In the field of classical studies, the name and the figure of Guillaume Budé (1468–1540) are primarily linked to the famous Association Guillaume Budé and the series of critical editions promoted by the same association and published by Les Belles Lettres. At the same time, the relevance that Budé and his works assumed among Renaissance and Modern scholars tends to be forgotten today.[1] The book L’Antiquité selon Guillaume Budé by Romain Menini and Luigi-Alberto Sanchi focuses on the fundamental contributions Budé made to the studies of classical philology, ancient cultural history and the history of law.
After the Avant-propos, the authors provide a biographical profile of Guillaume Budé (Qui était Guillaume Budé ?). First, they describe the influence his works had on French literary history, in particular on François Rabelais’ works. Budé’s main biographical details are then listed, with a special focus on his training in the studia humanitatis, his work on his most famous books and his role in the major cultural projects promoted by King Francis I.
The next chapter, Saisir Protée : contours de l’encyclopédie budéenne, contains four sub-chapters. In Au filtre de la manière budéenne Menini and Sanchi analyze the method Budé followed studying the classics: although he never attempted to publish an edition of an ancient text, through his reading Budé acquired an unprecedented familiarity with Greek and Latin language and culture and developed an encyclopedic interest in everything related to Antiquity: indeed, for him it was the only approach capable of capturing the varietas of the two ancient cultures and literatures. The following subchapter, Une périodisation d’humaniste, is dedicated to Budé’s views on the periodization and evolution of ancient literature: according to Menini and Sanchi, “d’une part, la périodisation qu’il adopte de l’Antiquité harmonise dans une narration unitaire l’histoire sainte, l’histoire ecclésiastique et l’histoire classique et tardive, sans rejet mutuel et sur une base géographique ample, qui inclut l’Orient; d’autre part, ses recherches le poussent à lire toutes les sources possibles […] en privilégiant la période centrale de développement de la science historiographique et érudite, d’Hérodote au Digeste” (p. 45–46).
In Trois massifs philologiques, the authors present Budé’s most famous writings, namely Adnotationes in Pandectas (henceforth AP), De asse (DA) and Commentarii linguae Graecae (CLG). They describe the genesis and various redactions of each work, their content and importance in the field of legal studies, the study of Greco-Roman culture, and Greek philology and lexicography. The last subchapter, Dans l’atelier de l’humaniste: Budé parmi ses livres, is an overview of the books owned by Budé. The authors first talk about his notebooks and annotated books and then provide an overview of his library: the last paragraphs of this chapter are devoted to his manuscripts and printed editions of Demosthenes, the Aldine editions he owned, and the books he lent and borrowed.
The next section, Le philologue au travail : chemins de la recherche erudite, is very interesting because it presents some case studies Budé dealt with, which show how the he worked with ancient sources. The concept of law is frequently debated in Budé’s works (Droit romain, morale et anthropologie): for instance, in AP Budé speaks about the law of animals, discusses the question of equity and the relationship between bonum and aequum, and states that anyone who wants to deal with law must acquire an encyclopedic education. In AP, Budé analyzes a passage by the jurist Pomponius (dig. 1.2.29) concerning the college of centumviri (Des centumvirs à la Vulgate : Budé et la Bible): he observes that this college consisted of one hundred and five members, but they were called centumviri by approximation, just as the translators of the Greek Bible are called ‘the Seventy’, although according to Augustine (civ. 18.43) there were seventy-two of them. Starting from these considerations, Budé discusses the numerical differences between the Latin Vulgate and the Greek original text in Lk. 10.1 and 10.17 (ἑβδομήκοντα, septuaginta duo), and argues that, because of this and other errors, Jerome cannot be the translator of the Latin New Testament.
A theme that runs throughout Budé’s work is the praise and defense of Greek language and literature (Défense et illustration de la langue grecque). In Institution du prince, dedicated to King Francis I, the Greek language is praised for its expressiveness, stylistic variety, lexical abundance, and numerous other virtues. The richness of Greek is manifested in the thousands of words and expressions Budé analyzed in CLG: in this work, Budé especially focuses on the grammatical irregularities of the Greek language and speaks out against all the purist attempts to classify the language of Greek authors. Budé read and studied not only classical authors but also patristic literature (L’ascèse et l’exégèse : Budé lecteur des Pères grecs): as Menini has shown in a recent essay,[2] Budé was an avid reader of the Cappadocian Fathers, in particular Gregory of Nazianzus. His patristic readings show in CLG, where Budé comments on terms such as ἀσκέω. CLG also bears witness to Budé’s interest in the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, For example when he quotes Dionysius’ treatises in the explanation of nouns such as μετοχή and πίστις; furthermore, Budé enters into the debate regarding the identity of the author of the Corpus Dionysiacum.[3]
Budé was interested not only in the concrete details of Greco-Latin culture but also in ancient thought and philosophy (De l’entéléchie (Aristote) à la loi d’Adrastée (Platon)). In DA, for instance, he discusses Aristotelian philosophy and the Aristotelian theory of the soul as entelechy (‘perfect reality’; Arist. de An. 412a) or endelechy (‘persistence’; Cic. Tusc. 1.10.22). As regards his Platonic readings, in the notebooks and CLG Guillaume Budé debates the ‘Law of Adrastea’ (Plat. Phaedr. 248c) and the concept of necessity that, according to Plato, governs the order of things. In DA Guillaume extensively analyzed the value of the ancient units of measurement, such as decies sesterium (La fabuleuse histoire du million de sesterces). The formula decies sestertium is an abbreviation of decies centena millia sestertium (‘a million sesterces’), but, while commenting on Suet. Aug. 41.3 (Senatorum censum ampliavit ac pro octingentorum milium summa duodecies sestertium taxavit), scholars such as Sabellicus and Beroaldus did not understand the meaning of this expression. Budé, on the basis of a series of loci similes (such as Cic. Verr. 2.1.28, 2.2.19–20), not only explains the meaning of decies sestertium, but also provides further reflections on the consistency of the Roman aerarium in different times.
The book ends with the chapter Guillaume Budé, bâtisseur de la modernité française. Because of his scholarly merits, Budé was soon honored as the pioneer of classical studies in France (Budé en son temps, Budé pour notre temps). He promoted the foundation of an institute of higher studies which represents the first nucleus of the famous Collège de France; he encouraged the publication of Greek works in France; above all, he was the founding father of a new way of studying ancient culture which had numerous followers. Budé was highly esteemed by philologists such as Marc-Antoine Muret, men of letters such as François Rabelais, jurists such as Jacques Cujas. Furthermore, DA, AP and CLG may be considered the first examples of scientific monographs devoted to Antiquity. The last chapter discusses whether Budé is still influential today (Ouverture : L’Antiquité selon Budé est-elle l’avenir des études anciennes ?). Menini and Sanchi say: “prendre cette Antiquité comme point de départ permet d’ouvrir le yeux sur une histoire véritablement mondiale, sans tomber dans les pièges identitaires, classicistes voire néocoloniaux. […] Mieux connaître les passions intellectuelles de Guillaume Budé nous amène à revoir notre manière d’aborder les mondes anciens, à repenser nos méthodes d’enseignement et de recherche, à prendre conscience de nos points aveugles et à rouvrir l’horizon des idées” (p. 161–162).
The second part of the volume contains the endnotes to the text and a series of appendices. The first appendix is an updated version of the list of Budé’s books compiled by Sanchi in 2018.[4] This list is based on the quotations present in AP, CLG and DA and contains not only the Greek and Latin authors cited by Budé, but also the manuscripts and printed books owned and/or annotated by Budé, which have been identified so far. A new check of Budé’s other works may result in minor adjustments, but this list represents a milestone for Budé studies.[5] There also follows a very useful chronological table of editions of works published while Budé was still alive, or immediately after his death. The volume concludes with a bibliography and index of names.
To sum up, L’Antiquitè selon Guillaume Budé does not merely contain a profile of Budé and his scholarly activity, but it represents an intriguing investigation into the method Budé followed in studying the classics and his influence on Renaissance, Modern and contemporary scholarship. The authors take the readers inside Budé’s philological workshop and show them how Budé dealt with the various questions that ancient texts presented him with. Its brilliant and fascinating style, however, should not obscure the high scientific value of this book, which would not have existed without Menini and Sanchi’s thorough investigations of Budé’s library and their impressive knowledge of Budé’s opera omnia.
Notes
[1] As it has been shown by Stéphane Ratti, “Plus célèbre que Rabelais en son temps mais aujourd’hui oublié, qui était Guillaume Budé ?,” FigaroVox, 17.01.2025 https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/culture/plus-celebre-que-rabelais-en-son-temps-mais-aujourd-hui-oublie-qui-etait-guillaume-bude-20250117
[2] Romain Menini, “Le Père de l’Église le plus cher à Budé, Grégoire de Nazianze. À propos d’un exemplaire annoté par l’humaniste,” in Christine Bénévent, Romain Menini, Luigi-Alberto Sanchi (eds), Les noces de Philologie et de Guillaume Budé, Paris: École des chartes, 2021, 173–186.
[3] Among the sources cited in the flyleaf of the manuscript Par. gr. 447 we also find Hier. adv. Iov. 2.28 (distinctiones ordinum angelorum ex sententia doctrinaque Dionysii exposuit strictim Hierony. lib. 2 adversus Iovinia. 90): Budé probably read this passage in a reprint of Erasmus’ edition of Jerome (Basel 1524, Lyon 1530), in which adv. Iov. 2.28 is found in p. 90.
[4] Luigi-Alberto Sanchi, “La bibliothèque de Guillaume Budé,” in François Rouget (ed.), Bibliothèques des humanistes français (= Arts et Savoirs [En ligne] 10, 2018), https://doi.org/10.4000/aes.1273
[5] For example, in De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum there are references to works of Ambrose not mentioned in AP, CLG and DA, such as in De transitu 3.188: Hic etsi vereri subit, ne mihi in hoc opere vicio vertatur philhomeria (cuius tamen crimen divus Ambrosius in explanatione scripturae, in sermone De cruce minime veritus est) [….] The passage demonstrates not only the reading of Ambr. in Luc. 4.2 (as pointed out in Guillaume Budé, Le passage de l’Hellénisme au Christianisme, eds Marie-Madelaine de La Garanderie, Daniel F. Penham, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993, 188), but also of a pseudo-Ambrosian sermon today attributed to Maximus of Turin (37.1: Saeculi ferunt fabulae Vlixem illum, qui decennio marinis iactatus erroribus ad patriam pervenire non poterat…), which for a long time was published in the editions of Ambrose’s opera omnia.