La byzantinologie avant l'heure

Abstract A number of recent works have attempted to trace the history of Byzantinology, or at least the study of Byzantine history and literature, which actually began in the Renaissance. The role of Lutheran circles, of Löwenklau, Hieronymus Wolf and the banker Fugger, and in France, of Claude Dupuy and Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc, is well known in this process: interest in the history and sources of Eastern Christianity very gradually led to the perception of a distinct intellectual object. The aim of this article is to give an account of the major role played by devout humanist circles in Paris in the second half of the sixteenth century, and more particularly the figure of Jean de Saint-André. The very title Corpus Historiæ byzantinæ is due to this philologist, who supported rather than published in his own name.