Edmond-Frédéric Le Blant

Who was Edmond-Frédéric Le Blant?

Edmond-Frédéric Le Blant was a French archaeologist and historian. He was the father of the military artist Julien Le Blant.

He studied law and having qualified to practice, he obtained in 1843 a situation in the customs under the Finance Board. This position assured his future and he was free to follow his scientific inclinations. During a voyage through Italy he visited the Kircher Museum, and his intercourse with G. B. de Rossi determined him to undertake in France the scientific work which the founder of Christian archeology had undertaken in Rome.

As early as 1848 Le Blant was commissioned to collect the inscriptions of the earliest days of Christianity in Gaul, and like de Rossi, he made an investigation of manuscripts, printed books, museums, churches, and the Gallo-Roman cemeteries. In 1856 appeared the first volume of his "Recueil des inscriptions chrétienne des Gaules antérieures au VIIIe siècle". The second volume of the work obtained for its author his election as a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. A third volume appeared in 1892 under the title of "Nouveau Recueil".