The archive of the Bollandists was included in UNESCO's ‘Memory of the World’ register!

60,000 pages divided into 67 large volumes published over the course of three centuries: these few figures suggest the scope of the Acta Sanctorum, probably the largest publishing enterprise of the Ancien Régime, a gigantic encyclopaedia of all the saints of the East and West, providing for each of them a critical edition of the sources from which we know them. Begun by the Belgian Jesuit Jean Bolland in 1643, and continued by his colleagues soon to be known as the ‘Bollandists’, such an undertaking required a great deal of preparation: correspondence exchanged with scholars all over Europe, copies of texts found in medieval manuscripts scattered throughout the West...

Today, some 300 volumes regrouping these letters and manuscript copies survive, shared between the collections of the Bollandist library and those of the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR).  In addition, some 700 engraved copper plates used to print the illustrations in the Acta Sanctorum are still preserved and kept in the Bollandist library. It is this unique collection that UNESCO has just included in the ‘Memory of the World’ register, underlining its exceptional importance. 

This is only the third ‘Jesuit’ archive to receive this label (the other two being ‘Jesuits of America’, a collection held in Chile, which documents the Jesuits' activities in Latin America and the Philippines in the 17th and 18th centuries; and the “Ignacio Ellacuria” collection held in El Salvador).  The Société des Bollandistes, which, through its specialised library, publications and electronic databases, continues the tradition inaugurated by Jean Bolland, is proud of this honour which rewards a centuries-long commitment to a more authentic understanding of the saints through critical hagiography.