DU SOLLIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE. - Bollandist hagiographer, b. at Herseaux (Flanders) on 28 Feb. 1669, d. at Antwerp on 27 June 1740. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Mechelen on 27 Sept. 1687; he studied theology in Rome from 1697 to 1701. Ordained a priest on 27 Sept. 1700, he was called to the Museum Bollandianum on 7 March 1702, where he labored indefatigably on the editing of the Acta SS. until 1736, never neglecting works of apostolate. Practically he bore the weight of the colossal undertaking from the moment that Fr. Papebroch withdrew into retirement (1709), but he became its true head at the death of Fr. Janninck (d. 13 Aug. 1723). The last years of his life were troubled by a painful illness borne with Christian resignation, which prevented him from any work.
Of quick and perspicacious intelligence, he was distinguished for the balance of his judgment and for the methodical life of which, at his death, a precious document was found in the personal register of his correspondence, which comprised fully 12,000 items. As a hagiographer he followed the direction established by his master Fr. Daniel Papebroch. He confronted and solved the problem of accelerating the complicated printing of the Acta SS. and gave a new internal organization to the college of hagiographers.
The best part of his scholarly output appears in the Acta SS., and precisely from vol. V of June (Antwerp 1709) to vol. III of August (ibid. 1737). The commentaries he devoted to the lives of the saints contained in the 7 vols. of July and in the first 3 of August number in the hundreds (for example, in vol. I of July 50 commentaries are his, in vol. II 80, in vol. I of August 25, in vol. III 30, etc.); he often reserved for himself the treatment of the most thorny and thankless problems, which brought him lively polemical exchanges.
Particularly worthy of mention are: the Tractatus praeliminaris de Patriarchis Alexandrinis cum appendice, de initiis, erroribus, institutis copto-lacobiticis (in Acta SS. Iunii, V, Antwerp 1707, pp. 1-XX, 1-160), a chronological essay highly appreciated for its time, already attempted by Papebroch; the Acta b. Raymundi Lulli (ibid., pp. 633-736) with an essay on the works and doctrine of the saint; the Martyrologium Uruardi monachi, hac nova editione ad excusa exemplaria quatuordecim, ad codices mss. integros decem et septem, atque ad alios ferme quinquaginta collatum, ab additamentis expurgantum, castigatum et quotidianis observationibus illustratum (in Acta SS. Iunii, VI and VII, ibid. 1715 and 1717; separate ed., ibid. 1714, pp. Lxvi-820). It is a careful edition based on 67 manuscripts and 14 printed editions, preceded by a long and learned introduction and accompanied by a commentary rich in erudition.
Although the study of Dom H. Quentin (Les martyrologes historiques du Moyen âge, Paris 1908, pp. 7-10: a note on D. S.'s edition) has by now clarified the problems relating to medieval historical martyrologies, D. S.'s Martyrologium Usuardi remains to this day a model of its kind and an inexhaustible source of hagiographical information. The edition of the Martyrologium did not please the acid Benedictine Dom J. Bouillart, but D. S. knew how to gracefully cut short a useless polemic. He had another polemic with the Dominicans for having denied that St. Dominic descended from the Guzmán family and concerning Bl. Bartholomew of Braganza.
The minor works of D. S. are listed in Sommervogel (VII, coll. 1371-77).