Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The "Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres" is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.

History

The Académie originated as a small council of humanists, a committee of specialists that included "scholars who were the most versed in the knowledge of history and antiquity." It was founded by King Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert as the "Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles", and permanently renamed to the "Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres" in January 1716. It was first charged with composing or otherwise obtaining the Latin inscriptions to be written on the public monuments and on medals issued to celebrate the events of Louis' reign. Its broader goal was to elevate the prestige of the French monarchy using physical symbols uncovered or recovered through the methods of classical erudition. The Académie was made an official state institution on the King's decree in 1701. [Jean Leclant (Secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie), "HISTORY OF THE ACADÉMIE" [http://www.aibl.fr/us/membres/home.html online] .]

Role

In the words of the Académie's charter, it is:

primarily concerned with the study of the monuments, the documents, the languages, and the cultures of the civilizations of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the classical period, as well as those of non-European civilizations.

The Volney Prize is awarded by the Institut de France, based on the proposal of the "Académie". It publishes "Mémoires".

Prominent members

*Jean Sylvain Bailly
*Anatole Jean-Baptiste Antoine de Barthélemy
*Charles Batteux
*Pierre Louis Jean Casimir de Blacas
*Michel Bréal
*Antoine Leonard de Chézy
*Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau
*Jean-Baptiste Colbert
*André Dacier
*Léopold Delisle
*Jean Denis, comte Lanjuinais
*Louis Duchesne
*Émile Egger
*André Félibien
*Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie
*Nicolas Fréret
*Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
*Étienne Fourmont
*Antoine Galland
*Pierre Amédée Jaubert
*Stanislas Julien
*Alexandre Maurice Blanc de Lanautte, Comte d'Hauterive
*Pierre Henri Larcher
*Jean Lebeuf
*Charles-François Lebrun, duc de Plaisance
*Jean Leclant
*Émile Littré
*Jean Mabillon
*Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury
*Joachim Menant
*Franc Miklošič
*Auguste Molinier
*Jean Marie Pardessus
*Alexis Paulin Paris
*Claude-Emmanuel de Pastoret
*Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval
*Charles Perrault
*Francois Pouqueville
*Louis Racine
*Charles-Frédéric Reinhard
*Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry
*Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune
*Joseph Vendryes
*William Henry Waddington
*Charles Athanase Walckenaer
*Henri Wallon

Notes

External links

* [http://www.aibl.fr Official Website]

* [http://www.scholarly-societies.org/history/1663aribl.html Notes on the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres from the Scholarly Societies project]