Born on June 10 1932 in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône).
In 1986, Marc Fumaroli was elected professor at the Collège de France, on presentation by poet Yves Bonnefoy and historian Jean Delumeau, in a chair entitled " Rhetoric and society in Europe (16th-17th centuries) ". In 1977, he helped found the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, which he chaired in 1984-1985, organizing its3rd International Congress in Tours. Director of the Centre d'étude de la langue et de la littérature françaises des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris IV-CNRS) from 1984 to 1994. From 1993 to 1999, President of the Association pour la Sauvegarde des enseignements littéraires (SEL), founded by Jacqueline de Romilly. Since 2000, he has succeeded René Pomeau as President of the Société d'Histoire Littéraire de la France. He has chaired the Association des Amis du Louvre since 1996.
He was " Visiting Professor " at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1983, and " Visiting Fellow " at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in 1984. He has taught or lectured at numerous universities in the USA (including New York University, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton, Houston, Los Angeles).
Invited by Professor Allan Bloom, he delivered a series of lectures as part of the Chicago Committee for Social Thought, of which he became a member, with the status of " professor at large " of the university, where he teaches for two months a year. He has also been invited to lecture at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, notably as part of its Fifteenth Anniversary Lectures Series. He returned in March-April 2000 to deliver that year's six Mellon Lectures. He gave the Cassal Lecture at the University of London and the Zaharoff Lecture at Oxford University in 1991. Every May, he gives a series of lectures at the Istituto di Studi Filosofici founded and directed by Gerardo Marotta, and frequently takes part in the Cini Foundation's congresses in Venice. He has been invited to most Italian universities.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Federigo Secondo in Naples in 1994, from the University of Bologna in 1999, and from the University of Genoa in 2004. His lectures at the Collège de France have twice been given in Italian institutions : University of Rome in 1995-1996, École normale supérieure de Pise in 1999-2000. Since his youth, he has considered Italy his second home, and is proud to count count countless friends there, foremost among them Professor Tullio Gregory, Director of the Istituto di storia della filosofia at the University of Rome-La Sapienza.
He is a member of numerous French and foreign learned societies : corresponding member of the British Academy, member of the American Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, member of the Accademia dei Lincei since 1997, and is president of the Société d'Histoire littéraire de la France, succeeding René Pomeau.
He is a member of the editorial board of the Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France, and a frequent contributor to the journal. He regularly contributes articles to French and foreign dailies and weeklies.
In 1982, he was awarded the Prix Monseigneur Marcel by the Académie Française, and in 1992 his Prix de la Critique. He was awarded the Balzan Prize in September 2001, the Lafue Prize in 2002, the Memorial Prize and the Combourg Prize in 2004.
On March 2 1995, he was elected to the 6th chair of the Académie française, succeeding Eugène Ionesco. In 1998, he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in the seat left by Georges Duby.
Marc Fumaroli died on June 24 2020 in Paris.