BATTANDIER, ALBERT

BATTANDIER, ALBERT. — Priest, born on 11 April 1850 at St-Félicien (Ardèche), died there on 23 May 1921. He entered the major seminary of Viviers in 1871 and was ordained a priest in 1875. Having gone to Rome to attend the French seminary, he earned degrees in theology and canon law in 1879. He subsequently became secretary and vicar general of Cardinal Pitra, whose library he inherited upon his death. In 1897 he composed and published for the first time the work that made him famous throughout the world, the Annuaire pontifical catholique, “a true Roman and ecclesiastical encyclopedia, a mine of diverse documents and instructive and practical information.”