broglie, La Société de l'Abbaye de St. Germain (2 vols. 1891).