Chatelain, Émile-Louis-Marie

CHATELAIN, ÉMILE-LOUIS-MARIE. - French paleographer and librarian, b. at Montrouge on 26 Nov. 1851, d. at Paris on 26 Nov. 1933. A librarian in 1881 at the library of the Sorbonne, he was appointed assistant curator in 1888 and then curator in 1904, succeeding J. de Chantepie; he remained in that post until 1925. The École des hautes études also had him as a valuable collaborator for several years.

The vast and multifaceted work of Ch. is contained in more than 350 works and articles that testify before the scholarly world how much paleography, Latin lexicography and philology, textual criticism, and the science of manuscripts and libraries owe to him. It suffices to recall the monumental Paléographie des classiques latins, on whose compilation and publication he worked from 1884 to 1900 (Paris, with 210 plates); the Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (4 vols., ibid. 1889-97) in collaboration with Fr. Denille; the Uncialis scriptura (ibid. 1901-1902); the great number of articles that appeared from time to time in the Revue de philologie and in the Revue des bibliothèques, which he himself founded.

Niccolò Del Re