5 m. S. of Melfi. It is an extinct volcano rising to 4365 ft. above sea-level, belonging in Roman times to Apulia, and lying on the boundary between it and Lucania. The crater is densely overgrown with oaks and beeches which harbour wild boars and wolves. There are two small lakes. On the banks of the upper lake stand the Capuchin monastery of San Michele and the picturesque ruined church of Sant’ Ippolito. The city of Rionero in Volture is pleasantly situated 27 m. by rail N. of Potenza, at the foot of Monte Vulture. Pop. (1901), 11,834. It does not seem to be older than the first half of the 17th century. In 1851 it suffered severely from an earthquake.
See G. de Lorenzo, Venosa e la regione del Vulture (Bergamo, 1906).
MONTFAUCON, BERNARD DE (1655–1741), French scholar
and critic, was born at the château of Soulage (now Soulatgé,
in the department of Aube, France), on the 13th of January
1655. Belonging to a noble and ancient line, and destined for
the army, he passed most of his time in the library of the family
castle of Roquetaillade, devouring books in different languages
and on almost every, variety of subject. In 1672 he entered
the army, and in the two following years served in Germany
under Turenne. But ill-health and the death of his parents
brought him back to his studious life, and in 1675 he entered
the cloister of the Congregation of St Maur at La Daurade,
Toulouse, taking the vows there on the 13th of May 1676.
He lived successively at various abbeys—at Sorèze, where he
specially studied Greek and examined the numerous MSS. of
the convent library, at La Grasse, and at Bordeaux; and
in 1687 he was called to Paris, to collaborate in an edition of
Athanasius and Chrysostom, contemplated by the Congregation.
From 1698 to 1701 he lived in Italy, chiefly in Rome in order
to consult certain manuscripts, those available in Paris being
insufficient for the edition of Chrysostom. After a stay of three
years he returned to Paris, and retired to the abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés,
devoting himself to the study of Greek and Latin
MSS. and to the great works by which he established his
reputation. He died suddenly on the 21st of December 1741.
His first publication, in which he was assisted by Jacques
Loppin and Antoine Pouget, was the first volume of a never-completed
series of previously unpublished Analecta graeca
(1688). In 1690 appeared La Vérité de l’histoire de Judith.
Athanasii opera omnia, still the best edition of that Father,
was issued with a biography and critical notes in 1698. In
connexion with this may be mentioned Collectio nova patrum
et scriptorum graecorum (1706), containing some newly discovered
works of Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the
Topographia christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes. His copious
Diarium italicum (1702) gives an account of the principal
libraries of Italy and their contents; this work has been translated
into English by J. Henley (1725). The Palaeographia graeca
(1708), illustrating the whole history of Greek writing and the
variations of the characters, has not yet been superseded; in
its own field it is as original as the De re diplomatica of Mabillon.
In 1713 Montfaucon edited Hexaplorum origenis quae supersunt,
not superseded till the work of Field (1875); and between 1718
and 1738 he completed his edition of Joannis Chrysostomi opera
omnia. His L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (1719)
laid the foundation of archaeological knowledge. It was
continued by him in Les Monumens de la monarchie françoise,
1729–1733. Both these works have been translated into English.
Montfaucon’s Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptarum (1739)
is a list of the works in MS. in the libraries with which he was
acquainted.
A list of his works will be found in Bibliothèque des écrivains de la congrégation de Saint-Maur, by C. de Lame (1882), and in the article in the Nouvelle biographie générale, which gives an account of their scope and character; see also Emmanuel de Broglie, La Société de l’abbaye de St-Germain-des-Prés au 18ᵉ siècle: Bernard de Montfaucon et les bernardins (2 vols., Paris, 1891).
MONTFERRAT, COUNT OF, a title derived from a territory
south of the Po and east of Turin, and held by a family who were
in the 12th century one of the most considerable in Lombardy.
In 1147 a count of Montferrat took part in the Second Crusade;
but the connexion with the Holy Land begins to be intimate
in 1176. In that year William Longsword, eldest of the five
sons of Count William III., came to the kingdom of Jerusalem,
on the invitation of Baldwin IV. and the baronage, and married
the heiress of the kingdom, Sibylla. He died within a few
months; but his wife bore a posthumous son, who became
Baldwin V. Count William III. himself (uncle to Philip of
France and brother-in-law to Conrad III.) afterwards came to
the Holy Land to watch over the interests of his grandson;
and he was among the prisoners taken by Saladin at Hittin
in 1187. Shortly after the battle of Hittin there appeared in
Palestine the ablest and most famous of the family, Count
William’s second son, Conrad. Conrad, following the family
tradition, and invited by the emperor Isaac Angelus, had gone
to serve at the court of Constantinople. He soon became a
considerable person; married Isaac’s sister, and defeated and
killed a usurper; but he was repaid by ingratitude and suspicion,
and fled from Constantinople to Palestine in 1187. Putting
into Tyre he was able to save the city from the deluge of Mahommedan
conquest which followed Saladin’s victory at Hittin.
He established himself firmly in Tyre (refusing admission to
Guy, the king of Jerusalem); and from it he both sent appeals
for aid to Europe—which largely contributed to cause the Third
Crusade—and despatched reinforcements to the crusaders,
who, from 1188 onwards, were engaged in the siege of Acre.
His elder brother had been the husband of the heiress Sibylla;
and on the death of Sibylla, who had carried the crown to Guy
de Lusignan by her second marriage, Conrad married her
younger sister, Isabella, now the heiress of the kingdom, and
claimed the crown (1190). The struggle between Conrad and
Guy paralysed the energies of the Christians in 1191. While
Richard I. of England espoused the cause of Guy, who came
from his own county of Poitou, Philip Augustus espoused that of
Conrad. After the departure of Philip, Conrad fomented the
opposition of the French to Richard, and even intrigued with
Saladin against him. But he was the one man of ability who
could hope to rule the débris of the kingdom of Jerusalem with
success; he was the master of an Italian statecraft which gave
him the advantage over his ingenuous rival; and Richard was
finally forced to recognize him as king (April 1192). In the very
hour of success, however, Conrad was struck down by the
emissaries of the Old Man of the Mountain (the chief of the
Assassins).
Still another son of Count William III. achieved distinction. This was Boniface of Montferrat, the younger brother of Conrad, who was chosen leader of the Fourth Crusade in 1201, on the death of Theobald of Champagne. In the winter of 1201–1202 he went to Germany to visit Philip of Swabia; and there it has been suggested, he arranged the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople (see Crusades). Yet in the course of the crusade he showed himself not unsubmissive to Innocent III., who was entirely opposed to such a diversion. After the capture of Zara, however, he joined the crusaders, and played a great part in all the events which followed till the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204. But Baldwin of Flanders was elected emperor over his head; and his irritation was not wholly allayed by the grant of Macedonia, the north of Thessaly, and Crete (which he afterwards sold to Venice). In 1207 he died, killed in battle with the Bulgarians. He left a son Demetrius, who assumed the title of king of Thessalonica, which the father had never borne (cf. Luchaire, Innocent III: La question d’Orient, p. 190). In 1222 Demetrius lost his kingdom to Theodore Angelus, and the house of Montferrat its connexion with the East.
See Savio, Studi storici sul marchese Guglielmo III. di Monferrato (Turin, 1885); Ilgen, Markgraf Konrad von Montferrat (1880; and also the works of Cerrato (Turin, 1884) and Desimoni (Genoa, 1886).
MONTFLEURY (d. 1667), French actor, whose real name was Zacharie Jacob, was born in Anjou during the last years of the 16th century. He was enrolled as one of the pages to the duc de Guise, but he ran away to join some strolling players,
