John, a learned Flemish Jesuit, born at Tirlemont in Limbourg Aug. 13, 1596. He is celebrated as the first of that series of hagiographers, called after him Bollandists, who compiled the vast collection of the lives of Romish saints known as the Acta Sanctorum. Rosweide, a learned Jesuit, had published in 1607 the plan of such a work, but died in 1629 without having realized his design. Bollandus was appointed to this work, with the approval of Pope Alexander VII, by the conclave of his order, and in 1635 received as his coadjutor Godfrey Henschen. Discarding Rosweide's plan of reproducing unchanged the whole of the ancient legends, he set himself to the task of verifying their contents by an examination of all the historical sources at his command. Of this immense work he lived to complete only five volumes. After his death in 1665, the series was continued by Henschen, Papebroch, Baert, Janning, and a host of other writers. On the abolition of the Jesuit order in 1763, the work was for a time interrupted. It was resumed in 1779, and again interrupted in 1792 by the French invasion. At this time the series extended to 54 vols. folio. The order pursued in the work was to give under the names of each month the lives of the saints whose days occur in that month. The number of biographies is estimated at 25,000. The 54 vols. brought down the series to the 16th of October. A continuation of this work is now in progress, under the auspices of the Belgian government. Two additional volumes have already appeared. This vast collection, with much that is useless and legendary, contains a valuable mine of facts in civil and ecclesiastical history.