Pierre Courcelle
Pierre Courcelle | |
---|---|
Born | March 16, 1912 |
Died | July 25, 1980 | (aged 68)
Awards | American Philosophical Society (1968) |
Academic background | |
Education | École normale supérieure École Nationale des Chartes |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Paris |
Pierre Paul Courcelle (16 March 1912 – 25 July 1980) was a French historian who was a specialist of ancient philosophy and of Latin Patristics, especially of St Augustine. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1968.[1]
Family
[edit]Pierre Courcelle, the youngest of three siblings, was born in 1912 in Orléans. His father, the merchant Paul Courcelles, and his mother, Madeleine née Giroux, were divorced before his birth, by a legal judgment on December 20, 1911. Pierre Courcelle's origins were from Orléans on both the maternal and paternal side. While he was still a high school student, he had, according to his own testimony, done extensive genealogical research concerning his ancestors back to the 16th century, but found aucun homme illustre, rien que des laboureurs (no illustrious man, only peasant farmers).
In 1937, he married Jeanne Ladmirant (1909-1999), doctor in history and archeology from the University of Liège. They had known each other while he was at the École française de Rome and she at the Académie de Belgique à Rome.[2] She was his constant collaborator, especially in the preparation and writing of several works in which iconographic research plays a large role. They had eight children.
Career
[edit]Pierre Courcelle did his primary and secondary studies at the Lycée d'Orléans. In 1927, he was a laureate of the nation-wide competition Concours general in compositions written in Latin. He prepared at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand for the École normale supérieure de la rue d'Ulm, where he matriculated in 1930 at the age of 18 . The same year, he passed the competition for the École nationale des chartes, where he came first. Exceptionally, he completed two academic majors in parallel, obtaining a double major in, on one hand, philology and history of literature, and, on the other hand, archival expertise and history. In 1934, he was appointed professor agrégé of classical Greek and Latin literature, as well as archivist-paleographer, at the École française de Rome, where he remained until 1936 .
After his year of military service, he was from 1937 to 1939 deputy director of the Institut français de Naples ( which was founded in 1919 in Naples to establish closer cultural relations between France and Italy's Mezzogiorno). Mobilized in 1939 as an infantry lieutenant, he received two citations and the Croix de Guerre. In 1940–1941, he was a teacher at the Lycée d'Orléans. But in 1941, he was appointed lecturer at the Faculty of Arts in Bordeaux. In 1943, he defended his doctoral thesis on Les Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (The Greek literature in the West from Macrobius to Cassiodorus). The following year, at the age of 32, he became both a professor at (what is now called) Sorbonne Université (where he succeeded Pierre de Labriolle) and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (4th section). From 1946 to 1962, he was also a lecturer at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in Sèvres.
In 1952, succeeding Alfred Ernout as professor at the Collège de France, he held the chair of Latin literature, while remaining director of studies at the École des Hautes Etudes.[3][4] He exercised these two functions until his death in 1980. From 1978 to his death, he was also director of the Fondation Thiers (which is now sponsored by the Institut de France and associated with the library Fondation Dosne-Thiers).
Selected publications
[edit]- Les Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore, Paris, de Boccard, 1943 ; 2e éd., 1948 (thèse). LCCN 50-25329
- Courcelle, Pierre (1969). Late Latin Writers and their Greek Sources. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; translation of 2nd edition of Les Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore by Harry E. Wedeck; xii+467 pages
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link)[5] LCCN 69-12721
- Courcelle, Pierre (1969). Late Latin Writers and their Greek Sources. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; translation of 2nd edition of Les Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore by Harry E. Wedeck; xii+467 pages
- Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques, Paris, Hachette, 1948, 264 p. LCCN 49-24506 ; 3e éd., Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1964, 436 p., ill.
- Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin, Paris, E. de Boccard, 1950 ; Nouvelle édition augmentée et illustrée, Paris, E. de Boccard, 1968, 615 p., ill. LCCN 68-139482
- L'Entretien de Pascal et Sacy : ses sources et ses énigmes (Coll. « Bibliothèque des textes philosophiques »), Paris, J. Vrin, 1960, 83 p. (réédité en 1981).
- Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire : antécédents et postérité, Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1963, 746 p., ill. LCCN 66-33983
- Vita Sancti Augustini imaginibus adornata. Manuscrit de Boston, Public Library, n° 1483, S. XV, inédit (en collaboration avec Jeanne Courcelle), Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1963, 257 p., ill.
- Iconographie de saint Augustin (en collaboration avec Jeanne Courcelle), 5 vol., ill., Paris, Études augustiniennes (vol. 1 : Les Cycles du xive siècle, 1965, 253 p. ; vol. 2 : Les Cycles du xve siècle, 1969, 369 p. ; vol. 3 : Les cycles du XVIe et XVIIe siècle, 1972, 372 p. ; vol. 4 : Les cycles du xviiie siècle. 1.– L'Allemagne, 1980, 217 p. ; vol. 5 : Les cycles du XVIIe (2e partie) et XVIIIe siècle, 1991, 206 p.).
- La Consolation de philosophie dans la tradition littéraire : antécédents et postérité de Boèce, Paris, 1967 (développement de sa thèse de l'École des chartes[6]).
- Recherches sur saint Ambroise : « Vies » anciennes, culture, iconographie, Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1973, 369 p., ill. en noir et en coul.
- Huit rôles des tailles inédits de Sully-sur-Loire : 1440-1484 (« Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres », 45), Paris, Imprimerie nationale - C. Klincksieck, 1973, 61 p.
- « Connais-toi toi-même » de Socrate à saint Bernard, 3 vol., Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1974–1975.
- Nouveaux documents inédits de Sully-sur-Loire : 1364-1500 (« Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres », nouvelle série, 3), Paris, Imprimerie nationale - C. Klincksieck, 1978, 85 p.
- Opuscula selecta. Bibliographie et recueil d’articles publiés entre 1938 et 1980, 1984.
- Saint Ortaire : sa vie, son culte, son iconographie (en collab. avec Jean Fournée), Société parisienne d'histoire et d'archéologie normandes, 1989, 52 p. ISBN 2-901488-36-6
- Lecteurs païens et lecteurs chrétiens de l’Énéide (coll. « Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres », nouvelle série, 4), Paris, Gauthier-Villars - diffusion De Boccard, 1984, 2 vol. (vol. 1 : Les Témoignages littéraires, 759 p. ; vol. 2 : Les Manuscrits illustrés de l’Énéide du xe xve siècle (avec la collab. de Jeanne Courcelle), 265 p. et 169 p. de pl. en noir et en coul.). Ouvrage posthume.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
- ^ Jacques Fontaine, Nécrologie, Annuaire de l'association des anciens élèves de l'École normale supérieure, 1981, p. 89.
- ^ Leçon inaugurale faite le mercredi 3 décembre 1952 par Pierre Courcelle, Collège de France, Chaire de littérature latine, 1953, 37 p.
- ^ He pronounces its inaugural lesson on December 3, 1952. Cf. Inaugural lesson given on Wednesday December 3, 1952, Collège de France, Chair of Latin Literature, 1953, 37 p.
- ^ Browning, R. (December 1971). "Review of Late Latin Writers and their Greek Sources by Pierre Courcelle, translated by Harry E. Wedeck". The Classical Review. 21 (3): 411–412. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00221215. S2CID 162641109.
- ^ La thèse s'intitulait Étude critique des commentaires sur la Consolatio Philosophiae de Boèce (IXe-XVe siècle), 1939.
- Pierre Demargne, « Éloge funèbre de M. Pierre Courcelle », Comptes rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1980, pp. 508–511.
- Georges Folliet, « Pierre Courcelle, 1912–1980 », Revue des études augustiniennes, 26 (1980), pp. 204–206.
- Jean Doignon, « L'œuvre de Pierre Courcelle », Orpheus, nouv. sér., 2 (1981), pp. 1–5.
- Louis Carolus-Barré, « Pierre Courcelle (1912–1980) », Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 139–2, juillet-décembre 1981, pp. 346–349.
- Jacques Fontaine, Nécrologie, Annuaire de l'association des anciens élèves de l'École normale supérieure, 1981, pp. 86–90.
- Hervé Savon, « Pierre Courcelle 1912–1980 », Universalia 1981, Encyclopaedia Universalis, pp. 542–543.
- Antoine Guillaumont, « Pierre Courcelle (16 mars 1912–25 juillet 1982) », Annuaire du Collège de France 1980–1981, 1981, pp. 59–60.
- « In memoriam : Pierre Courcelle (1912–1980) », Augustinus, 27, 1982, pp. 123–125.
- Béatrice et Michel Wattel, Qui était qui, xxe siècle : dictionnaire biographique des Français disparus ayant marqué le xxe siècle, Levallois-Perret, J. Lafitte, 2005.
- 1912 births
- 1980 deaths
- Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
- Patristic scholars
- 20th-century French historians
- French historians of philosophy
- French scholars of ancient Greek philosophy
- École Nationale des Chartes alumni
- École Normale Supérieure alumni
- Members of the American Philosophical Society
- Academic staff of the University of Paris
- Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
- Officers of the Legion of Honour
- Commandeurs of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques
- Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
- Academic staff of the Collège de France