Louis Rendu (9 December 1789 in
Meyrin
Meyrin () is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.
The main site of CERN, the European particle physics research organisation, is in Meyrin. Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the ...
– 20 August 1859) was a French
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
bishop of Annecy and a scientist.
Life
Louis Rendu was born at Meyrin, a small town a mile northwest of Geneva, on 9 December 1789.
He received his priestly education at the Grand Séminaire de Chambéry. He was ordained a priest on 19 June 1814, and appointed a teacher of ''belles lettres'' at the Collège royale de Chambéry. From 1821 to 1829, he was a professor of Physics.
He was a founding member of the ''Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Savoie'' in 1819, along with Alexis Billiet, future archbishop of Chambéry, and the society's permanent secretary.
His first book, ''Traité de Physique'', was published at Chambéry in 1825. In 1828, he published ''Théorie électrique de cristallisation'', which was awarded a prize by the Institut de France. In 1829, the Collège de Chambéry was handed over to the Jesuits, and Rendu was named a canon of the cathedral Chapter of Chambéry.
He was nominated bishop of Annecy by King
Charles Albert of Sardinia
Charles Albert (; 2 October 1798 – 28 July 1849) was the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard state from 27 April 1831 until his abdication in 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constit ...
on 25 August 1842, and approved by
Pope Gregory XVI
Pope Gregory XVI (; ; born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in June 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon enteri ...
on 27 January 1843. He was consecrated a bishop in the cathedral of Annecy on 29 April 1843, by Archbishop
Alexis Billiet of Chambéry. As bishop, he chose to send his best priestly students to the University of Turin, to take degrees in Canon Law, under Giovanni Nepomuceno Nuytz, until Nuytz's views were condemned by
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...
in his apostolic brief of 22 August 1851.
In a diocese which contained around 300 parishes, he built and consecrated 102 new churches.
Bishop Rendu was a Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite civil de Savoie, and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des SS. Maurice et Lazare.
Bishop Rendu died on 20 August 1859. His almoner, François Marie Guillermin, who was present at the death-bed, says it was 21 August.
Works
Rendu was the author of ''Theorie des glaciers de la Savoie'', an important book on the mechanisms of
glacial motion
Glacial motion is the motion of glaciers, which can be likened to rivers of ice. It has played an important role in sculpting many landscapes. Most lakes in the world occupy basins scoured out by glaciers. Glacial motion can be fast (up to , ob ...
. The
Rendu Glacier,
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
, U.S. and
Mount Rendu,
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
are named for him.
His ethnological and religious-themed works include:
* ''De l'influence des Moeurs sur les Lois, et de l'influence des Lois sur les Moeurs'', 1833
* ''Moeurs et coutumes de la Savoie du Nord au XIXe siècle'', 1845
''Lettre à S. M. le Roi de Prusse (sur la situation religieuse de l'Europe)'' 1848
''Des efforts du protestantisme'' Paris: Louis Vives 1855.
Lectura- Catalogues- Résultats de la recherche
Review by C. Millé: ''Bibliographie catholique'', , Volume 15 (Paris: Bureau de la Bibliographie catholique, 1855)
pp. 160-162
"Mandements et instructions pastorales."
. Collected in: Jacques-Paul Migne, ''Collection intégrale et universelle des orateurs sacrés du premier et du second ordre.'' Volume 85. Paris: A l'imprimerie Catholique du Petit-Montrouce, 1856. Pp. 103-395.
See also
*List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
Sources
*Baud, Henri; Binz, Louis (1985)
''Le Diocèse de Genève-Annecy''
. Annecy: Editions Beauchesne, 1985. Pp. 209-211.
*Guillermin, F.-M. (1867)
''Vie de Mgr Louis Rendu, évêque d'Annecy.''
. Paris: C. Douniol, 1867. {reprint: Hachette 2016] ulogistic, pietistic*Mermillod, Gaspard (1859)
''Mgr. Louis Rendu, évêque d'Annecy: esquisse biographique''
, Carouge: A. Jaquemot 1859.
*
External links
*David M. Cheney, ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org.,'
*Australian Antarctic Data Centre: Maps, charts, and geographic information
Mount Rendu
Retrieved: 30 July 2024.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rendu, Louis
French physicists
French glaciologists
Catholic clergy scientists
1789 births
1859 deaths