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Jean Chapelain, one of the five founding members of the Académie

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (French pronunciation: [akademi dez‿ɛ̃skʁipsjɔ̃ e bɛl lɛtʁ]) is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres).

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.^[1] In another source, Perrault is not mentioned, and other original members are named as François Charpentier and a M. Douvrier.^[2] The organizer was King Louis XIV'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 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.^[3]

In 1683 Minister Louvois increased the membership to eight.^[2] In 1701 its membership was expanded to 40 and reorganized under the leadership of Chancellor Pontchartrain. It met twice a week at the Louvre, its members began to receive significant pensions, and was made an official state institution on the king's decree.^[4] 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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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.^[4]

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

Prizes, grants and medals awarded by the Académie

Prizes^[7]

Prix Ambatielos
Prix d'histoire des religions de la fondation "Les Amis de Pierre-Antoine Bernheim"
Prix des antiquités de la France
Prix Emile Benveniste
Prix Bordin
Prix du budget
Prix Honoré Chavée
Prix Croiset
Prix Duchalais
Prix Paule Dumesnil
Prix Roman et Tania Ghirshman
Prix Gobert
Prix Hirayama
Prix de la Grange
Prix Serge Lancel
Prix Raymond et Simone Lantier
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

Publications

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

References

^ Perrault, Charles (1989). Zarucchi, Jeanne Morgan (ed.). Charles Perrault: Memoirs of My Life. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. pp. 42-43. ISBN 0826206670.
^ ^a ^b Etienne Fourmont, 1683–1745: Oriental and Chinese languages in eighteenth ... By Cécile Leung, page 51
^ "Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Literature." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Reed Benhamou. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.217 (accessed 1 April 2015). Originally published as "Academie Royale Des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1:52 (Paris, 1751).
^ ^a ^b "Membres". Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (in French). Archived from the original on 3 December 2001. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
^ Zarucchi, Jeanne Morgan (1994). "Ludovicus Heroicus: The Visual and Verbal Iconography of the Medal". EMF: Early Modern France. 1 (1): 131–42.
^ Zarucchi, Jeanne Morgan (1998). "Medals Catalogues of Louis XIV: Art and Propaganda". Source: Notes in the History of Art. 17 (4): 26–34. doi:10.1086/sou.17.4.23205144. S2CID 193105842.
^ "Palmarès 2018". Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (in French). 9 January 2017.