Born on June 10, 1932, in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône).
In 1986, Marc Fumaroli was elected professor at the Collège de France, upon the recommendation of the poet Yves Bonnefoy and the historian Jean Delumeau, to a chair titled “Rhetoric and Society in Europe (16th–17th Centuries).” In 1977, he helped found the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, and he served as its president in 1984–1985, organizing its third international congress in Tours during the latter year. He served as director of the Center for the Study of 17th- and 18th-Century French Language and Literature (Paris IV-CNRS) from 1984 to 1994. From 1993 to 1999, he was president of the Association for the Preservation of Literary Education (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 served as president of the Association des Amis du Louvre since 1996.
He was a “Visiting Professor” at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1983, and a “Visiting Fellow” at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1984. He has taught or lectured at numerous universities in the United States (including New York University, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton, Houston, and Los Angeles).
At the invitation of Professor Allan Bloom, he delivered a series of lectures as part of the Committee for Social Thought in Chicago, of which he became a member, holding the title of “professor at large” at the university, where he teaches two months a year. He was also invited to give lectures at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., notably as part of its Fifteenth Anniversary Lectures Series. He returned there in March–April 2000 to deliver that year’s six Mellon Lectures. He delivered the Cassal Lecture at the University of London and the Zaharoff Lecture at the University of Oxford in 1991. Every May, he gives a series of lectures at the Istituto di Studi Filosofici, founded and directed by Gerardo Marotta, and frequently participates in conferences organized by the Cini Foundation in Venice. He has been invited to speak at most Italian universities.
He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Naples “Federico II” in 1994, the University of Bologna in 1999, and the University of Genoa in 2004. His lectures at the Collège de France were delivered twice at Italian institutions: the University of Rome in 1995–1996, and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa in 1999–2000. Since his youth, he has considered Italy his second homeland, and he is proud to 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: a corresponding member of the British Academy, a member of the American Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, a member of the Accademia dei Lincei since 1997, and president of the Société d’Histoire littéraire de la France, succeeding René Pomeau.
He serves on the editorial board of the *Revue d’Histoire littéraire de la France* and contributes frequently to the journal. He regularly contributes articles to French and foreign daily and weekly newspapers.
In 1982, he received the Monseigneur Marcel Prize from the Académie française, and in 1992, its Critics’ Prize. He received the Balzan Prize in September 2001, the Lafue Prize in 2002, the Mémorial Prize, and the Combourg Prize in 2004.
The Académie Française elected him on March 2, 1995, to its 6th seat, where he succeeded Eugène Ionesco. In 1998, he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to the seat vacated by Georges Duby.
Marc Fumaroli died on June 24, 2020, in Paris.
