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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Pierre d’Ailly
French Atlantology
French Atlantology can be traced back to at least the 16th century when Jean de Serres was probably the first to propose that the Holy Land was in fact Atlantis. However, even earlier, Pierre d’Ailly (1350-1420) argued that Plato’s 9,000 ‘years’ were a reference to lunar cycles, offering an implicit acceptance of the reality of Atlantis.
Whichever starting point is used it is clear from the list below that the French contribution to the study of Atlantis deserves a full volume to do it justice. Although many of those included have only made brief references to Atlantis, in fact, a few are sceptics, but collectively they offer an interesting body of work. My lack of French precluded me from offering more extensive information in most of the individual Atlantipedia entries.
A look at the indexes of Atlantipedia or Thorwald C. Franke‘s Kritische Geschichte der Meinungen und Hypothesen zu Platons Atlantis [1255] can provide a rough overview of the extent of French input to atlantology.
Pierre Lagrange published an extensive paper Les controverses sur l’Atlantide (1925-1940)(a) (The Atlantis Controversies 1925-1940) in which he reviews the Atlantis debates that raged in the early 20th century in France.
Also See: Robert Argod, Paul Aucler, Germaine Aujac, Philippe Aziz, Jean Silvain Bailly, Charles César Baudelot de Dairval, Pierre Benoit, Victor Berard , Alphonse Berget, Etienne Felix Berlioux, Jean-Louis Bernard, Jean-Marie Beuzelin, Eugene Bodichon, Alain Bombard, Jacques-Julien Bonnaud, Bory de Saint Vincent, Olivier Boura, Edouard Brasey, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Philippe Buache, Pierre Buffault, Georges-Louis Buffon, Ferreol Butavand, Jean-Marcel Cadet, Emile Mir Chaouat, Louis Charpentier, Michel-Alain Combes, Paul Couissin, Jean-Leopold Courcelle-Seneuil, Antoine Court de Geblin, Fernand Crombette, Guilleaume Delaage, Jean-Claude Delamethrie, J.B. Delisle deSales, Jean-Pierre Deloux, Jean Deruelle, Roger Devigne, Charles DeBrosses, Leopold deFolin, Leon de Rosny, Adolphe Dureau De la Malle, Henri D’Arbois de Jubanville, Marie-Armand d’Avezac, Jean d’Eraines, Antoine Fabre d’Olivet, Roger Elefant, Henri Estienne II (Stephanus), Roger Facon, Louis Guillaume Figuier, Lionel Filipoff, Jean-Albert Foex, Fortia d’Urban, Chantal Foucrier, Nicolas Freret, Paul Gaffarel, Jean Gattefosse, Rene-Maurice Gattefosse, Gautier of Metz, Louis Emile Gentil, Lucien Geradin, Louis Germain,Therese Ghembaza, Francois Gidon, Antoine Gigal, Pierre Louis Ginguene, Dominique Godron, Sylvain de Golbery, Jacques Gossart, F.P.J. Gosselin, Rene Guenon, Maurice-Erwin Guignard, Amedee Guiraud, Ernest Theodore Hamy, Jacques Hebert, Jean-Michel Hermans, Hans-Peny Hirmenech, Marcel Homet, Pierre Daniel Huet, Louis Jacolliot, Leonce Joleaud, Jean Francois Jolibois, Dominique Jongbloed, J.B. de LaBorde, Gustave Lagneau, Pierre-Andre Latreille, Louis de Launay, Jacques Lebeau, Andre-Pierre Ledru, Paul le Cour, Francois de la Mothe leVayer, Jacques de Mahieu, P.G. Mahoudeau, Rene Malaise, Michel Manzi, Jean Markale, Bernard Marque, Charles Frederic Martins, Thomas-Henri Martin, Jean Mazel, Edme Mentelle, Roger Mermet, Louis Millette, Pierre Mille, Michel de Montaigne, A-C Moreau de Jonnes, Alain Moreau, Theophile Moreux, Gabriel de Mortillet, Jean Emile Mourey, Phocion Negris, Auguste Nicaise, Jerome Nickles, Claude-Mathieu Olivier, Enrique Onffroy de Thoron, Abraham Ortelius, Andre de Paniagua, Fabien Pardo, Jean-Pierre Patznick, Eugene Pegot-Ogier, Isaac La Peyrere, Francois Placet, Georges Poisson, Guillaume Postel, G.T.F. Raynal, Onesime Reclus, Albert Rivaud, Fernand Robert, Godefroy de Roisel, Claudius Roux, Leonard Saint-Michel, Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Francois de Sarre, Jean Seimple, Jean de Serres, Pierre Termier, Charles Tissot, J.P. de Tournefort, Ivan Tournier, Rene Treuil, Sylvain Tristan, Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, Rene Verneau, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Louis-Claude Vincent, Jean-Frederick de Waldeck,
(a) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320471002_Les_controverses_sur_l%27Atlantide
Bradwardine, Thomas
Thomas Bradwardine (1290-1349) was a highly regarded mathematician and theologian, who was, for a very brief period, Archbishop of Canterbury just before his death. Thorwald C. Franke has drawn attention to Bradwardine’s rejection of Plato’s, or more correctly the Egyptian priest’s, apparent claim of a very early date for Atlantis [1255.242]. It seems, particularly as a cleric, that he found such a date conflicted with biblical chronology. It seems that in the end, he proposed that Plato’s ‘years’ were lunar cycles.
Similarly, Pierre d’Ailly (1350-1420), a French theologian who became cardinal, arrived at the same conclusion. While discussing Timaeus he realised that Plato’s dates of 8,000 and 9,000 ‘years’ before Solon conflicted with church teaching that the world had only lasted for 6,200 years until the birth of Christ. In order to avoid an accusation of heresy, he used Bradwardine’s explanation that Plato referred to lunar cycles, not solar years.(a)
It is not unreasonable to deduce from this, that Bradwardine and d’Ailly would not have bothered to offer the ‘lunar cycle’ explanation unless they accepted the reality of Atlantis. It would have been much easier to dismiss the Atlantis story as a fiction.