Philippe de Commynes

Among modern scholars, no one has done more over the last two decades than Joёl Blanchard to renew our understanding of the man whom Sainte-Beuve called ‘the first truly modern writer’, for Commynes’ Memoirs enjoy the distinction of scarcely ever having been out of print either in their original French or in translation in all the principal European languages since their first appearance in 1524 down to the present. Blanchard himself has contributed to this remarkable publishing phenomenon by an edition (2001) and a translation into modern French (2004). The fashion Commynes set for statesmen or politicians seeking to justify their role in the events in which they took part, or simply to describe what they observed, continues at depressingly full throttle in our own day. But perhaps Blanchard's most significant contribution has been to re-examine the documentary history for Commynes’ career, especially as a diplomat implementing French policy towards various Italian states, while also casting light on the tangled story of his personal finances and business dealings. These latter were often inextricably mixed up with his public role. Some of this newly-discovered correspondence of Commynes with Milanese, Florentine and Mantuan contacts was meticulously edited in 1993, while a full critical edition of the 81 surviving autograph letters now known appeared in 2001. Important interpretative articles and a major synthesis, Commynes l’Européen: L’invention du politique (1996; rev. ante, cxv [2000], 954), which inevitably anticipate many themes in the current biography, have supported this editorial labour

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