Paul Canart


Mgr Paul Georges Lucien 'Canart' was a Belgian librarian, palaeographer and Catholic priest who worked at the Vatican Library for nearly sixty years, most notably as Vice Prefect from 1994 to 1997.

Biography

Canart was born in Cuesmes from Georges Achille Bernard and Marcelle Emilie Luise Canart. He studied at the Catholic University of Leuven, obtaining two baccalauréats — in Thomistic philosophy and in Theology — and the licence in Classics. His thesis, supervised by Mgr Augustin Mansion, dealt with the meaning of the term θεῖος in Plato. During his undergraduate studies, he also entered the local Seminary and was ordained by Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey, then-Archbishop of Malines. His academic formation was completed with a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne University in 1979, defending a thesis under the title Recherches de paléographie et de philologie byzantines, tutored by and judged by Irigoin, Jacques Bompaire, José Grosdidier de Matons, Gilbert Dagron, Joseph Mogenet and Jean Darrouzès. He received full marks, the distinction of «très honorable» and the recommendation that the thesis be published.
After a period of teaching in Catholic lyceums in Brussels, on 3 July 1957 he was nominated by Pope Pius XII to catalogue the Greek manuscripts of the Vatican collection. The offer caught him off guard because, as he confessed in 2004, before entering the Vatican Library he had never seen a manuscript and his knowledge in Greek palaeography was exclusively theoretical. He also hesitated because, as he himself said in the homily delivered to the mass on the occasion of his ordination's 50th anniversary, he was torn between his Christian faith and spiritual vocation, and his desire to pursue scientific research, which at the time he considered "a layman's job". Canart officially entered the Vatican Library on 1 October 1957, with the start of his appointment delayed by some three months upon his own request. His position, which he initially believed temporary, was soon stabilized.
At the Vatican Library, he was scriptor Graecus from 1957 and directed the Department of Printed Books and the Department of Manuscripts. In 1969 he created the Chair of Greek palaeography at the Vatican School of Palaeography and Diplomatics, holding it until 2000. From 1979 to 2000 he also taught at the Vatican School of Library sciences also serving as its Dean. From 9 February 1994 to 25 October 1997 he was Vice Prefect of the Vatican Library, under the term of Leonard Boyle. Canart officially retired on his seventieth birthday, but remained at the Vatican Library for one more year as a consultant, specifically requested by Boyle's successor Card. Raffaele Farina. On 25 October 1998, he ceased from any official duty at the Vatican Library, but continued frequenting it as a private scholar.
From 1993 to 2003 he chaired the Comité international de paléographie grecque, which he also had co-founded in 1980, previously serving as Deputy Chair from 1988 to 1993. He received a number of honours, both ecclesiastical and civil, the last thereof being the Order of Leopold a few weeks before his death.
He had a brother, Jean, and two sisters, nuns Thérèse, of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, and Anne-Marie, of the Benedectine nuns of Maredret. In leisure, he was a melomaniac — enjoying opera and prose theatre as well as classical music, Bach in particular — and an avid reader of detective stories and crime and thriller novels, including those of the Salvo Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. He died in Brussels in 2017 and was buried in Forest.

Research activity

Canart is recognised as one of the founders of the scientific research trends and methods in Greek palaeography as well as a leading scholar in the field of manuscript cataloguing, a discipline he taught and to which he gave theoretical contributions and guidelines. In fact, he described himself as "d'abord et avant tout un catalogueur de manuscrits grecs" .
In his doctoral dissertation — a revision and evaluation of his own researches of 1957–1977 — he defined palaeography and codicology:In his researches, he focused on Greek minuscule handwriting from its origins to the Renaissance, and the history of manuscript book as a product of its historical context. Less frequently, he studied Greek hagiography and Byzantine literature.
In his official duties at the Vatican Library, Canart completed the catalogue of Vaticani Graeci 1684–1744, which Ciro Giannelli had left unfinished, and compiled himself the catalogue of the Greek manuscripts of St. Peter's Archive, of Vaticani Graeci 1745–1962, the second tome of the catalogue of the Barberiniani Graeci and the catalogue of Greek manuscripts belonged to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto . He also produced a handout of Greek palaeography for his students at the Vatican School of Palaeography, later printed by the School itself. His scholarship in manuscript studies was condensed in a systematic catalogue of scientific publications in the discipline up to 1991.
Canart also edited the facsimile reproduction of Codex Vaticanus, two collections of plates of Greek manuscripts for the study of palaeography, a systematic commentary to Vat. Reg. gr. 1, and co-wrote a monograph on codicology. His kleine Schriften were collected and published in two tomes in 2008.

Publications

Full bibliography collected by.

Books

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Articles

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Fellowships and Honours

As listed by.
Canart was honoured with a Festschrift for his seventieth birthday and contemporary retirement, in 1997, and three Gedenkschriften following his passing.