of Greek manuscripts that it remained the leading authority on the subject for almost two centuries. Montfaucon published 15 volumes of L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures between 1719 and 1724. An English translation of this work was published in 1721–25 under the title Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams. The work contained copperplate folio engravings of classical antiquities. It included a depiction of the "Barberini Vase", more commonly known as the "Portland Vase". This book is published in English under the title Antiquities. The materials used in this work were taken from the manuscripts deposited in French libraries. It contains many illustrative facsimiles, though they are engraved in a rather coarse way. In 1719, Montfaucon was nominated by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. In 1719, following the death of the Jesuit priest, Michel Le Tellier (1643–1719), confessor to the late King Louis XIV, Montfaucon became confessor to the young King Louis XV. Montfaucon died on 21 December 1741 at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where he was buried. Legacy In a letter of 24 June 1786, Josiah Wedgwood explains that he had seen Montfaucon's engravings of the Portland Vase. Montfaucon was the original editor of the homilies Adversus Judaeos by saint John Chrysostom along with many other works of the Fathers of the Church. Montfaucon laid the foundation for the study of Greek manuscripts. Scrivener stated that his work still maintains a high authority, even "after more recent discoveries", especially of papyri in Egypt. Modern scholars agree that he effectively created a new discipline, palaeography, and brought it to an advanced state of sophistication. Montfaucon was largely responsible for bringing the Bayeux Tapestry to public attention. In 1724, the scholar Antoine Lancelot discovered drawings of a section of the tapestry (about 30 feet of the Tapestry's 231 feet) among papers of Nicolas-Joseph Foucault, a Norman administrator. (These drawings of the tapestry's images "classicized" the somewhat crude Anglo-Norman originals by adding shadows and dimensionality to the figures.) Lancelot, unsure of what medium the drawings depicted, suggested that they might be a tomb relief, stained glass, a fresco, or even a tapestry. When Lancelot presented Foucault's drawings in 1724 to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, they attracted the attention of Montfaucon, who subsequently tracked down the textile in the drawings with help from his Benedictine colleagues in Normandy. This is often regarded