BANDURI, ANSELM. — Benedictine and learned Byzantinist, born in Ragusa in Dalmatia in 1671, died in Paris in 1743. He pursued his studies in Italy, where in Florence he met Montfaucon; through Montfaucon’s good offices, he was sent by Grand Duke Cosimo III to Paris to study historical methodology under the Maurists. Arriving in 1702, he was hosted at St-Germain-des-Prés and devoted himself eagerly to exploring the Byzantine era, especially among the rich manuscript collections of Parisian libraries.
In 1711 he published in Paris the two volumes of *Imperium orientale sive Antiquitates Constantinopolitanae*, an important illustration of Byzantine antiquities that earned him the position of librarian to the Regent, the Duke of Orléans, and admission to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres (1715). In 1718 he also published in Paris the two volumes *Numismata imperatorum romanorum a Traiano Decio usque ad Palaeologos Augustos*, an work little esteemed by Eckhel, who, however, greatly praised the *Bibliotheca nummaria, sive auctorum qui de re nummaria scripserunt*.