Marc Smith obtained his
archivist palaeographer degree as major (valedictorian) of the 1988 class of the
École Nationale des Chartes with a thesis entitled
La France et sa civilisation vues par les Italiens au XVIe, then started his career as curator at the
Archives nationales (1988–1994).
Career A former member of the
École française de Rome (1990–1993), doctor of the
École pratique des hautes études with a thesis on ''Les Italiens à la découverte de la France au XVIe : géographie, voyages et représentations de l'espace'' (1993), he was general secretary of the École nationale des chartes (1995–1998), and since professor of medieval and modern palaeography. In 2013, he was also elected director of studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, section of Historical and Philological Sciences (chair of Palaeography and history of writing in Latin characters). He also taught at the University Paris-Sorbonne (1998–2000), the
Columbia University of New York (2014–2016), and head of the
Mellon Summer Institute in Vernacular Paleography (Center for Renaissance Studies, Newberry Library, Chicago, et Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) for French palaeography (since 2008). Former president of the International Committee for Latin Palaeography (2015-2025), he is a member of the Hebrew paleography Committee, former secretary (2002-2011) and former president (2014) of the
Société de l'histoire de France, co-editor of the series
Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi (Brepols; with
Jean-Pierre Mahé and Élisabeth Lalou), member of the editorial boards of
Scriptorium,
Gazette du livre médiéval, and the
Ménestrel portal, member of the reading committee of
Scrineum Rivista, and former editor of the ''
Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes'' journal.
Work His research mainly concern the evolution of the
Latin alphabet in its long term linguistic, technical, cognitive and cultural situations, from Roman inscriptions to digital typography. He contributed to the expertise of many manuscripts and other objects listed in public and private collections, and the restoration of the château du Bois-Orcan in
Noyal-sur-Vilaine (registration of the chapel, 2008). He is preparing a catalog of calligraphic collections published by French up to 1815, preserved in European and American collections. == Books ==