Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was an influential leader of the French Renaissance. He had studied law but abandoned it to devote himself to writing, producing three volumes of essays on a wide range of subjects. For over four centuries Montaigne has influenced western philosophy and literature.

In one of his essays, On Cannibals, he referred to Plato’s Atlantis and apparently accepted its reality. However, he did not express any opinion on the location or date of the lost civilisation.  One small point is that Montaigne refers to ‘Africa and Asia combined’ (Timaeus 24e) rather than ‘Libya and Asia’ confirming that scholars in the 16^th century understood that ‘Libya’ in Plato’s time had a broader meaning than just the territory west of Egypt.