LABBE, PHILIPPE. Jesuit, bibliographer, and theologian, b. at Bourges on 10 July 1607, d. at Paris on 17 March 1667. He taught rhetoric, philosophy, and moral theology, for the most part at the Collège de Clermont in Paris. His keen and penetrating mind, his wide-ranging literary and ecclesiastical erudition, his retentive memory, and his constant application earned him the esteem of one of the most learned men of his time and the title of “library of libraries.”
He left more than eighty works, the principal of which is the conciliar collection in eighteen volumes: *Sacrosancta Concilia ad regiam editionem exacta cum duobus apparatibus*, covering the years 34–1564. Volumes I–VIII and XII–XV were already in press before the author’s death, but they did not appear in print until 1671–72, edited by Fr. G. Cossart, who completed volumes IX and X, which had only been begun, and volume XI, expanding it by one volume, and adding two Apparatus volumes: the first (vol. XVII) containing chronological, geographical, and historical tables; the second (vol. XVIII) containing the most important doctrinal treatises on councils, including the *De conciliis* of Cardinal D. Jacobazzi. S. Baluze added a supplementary volume (Paris 1683).
Nicoleti reprinted the entire collection (23 vols., Venice 1728–34), but with so many typographical errors that it is difficult to read; Fr. G. Hardouin revised it, carefully collating the texts and updating it to 1714; G. D. Mansi recast it into his better-known and commonly cited collection. Labbe and Cossart, for their part, had introduced numerous additions of important documents into their own edition, the so-called “royal” edition (37 vols., Paris, all dated 1744), because it was published by the royal press, and they restored better or more accurately read manuscripts, with variant readings; but they also took some liberties in their use of the texts and passed over many lacunae in silence.
Other notable works by Labbe include: *De Byzantinae historiae scriptoribus* (Paris 1648); *Bibliotheca antiquaseniana* (Paris 1654); *Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum librorum* (2 vols., Paris 1657); *Patrum, theologorum... bibliotheca* (Paris 1659); *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis* (2 vols., Paris 1660), which revises and expands the work of the same title by Cardinal R. Bellarmino; *Conciliorum generalium... historica synopsis* (Paris 1661), which serves as an introduction to the conciliar collection.