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. A sharp and penetrating mind, multiform literary and ecclesiastical erudition, a tenacious memory and 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 80 works, of which the principal is the conciliar collection in 18 vols.: Sacrosancta Concilia ad regium editionem exacta cum duobus apparatibus, which covers the years 34-1564; vols. I-VIII and XII-XV were already ready for printing before the author's death, but they did not appear in public until 1671-72, edited by Fr. G. Cossart, who completed vols. IX and X, barely begun, and vol. XI, enlarging it by a volume, and adding to it two Apparatus, the first (vol. XVII) comprising chronological, geographical and historical tables; the second (vol. XVIII) comprising the greatest doctrinal treatises on the councils, among them the De conciliis of Card. D. Jacobazzi; S. Baluze added a supplementary volume (Paris 1683);
Niccoleti reprinted the entire collection (23 vols., Venice 1728-34), but with too many printing errors, which make it difficult to read; Fr. G. Hardouin took it up again, carefully collating the texts and updating it to 1714; G. D. Mansi recast it in his better-known and usually cited collection. For their part, L. and Cossart had introduced into their own work numerous additions of documents important to the edition called "regia," because it was published by the royal printing house (37 vols., Paris, all dated 1744), and had reproduced better or better-read codices, with citations of the variants; but they had also taken some liberties in the use of the texts and had passed over many lacunae in silence.
Other notable works of L. are: De Byzantinae historiae scriptoribus (ibid. 1648); Bibliotheca antijanseniana (ibid. 1654); Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum librorum (2 vols., ibid. 1657); Patrum, theologorum... bibliotheca (ibid. 1659); De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis (2 vols., ibid. 1660), which takes up and enlarges the work of the same name by Card. R. Bellarmine: Conciliorum generalium... historica synopsis (ibid. 1661), which is, as it were, the introduction to the conciliar collection.