Etienne Dolet

Etienne Dolet (Orleans, August 3rd 1509 - Paris, August 3rd 1546) is a writer, poet, printer and Humaniste French.

Biography

A doubtful tradition makes of him the illegitimate son of François I {{er}}, but it is certain that it is resulting from a family of high ranking. He lives with Orleans until the twelve years age, then share in 1521 for Paris where he studies during five years near Nicolas Bérauld, professor of Coligny.

In 1526, it goes to Padoue. The death of its Master and friendly Simon de Villanova leads it to accept in 1530 the post of secretary of Jean de Langeac, bishop of Limoges and ambassador of France to the Venetian republic . It was however arranged to assist with the conferences of the Venetian Master Battista Egnazio and found time to write poems of love in Latin to Venetian of the name of Elena.

On its return in France, he studies the right and the jurisprudence at the university of Toulouse, but he is implied, by his turbulent mood, in violent arguments between groups of students. He is imprisoned and finally banished by a decree of the Parliament in 1534.

In 1535, it takes part in the lists against Érasme in the business of the controversy on Cicéron and, thanks to the printer Sebastien Gryphe, publishes the Dialogus of imitatione Ciceroniana , followed by two volumes of the Commentariorum linguae Latinae . This work is dedicated to François I {{er}}, which grants to him for ten years the privilege to print any work in Latin, Greek, Italian or French, of his feather or under its supervision. It obtains also a grace at the time of the accidental homicide on December 31st, 1536 of the painter Compaing who, says he, wanted to assassinate it. It went to be established printer with Lyon.

It can be thus put at work and it publishes Galien, Rabelais, Marot. He is not unaware of the dangers to which he exposes himself because of Bigoterie of his time. That is seen not only by the tone of its texts, but also by the fact that it initially tried to reconcile its adversaries by publishing a Christianus Caton, in which it made its profession of faith. This catholicity of frontage, in spite of its ultra-cicéronisme, shows through in the works left its presses, antiques and modern, religious or laic, since the New Testament in Latin to the texts of Rabelais.

But before its authorization to print does not expire, it attracts itself in Lyon of new difficulties by its satirical character and the publication of works sullied with heresy. Its work is stopped by its enemies who make it imprison in 1542 under the charge of Athéisme.

After a first stay in fifteen month old prison, it is slackened thanks to the intervention of the bishop of Tulle Pierre Duchatel. Imprisoned one second time in 1544, it escapes by its own means and takes refuge in the Piedmont.

But it returns imprudently in France by thinking that it could print with Lyon letters to call some with the justice of king de France, the queen of Navarre and Parliament of Paris. It again is stopped and judged atheistic escaped prisoner by the faculty of theology of the Sorbonne.

François Ier, who had initially protected it, having given up it, it was brought from Lyon in Paris to undergo the torment there. The August 3rd 1546, it is tortured, strangled and burned with its books on the Place Maubert. It would have composed this Pentamètre on the way of roughing-hew: Not dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba dolet (“It is not Dolet itself which is afflicted, but the virtuous multitude”).

Its crime was, according to the ones, to have professed the Matérialisme and atheism, according to the others, to be itself shown favorable to the opinions of Martin Luther.

Dolet and the religion

It is not known if Dolet must be classified among the representatives of Protestantism or the defenders of a rationalism antichrétien. However, one just like knows that he was not recognized by the Protestants of his time and that Calvin had formally condemned it, Agrippa and his Master Simon de Villanova, for blasphemies against the son of God. But, to judge some by the religious character of many books which it published, such a judgment is certainly moved. Its perpetual defense of the reading of the Writings in vulgar language is particularly notable. A statue of Dolet was set up on the Maubert Place in 1889. A bust with its effigy is in the gardens of the town hall of Orleans. It was inaugurated in the Sixties in the presence of reponsables of the Freethinking and many laic associations.

Works

Its principal works are:

Stephani Doleti orationes duæ in Tholosam. Eiusdem epistolarum libri II. Eiusdem carminum libri II. AD eundem Epistolarum amicorum liber (1534)
Stephani Doleti Dialogus de Imitatione Ciceroniana adversus Desid. Erasmus Roterdamum pro Christophoro Longolio (1535), where it fights Erasme.
Commentarius Linguæ latinæ , delivers I (1536); deliver II (1538), Lyon, 2 folio volumes.
Of Re navali liber AD Lazarum Bayfium (1537)
St Doleti Gallii Aurelii Carminum libri quartet (1538)
Formulated latina-rum iocutionum , 1539
Manière correctly of translating of a language into the other (1540)
Cantique of Estienne Dolet , the year 1546, on its desolation and its consolation.
the Second Hell
French Forewords

It also left Latin and French poetries, French translations, of some writings of Plato and Cicéron, lampoons of circumstance, including two on its imprisonment, Intitulés: the First and the Second Hell of And. Dolet, 1544, and another where he asks that it be permissible to read the Writing in vulgar language, and who was flaring.

Homages

On the place Maubert, there was a statue of Etienne Dolet, at the place its to even rough-hew. It was immortalisée by André Breton in her novel Nadja. This statue at summer destroyed during the occupation, it remained only the base, now disappeared.
the subway station Malakoff - Street Etienne Dolet on the line 13 of the subway.
" Etienne Dolet" is the name of one of the cabins of the Grand the East of France to Orleans

Publications

Old publications

Its Œuvres was reprinted at Techener, Paris, 1830.

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