Étienne Dolet
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The crime of Dolet was thus having added to the text of Plato the words ' rien du tout ' words which if they are not to be found in the original, or in the Latin translation, in no way alter the sense of the text, but only express more clearly the author's meaning, and the censure was made by theologians ignorant even how to spell correctly the title of the book they condemned. Yet these three words, added merely for the purpose of more completely expressing the sense of the author, contributed in no small degree to Dolet's death, and seem to have formed the sole ground of the charge of blasphemy, one of the three counts of the indictment upon which the capital and final sentence was based." --Etienne Dolet: The Martyr of the Renaissance, 1508-1546, a Biography[1] |
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Étienne Dolet (3 August 1509 – 3 August 1546) was a French scholar, translator and printer. Dolet was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime. His scientific scholarship aroused many suspicions concerning his religious views. After being imprisoned several times, he was eventually arrested and burned with his books on orders of the theological faculty of the Sorbonne.
The reason for his sentencing was adding the words "rien du tout" (English: "nothing at all") to a translation of Axiochus, in order to express more clearly its original meaning.
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Early life
Étienne Dolet was born in Orléans on 3 August 1509. 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 to Padua. 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 and French ambassador to the republic of Venice; he contrived, however, to attend the lectures of the Venetian scholar Battista Egnazio, and found time to write Latin love poems to a Venetian woman named Elena. thumb|A bust of Étienne Dolet in Orléan, (valley of Loire, France) City Hall garden.
Writings
Returning to France soon afterwards he proceeded to Toulouse to study law, 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 in the famous Ciceronian controversy (was Cicero the 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 at Lyon 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, Italian 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 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 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 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 (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 of Navarre 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 the Place Maubert. On his way there he is said to have composed the punning pentameter Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba dolet.
Religious views
Whether Dolet is to be classed with the representatives of Protestantism or with the advocates of anti-Christian rationalism has been frequently disputed; by the principal Protestants of his own time he was not recognized, and by Calvin he was formally condemned, along with Agrippa 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 in the vernacular tongue.
Dolet has been referred to as an Anti-Trinitarian.
Legacy
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 Paris in 1889.
