- Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet (
August 3 ,1509 –August 3 ,1546 ) was a Frenchscholar ,translator and printer.He was born at
Orléans . A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and after studying under
Nicolas Bérauld , the teacher of Coligny, he proceeded in 1526 toPadua . The death of his friend and master,Simon de Villanova , led him, in 1530, to accept the post of secretary toJean de Langeac ,bishop of Limoges and French ambassador to the republic ofVenice ; he contrived, however, to attend the lectures of the Venetian scholarBattista Egnazio , and found time to writeLatin love poems to a Venetian woman named Elena.Returning to France soon afterwards he proceeded to
Toulouse to studylaw ; but there he soon became involved in the violent disputes between the different nations of the university, was thrown into prison, and finally banished by a decree of the "parlement". He entered the lists againstErasmus in the famous "Ciceronian controversy"clarifyme, in which he took an ultra-Ciceronian stanceclarifyme: In 1535 he published throughSébastien Gryphe atLyon a "Dialogus de imitatione Ciceroniana". The following year saw the appearance of his two folio volumes "Commentariorum linguae Latinae". This work was dedicated to Francis I, who gave him the privilege of printing during ten years any works in Latin, Greek, Italian or French, which were the product of his own pen or had received his supervision; and accordingly, on his release from an imprisonment occasioned by hishomicide of a painter named Compaing, he began at Lyon his typographical and editorial labours.He endeavoured to conciliate his opponents by publishing a "Cato christianus", in which he made profession of his creed. The catholicity of his literary appreciation, was soon displayed by the works which proceeded from his press: ancient and modern, sacred and secular, from the
New Testament in Latin to Rabelais in French. But before the term of his privilege expired his labours were interrupted by his enemies, who succeeded in imprisoning him (1542) on the charge ofatheism .After imprisonment for fifteen months, Dolet was released by the advocacy of
Pierre Duchatel ,Bishop of Tulle . He escaped from a second imprisonment (1544) by his own ingenuity, but, venturing back from Piedmont, whence he had fled in order to print at Lyon the letters by which he appealed for justice to the king of France, the queen ofNavarre and the "parlement" of Paris, he was again arrested, and branded as a relapsed atheist by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne. On 3 August 1546 (his 37th birthday), he was strangled and burned in thePlace Maubert . On his way there he is said to have composed the punning pentameter "Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba dolet".Whether Dolet is to be classed with the representatives of
Protestantism or with the advocates of anti-Christianrationalism has been frequently disputed; by the principal Protestants of his own time he was not recognized, and by Calvin he is formally condemned, along withAgrippa and his masterVillanova , as having uttered execrable blasphemies against the Son of God; but, to judge by the religious character of a large number of the books which he translated or published, these condemnations seem altogether misplaced. His repeated advocacy of the reading of theScriptures in the vulgar tongue is especially noticeable.The trial of Dolet was published (1836) by A.H. Taillandier from the registers of the "parlement" of Paris.
A statue of Dolet was erected on the Place Maubert in 1889.
External links
*gutenberg author|id=Étienne_Dolet|name=Étienne Dolet
References
*1911
Literature
*Boulmier, Joseph, "E. Dolet, sa vie, ses oeuvres, son martyre" (1857)
*Christie, Richard Copley, "Étienne Dolet, the Martyr of the Renaissance" (2nd ed., 1889), containing a full bibliography of works published by him as author or printer;
*Didot, Ambroise Fermin, "Essai sur la typographie" (1852)
*Galtier, O., "Étienne Dolet" (Paris, 1908).
*Michel, L., "Dolet: sa statue, place Maubert: ses amis, ses ennemis" (1889)
*Nee de la Rochelle, J.F., "Vie d'Éienne Dolet" (1779)
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