Étienne Dolet (; 3 August 15093 August 1546) was a French

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

and

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

. Dolet was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime. His early attacks upon the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

, the city council and other authorities in Toulouse, together with his later publications in Lyon treating of theological subjects, roused the French Inquisition to monitor his activities closely. After being imprisoned several times, he was eventually convicted of heresy, strangled and burned with his books due to the combined efforts of the parlement of Paris, the Inquisition, and the theological faculty of the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

Early life

Étienne Dolet was born in

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Francis I, but it is possible that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth. From Orléans he was taken to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

about 1521, and after studying under Nicolas Bérauld, the teacher of Coligny, he proceeded in 1526 to

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

. The death of his friend and master, Simon de Villanova, led him, in 1530, to accept the post of secretary to Jean de Langeac,

bishop of Limoges The Roman Catholic Diocese of Limoges (Latin: ''Dioecesis Lemovicensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Limoges'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the '' départments'' of Haute-Vienne and Cr ...

and French ambassador to the republic of

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

; he contrived, however, to attend the lectures of the Venetian scholar

Battista Egnazio Giovanni Battista Cipelli (1478–1553), better known as Egnazio, was a Venetian priest and humanist. He came to public notice through his rivalry with Marcantonio Sabellico in 1500–1506. From about 1508 until 1520 he was involved in the teachi ...

, and found time to write

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

love poems to a Venetian woman named Elena. Etienne Dolet Stele Orleans

Writings

Returning to France soon afterwards he proceeded to

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

to study

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

, where he soon became involved in the violent disputes between the different nations (students being organized by nation of origin) of the university. As a result, he was thrown into prison and finally banished by a decree of the ''parlement''. He entered the lists against

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

in the famous '' Ciceronian controversy'' (was Cicero the ideal exemplar of Latin prose or could one follow more fruitfully a variety of authors?) in which he took an ultra-Ciceronian stance. In 1535 he published through

Sébastien Gryphe Sebastian Gryphius (french: Sébastien Gryphe; c. 1492, in Reutlingen – 1556, in Lyon) was a German bookseller- printer and humanist. Biography He was the son of Michael Greyff (Greif, Gryff, Gryph), and learned from him the new craft of pr ...

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

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, for a ten-year period, any works in Latin,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

or French, which were the product of his own pen or had received his supervision. Accordingly, on his release from an imprisonment occasioned by his homicide of a painter named Henri Guillot, also called Compaing, he began his typographical and editorial labours at Lyon.

Cato christianus

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 The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

in Latin to Rabelais in French. But before the term of his privilege expired his labors were interrupted by his enemies, who succeeded in imprisoning him in 1542 on the charge of atheism.

Further imprisonment and death

After imprisonment for fifteen months, Dolet was released by the advocacy of Pierre Duchatel, Bishop of Tulle. He escaped from a second imprisonment in 1544 by his own ingenuity, but, venturing back from

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, 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 of Navarre This is a list of the kings and queens of kingdom of Pamplona, Pamplona, later kingdom of Navarre, Navarre. Pamplona was the primary name of the kingdom until its union with Kingdom of Aragon, Aragon (1076–1134). However, the territorial desig ...

and the ''parlement'' of Paris, he was again arrested. He was branded as a relapsed atheist by the theological faculty of the

. On 3 August 1546 (his 37th birthday), he was executed in the Place Maubert. On his way there he is said to have composed the punning pentameter (Dolet himself does not suffer, but the pious crowd grieves).

Religious views

Whether Dolet is to be classed with the representatives of

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

or with the advocates of anti-Christian

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...

has been frequently disputed; by the principal Protestants of his own time he was not recognized, and by

Calvin Calvin may refer to: Names * Calvin (given name) ** Particularly Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States * Calvin (surname) ** Particularly John Calvin, theologian Places In the United States * Calvin, Arkansas, a hamlet * Calvi ...

he was formally condemned, along with

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (; ; 14 September 1486 – 18 February 1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer. Agrippa's '' Three Books of Occult Philosophy'' published in 1533 dre ...

and his master Villanova, as having uttered execrable blasphemies against the Son of God. The religious character of a large number of the books which he translated or published is sometimes noted in opposition to these charges, as is his advocacy of reading the

Scriptures Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...

in the vernacular tongue. Dolet has been referred to as an Anti-Trinitarian.e.g. Brewer's ''Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'' - Unitarianism (1898)

Legacy

The trial of Dolet was published (1836) by A.H. Taillandier from the registers of the ''parlement'' of Paris. A bronze statue of Dolet was erected on the Place Maubert in Paris in 1889; it was removed and melted down in 1942 during the German occupation of Paris.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dolet, Etienne 1509 births 1546 deaths French classical scholars French printers French translators People executed for heresy People from Orléans 16th-century French businesspeople 16th-century executions by France Executed French people People executed by France by burning Executed people from Centre-Val de Loire French male writers