Dalle lettere al libro

Dalle lettere al libro. La nascita dei Monumens de la Monarchie françoise di Bernard de Montfaucon by Fleur Marçais

Often praised, equally criticized, Bernard de Montfaucon’s Monumens de la Monarchie françoise (1729-1733) are considered to be one of the first works in the French art history. Yet the history of this book – its intellectual and material conception, its endowment, its dissemination and distribution, its reception – still remains largely unknown. Montfaucon’s correspondence, currently kept at the BnF, is the privileged witness of the birth of the Monumens. Voltaire declared: “I write [letters] to act”. Bernard de Montfaucon writes letters to document, raise funds, and promote his project.

The letters Bernard de Montfaucon received between 1720 and 1735 are mainly unpublished. Besides, the attachments to the original letters are almost always missing. Our 366-letter edition attempts to remedy this shortfall using the functionalities offered by digital publishing: hypertext links connect transcriptions to their original manuscripts and, where applicable, to the drawings. The lost unity is virtually restored. The correspondence of the Maurist scholar thus represents a valuable source not only for the history of publishing but more generally for the history of the humanities.