Jean Mallon
Jean Mallon (20 June 1904, in Le Havre – 16 November 1982) was a French palaeographer, specialist of Latin palaeography. Career. A student at the École Nationale des Chartes, he obtained his archivist-palaeographer degree in 1926. He then was a curator at the Archives nationales. John Mallon had a major influence on the French school of paleography, introducing and demonstrating the importance of the "ductus" as dynamic element of the evolution of writings. In the early years of his work, from 1937 to 1939, he retained the traditional theory that wanted all Roman writings were from the capital  calligraphy by a regularly continuous transformation processing thereof, but highlighted the problems that this theory raised. He innovated by creating the first palaeographic movie, "La lettre", which highlighted the role of successive actions of cursiveness and calligraphy on the morphological transformation of the alphabet. He published, with Robert Marichal, "L'écriture latine de la capitale romaine à la minuscule". After the war, Mallon was the project manager of the ""nouvelle paléographie"" (new paleography) and published in 1952 the work "Paléographie romaine", which organized new concepts of the evolution of writing in a consistent and flawless presentation: the inclination of the support  moves the thick and thin strokes and generates a genealogy of various scriptures attested in Roman times that can no longer be seen as a continuous multiple affiliations, but in a pattern that, in outline, must be at least bifurcated. The thirty years following the "Paléographie romaine" were those of "exploitation and activism." Because of his originality and his work covering epigraphy, diplomatics, papyrology and codicology, he was considered "the pioneer of the French new school of palaeography". Publications. Film. Jean Mallon, 'Ductus', director Jean Venard, animation Equipe Arcady, music by Jean Cohen-Solal, conseiller artistique Georges Richar, prod. Les  films verts