In January 1876, Antoine Héron de Villefosse, a palaeographic archivist and archaeologist, was appointed a member of the Commission de Topographie des Gaules. A renowned specialist in Latin epigraphy, he was introduced to the Société française d’Archéologie by Anatole de Barthélémy in 1871. He later succeeded Léon Renier at the École pratique des hautes études. In 1881, he became curator of the department of Greek and Roman antiquities at the Louvre.