Bernard de Montfaucon

Bernard de Montfaucon (born 1655, Soulage, near Brioude, Fr.—died 1741, Paris) was a pioneer in the study of Greek paleography and archaeology and a 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).