Banduri was born in
Ragusa, Dalmatia, as Matteo (Matija) Banduri, he joined the Benedictines at an early age and took the monk name Anselmo. He studied at
Naples, and was eventually sent to
Florence, then a flourishing center of higher studies. Here he made the acquaintance of the famous Benedictine scholar
Bernard de Montfaucon, at the time traveling in Italy in search of manuscripts for his edition of the works of St.
John Chrysostom. Banduri rendered him valuable services and in return was recommended to
Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany for the chair of ecclesiastical history in the
University of Pavia. It was also suggested that the young Benedictine be sent to Paris for a period of preparation, and especially to acquire a sound critical sense. After a short sojourn at Rome, Banduri arrived at Paris in 1702 and entered the
Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés as a pensioner of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He soon became an apt disciple of the French
Maurists and began an edition of the anti-iconoclastic writings of
Nicephorus of Constantinople, of the writings of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and of other Greek ecclesiastical authors. Banduri never published these works, though as late as 1722 he announced, as near at hand, their appearance in four folio volumes. In the meantime, he was attracted by the rich treasures of Byzantine manuscript and other material in the
Bibliothèque Royale and the
Bibliothèque Colbert. In 1711 he published at Paris his
De Administrando Imperio (
Imperium Orientale, sive Antiquitates Constantinopolitanae), a documentary illustrated work on the
Byzantine Empire, based on medieval Greek manuscripts, some of which were then first made known. He also defended himself successfully against
Casimir Oudin, an ex-
Premonstratensian, whose attacks were made on a second-hand knowledge of Banduri's work. In 1718 he published, also at Paris, two folio volumes on the imperial coinage from
Trajan Decius to the last of the
Palaeologi (249–1453),
Numismata Imperatorum Romanorum a Trajano Decio usque ad Palaeologos Augustos (supplement by Tanini, Rome, 1791). Of this work Father
Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, S.J., prince of numismatologists, says (
Doctrina Nummorum I, cviii) that it contains few important contributions. At the same time he praises the remarkable bibliography of the subject that Banduri prefixed to this work under the title of
Bibliotheca nummaria sive auctorum qui de re nummaria scripserunt, reprinted by
Johann Albert Fabricius (Hamburg, 1719). In 1715 Banduri was made an honorary foreign member of the
Académie des Inscriptions, and in 1724 was appointed librarian to the Duke of Orléans; he had in vain solicited a similar office at Florence on the death of the famous
Antonio Magliabechi. He died in
Paris.
Works • • • • ==Sources==