Guillaume Budé (1467-1540) was the most influential of the French humanist scholars at the beginning of the 16th century, in correspondence with Erasmus and Thomas More, and highly esteemed by Francis I whom he persuaded to found the Collège de France. The Commentaries are a collection of lexicographical, philological and historical notes which formed the basis for the study of the Greek language in France. 'A monument of the New Learning, it gave Budé the reputation which is now commemorated in the modern series of parallel texts of Greek, Latin and Byzantine authors which bears his name' (Printing and the Mind of Man, no. 60).