A205

Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, vel a catholicis scriptonous celebrantur quae ex latinis et graecis, aliarumque gentium antiquis monumentis collegit, digessit, notis illustravit Joannes Bollandus … servata primigenia scriptorum phrasei.Operam et studium contulit Godefridus Henschenius … Edito novissima, curante Joanne Carnandet … Parisiis, V. Palme, 1863-1931 (Jan.-Nov. v. 1-85 in 67) il.
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These volumes contain the acts or lives of the saints reprinted from the original sources gathered from the libraries of Europe, with annotations and commentaries on the various copies of manuscripts, lists of variants in the texts of different editions, and commentary "which solved, or at least tried to solve, every problem to which the texts of the Acts could give rise, in the matter of chronology, geography, history, philological interpretation, … with an erudition and a method which could be called absolutely unknown, hitherto" (Charles de Smedt, "Bollandists," Catholic Encyclopedia, II, p. 632).
The lives of the saints are arranged in this work, as in many others, in the order of the occurrence of their feasts in the calendar year. There have been three different editions of the Acta: the original Antwerp edition, the first volume of which appeared in 1643; the Venetian edition, published from 1764-1770, covering up to the sixth volume for September, "the whole printing of which teems with typographical blunders" (de Smedt, p. 639); and finally, the Paris edition, 1863-1869, covering up to the tenth volume for October. "This edition reproduces exactly, volume by volume, the original one except for the months of January and June," which have been arranged differently (de Smedt, p. 639).
Supplements to the original volumes of Acta Sanctorum are found in the next two entries, A206 and A207.

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