PONCELET, ALBERT

He entered the Order in 1878 and was definitively attached in 1895 to the Bollandist College, where he had already completed his training. A methodical writer, impeccable editor, of rigorous and open intelligence and untiring industry, he contributed to vol. II of November of the Acta SS. (Brussels 1894) with a small number of brief commentaries; while in vol. III (ibid. 1910) his part is much more considerable: noteworthy are: De s. Willibrordo, episcopo Trajectensi et Prisonum apostolo (pp. 414-500); De s. Leonardo confessore nobilie-censi (pp. 139-200); De s. Engelberto, archiep. Coloniensi et martyre (pp. 623-84). He collaborated extensively on vols. VI-XXI (1887-1912) of the Anal. Boll., where each year he also published some monographs devoted to the description of Latin hagiographical collections in the public and private libraries of Austria, France, Germany, and Italy; in separate volumes he produced the catalogues of the libraries of Rome (Brussels 1909) and of the Vatican (ibid. 1910); he revised, completed, and reworked the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, left to him in draft form by Fr. C. De Smedt, who had conceived its design, adding to it a first supplement (2 vols., ibid. 1901); and then republishing this in a renewed and revised 2nd ed. (ibid. 1911). He had begun a journey through Italy to catalogue the hagiographical manuscripts of the chapter libraries when death overtook him at Montpellier.