The () is a French

learned society A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...

devoted to

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

) and historical literature (see

Belles-lettres () is a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing. In the modern narrow sense, it is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama. The phrase is sometimes used pej ...

History

The Académie originated in 1663 as a council of four humanists, "scholars who were the most versed in the knowledge of history and antiquity": Jean Chapelain, François Charpentier, Jacques Cassagne, Amable de Bourzeys, and

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , , ; 12 January 162816 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his ...

. In another source, Perrault is not mentioned, and other original members are named as François Charpentier and a M. Douvrier. Etienne Fourmont, ''1683–1745: Oriental and Chinese languages in eighteenth ...'' By Cécile Leung, page 51 The organizer was King

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Its first name was the ''Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles'', and its mission was to compose or obtain

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

inscriptions to be written on public monuments and medals issued to celebrate the events of Louis' reign. However, under Colbert's management, the Académie performed many additional roles, such as determining the art that would decorate the

Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

. In 1683 Minister Louvois increased the membership to eight. In 1701 its membership was expanded to 40 and reorganized under the leadership of Chancellor Pontchartrain. It met twice a week at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

, its members began to receive significant pensions, and was made an official state institution on the king's decree. In January 1716 it was permanently renamed to the ''Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres'' with the broader goal of elevating the prestige of the French monarchy using physical symbols uncovered or recovered through the methods of classical erudition. The Académie produced a catalogue of medals created in honor of Louis XIV, ''Médailles sur les événements du règne de Louis le Grand, avec des explications historiques'', first published in 1702. A second edition was published in 1723, eight years after Louis' death. Each page of the catalogue featured engraved images of the obverse and reverse of a single medal, followed by a lengthy description of the event upon which it was based. The second edition added some medals for events prior to 1700 which were not included in the first volume, and in some cases the images of medals in the earlier edition were altered, resulting in an improved version. The catalogues may therefore be seen as an artistic effort to enhance the king's image, rather than as an accurate historical record.

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.

Today the academy is composed of fifty-five French members, forty associate foreign members, fifty French corresponding members, and fifty foreign corresponding members. The seats are distributed evenly among "orientalists" (scholars of Asia and the Islamic world, from ancient times), "antiquists" (scholars of Greece, Rome, and Gaul, including archaeologists, numismatists, philologists and historians), "medievalists", and a fourth miscellaneous group of linguists, law historians, historians of religion, historians of thought, and prehistorians. The

Volney Prize The Prix Volney () is awarded by the Institute of France after proposition by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to a work of comparative philology. The prize was founded in 1822 in memory of count Volney and was originally a gol ...

is awarded by the , based on the proposal of the ''Académie''. It publishes ''Mémoires''.

Prizes, grants and medals awarded by the ''Académie''

Prizes *

Prix Ambatielos Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

* Prix d'histoire des religions de la fondation "Les Amis de Pierre-Antoine Bernheim" *

Prix des antiquités de la France Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

* Prix Emile Benveniste *

Prix Bordin The Prix Bordin () is a series of prizes awarded annually by each of the five institutions making up the Institut Français since 1835. History The prize was created by Charles-Laurent Bordin, a notary in Paris from 1794 to 1820, who bequeathed 1 ...

Prix du budget Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

Prix Honoré Chavée Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

* Prix Croiset * Prix Duchalais * Prix Paule Dumesnil * Prix Roman et Tania Ghirshman *

Prix Gobert Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

Prix Hirayama Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

* Prix de la Grange *

Prix Serge Lancel Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

Prix Raymond et Simone Lantier Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who ...

* Prix Marie-Françoise et Jean Leclant * Prix Gaston Maspero * Prix Jean-Charles Perrot * Prix George Perrot * Prix Jeanine et Roland Plottel * Prix Saintour * Prix Émile Sénart * Prix Léon Vandermeesch * Prix de l'Institut de France 2018 * Prix de la Fondation Colette Caillat * Grand Prix d'archéologie de la Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca * Prix Jean_Edouard Goby * Prix Hugot * Prix Stanislas Julien Grants * Subvention Louis de Clercq * Bourse Courtois * Subvention de la Fondation Dourlans * Subvention Garnier-Lestamy * Subvention Max Serres de la Fondation Eve Delacroix * Bourse Jacques Vandier Medals * Médailles des Antiquités de la France * Médaille Jean-Jacques Berger * Médaille Clermont-Ganneau * Médaille du Baron de Courcel * Médaille Delalande-Guérineau * Médaille Drouin * Médaille Alfred Dutens * Médaille Fould * Médaille Gobert * Médaille Stanislas Julien * Médaille le Fèvre-Deumier * Médaille Gustave Mendel * Médaille Gabriel-Auguste Prost

Prominent members

* Eugène Albertini * Antoine Anselme *

Jean Sylvain Bailly Jean Sylvain Bailly (; 15 September 1736 – 12 November 1793) was a French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader of the early part of the French Revolution. He presided over the Tennis Court Oath, served as the mayor of ...

* 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 * Henri Cordier * André Dacier * Léopold Delisle * Jean Denis, comte Lanjuinais * Gabriel Devéria *

Louis Duchesne Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (; 13 September 1843 – 21 April 1922) was a French priest, philology, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions. Life Descended from a family of Bri ...

* Émile Egger * Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès * André Félibien * Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie * Nicolas Fréret *

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (; ; 11 February 1657 – 9 January 1757), also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author and an influential member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his ...

Étienne Fourmont Étienne Fourmont (23 June 1683 – 8 December 1745) was a French scholar and Orientalist who served as professor of Arabic at the Collège de France and published grammars on the Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese languages. Although Fourmont is ...

* Antoine Galland * Ernst Hoepffner * Pierre Amédée Jaubert * Stanislas Julien * Alexandre Maurice Blanc de Lanautte, Comte d'Hauterive * Pierre Henri Larcher * Jean Lebeuf * Edmond Le Blant *

Charles-François Lebrun, duc de Plaisance Charles-François is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec Charles-François is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec ...

* Jean Leclant * Émile Littré * Leonardo López Luján *

Jean Mabillon Dom Jean Mabillon , (; 23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics. Early life Mabillon w ...

* Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury * Joachim Menant *

Franz Miklosich Franz Miklosich (, also known in Slovene as ; 20 November 1813 – 7 March 1891) was a Slovenian philologist and rector of the University of Vienna. Early life Miklosich was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town ...

* Agénor Azéma de Montgravier *

Jean Marie Pardessus Jean Marie Pardessus (August 11, 1772 – May 27, 1853) was a French lawyer. Life He was born at Blois, and educated by the Oratorians, then studied law, at first under his father, a lawyer at the Presidial, who was a pupil of Robert Joseph Po ...

* Alexis Paulin Paris * Claude-Emmanuel de Pastoret * Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval *

* Francois Pouqueville * Louis Racine * Charles-Frédéric Reinhard * Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry * Jacques de Tourreil *

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne ( ; ; 10 May 172718 March 1781), commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic liber ...

* Joseph Vendryes * William Henry Waddington * Charles Athanase Walckenaer * Henri-Alexandre Wallon

Publications

Publications of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1710-1843)

References

External links

*
Notes on the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres from the Scholarly Societies project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Academie Des Inscriptions Et Belles-Lettres Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Latin epigraphy Greek epigraphy 1663 establishments in France *