Étienne Dolet

Étienne Dolet (; 3 August 15093 August 1546) was a French scholar, translator and printer. He was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime, which was buffeted by the opposing forces of the Renaissance and the French Inquisition. His early attacks upon the Inquisition and the municipal authorities of Toulouse, together with his later publications in Lyon, caused the French Inquisition to monitor his activities closely.

After several stays in prison, the combined efforts of the parlement of Paris, the Inquisition, and the theological faculty of the Sorbonne resulted in his conviction for heresy and a death sentence. He was hanged and burned with his books on the Place Maubert in Paris. In modern times, Dolet is remembered as a martyr for what is now known as freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Early life and education

Born in 1509 to parents who are not known to modern historians, Dolet lived in Orléans until the age of twelve. He was able to secure a very solid education because influential "and perhaps wealthy patronage ... made provision for his education, mainly at Padua and Toulouse, with apparently few privations due to lack of means." He stayed in Venice for a year, leaving when Langeac's ambassadorship came to an end. During this time, Dolet also found time to write Latin love poems to a Venetian woman named Elena.

He returned soon afterwards to Toulouse, where he studied law from 1532 to 1534.

Prison stays and banishment

During his stay in Toulouse, he was elected speaker of the 'French Nation' and was recognised as a gifted orator. In October 1533, he delivered a violent indictment of the "backwardness and hostility to humanism and classical scholarship" of the city of Toulouse, going so far as to describe it as barbarian. He was imprisoned in March 1534 and, despite the protection of Jean de Pins (a prominent humanist and bishop), he was banished by the Parliament of Toulouse in 1534.

In August 1533, following the banishment, Dolet moved to Lyon, where he joined the circle of Lyon humanists and began the most fruitful part of his career. This work, which he first conceived of when he was sixteen years old, is considered to be the magnum opus of his life.

Also in 1538, Dolet married and, the following year, he had a son. This work is thought to be earliest printed work on the subject of ambassadorial responsibilities, with Dolet drawing on his experience working as part of Langeac's embassy in Venice. However, it regarded mainly as an historical marker and is not considered to be influential in advancing thought on the law of international diplomacy. Dolet opened a print shop on the rue Mercière in Lyon. Over the period 1538 to 1544, Dolet published some 84 works

A quarter of this production is devoted to religious works. Notably, he published a vernacular French version of the New Testament and 'The Institution of the Christian Religion' by John Calvin, a Protestant tract published during the Inquisition. He was not unaware of the dangers to which this sort of publication exposed him. Even works that he viewed as being within Catholic orthodoxy caused trouble with the Catholic authorities. His Cato Christianus is a catechism based on the model of the Disticha Catonis (Cato's Couplets), a popular textbook for teaching Latin in the 16th century. The Cato Christianus was not only banned as soon as it was released, it was also condemned on October 2, 1542 and burned on the square in front of Notre-Dame de Paris in February 1544.

Inquisition and trial

thumb|Bronze statue of Etienne Dolet by Ernest Guilbert, Place Maubert, Paris. A political demonstration is visible in the photo at the base of the statue, which was a favorite location for protests by Parisian militants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inaugurated in 1889, the statue was melted down for metal in support of the war effort by the Nazis in 1942.

Dolet's publication of religious works attracted the attention of the inquisitor Matthew Ory in 1542. In August of that year, he was incarcerated in the prison of Lyon, accused of being the author of pernicious works and of not believing in the immortality of the soul. Convicted of having printed certain of these pernicious works, eating meat during Lent and claiming to prefer the sermon to the mass, he appealed to the Parliament of Paris, which had him transferred from the prisons of Roanne to the Conciergerie where he remained for 15 months. He obtained a new pardon thanks to the intervention of the Bishop of Tulle, Pierre Duchâtel and returned to Lyon.

He was imprisoned a second time in 1544, after the discovery of bundles of heretical books bearing his printer's mark. However, he managed to escape and took refuge in Piedmont, Italy. He imprudently returned to France because he thought he could print letters in Lyon to appeal to the justice of the King of France, the Queen of Navarre and the Parliament of Paris. It was in these circumstances that he published the 'Second Hell,' a collection of letters addressed to the powerful and intended to be a defense against his accusers. These letters were followed by two translations of Plato, the Axiochus and a translation of the Hipparchus (also apocryphal), subtitled “on lust and affection to gain”.

His third trial examined the affair of the bundles of heretical books. This trial may have been the result of a plot almost certainly organised by competing master printers from Lyon. The inquisitors focused on a passage of his translation of the Axochius: “After death, you will be nothing at all”. Dolet embellished his translation by adding the words “du tout” (at all). The theology faculty of the Sorbonne saw this as proof of Dolet's heresy: he does not believe in the immortality of the soul.

On August 2, 1546, Parlement pronounced a death sentence for Dolet, citing "blasphemy, sedition and 'exposition' of banned and damnable books" and condemned him to be hung and then burned with his books until his body was "converted into ashes".

Legacy

left|thumb|Post card photo of the rue Étienne Dolet in the [[20th arrondissement of Paris. ]]

thumb|A bust of Étienne Dolet in [[Orléans, (Val-de-Loire, France)]]From the eighteenth century onwards, Dolet has been remembered as a martyr to intolerance and as a symbol of free speech and freedom of the press. He has been commemorated by many monuments in France and has served as a rallying points for numerous political demonstrations.

A first biography of Dolet’s life was published in 1779. The statue was removed and melted down in 1942 during the German occupation of Paris. Several attempts have been made to replace this monument, but so far none have been successful.

A street in the 20th arrondissement of Paris is named after Étienne Dolet.

Principal works

thumb|De Re navali, Lyon, 1537.

Many of Dolet's books were destroyed as the products of heresy and books bearing his imprint are now extremely rare. (1538).

Cato Christianus Stephano Doleto Gallo Aurelio autore, Lyon, Étienne Dolet, 1538.
Cato Formulae latinarum locutionum (1539)
La Manière de bien traduire d’une langue en l’autre (How to Translate Well from One Language to Another); (1540)
Les Gestes de Françoys de Valoys, roi de France, Lyon, E. Dolet, 1540.
De officio Legati, quem uulgo Ambassiatorem uocant (On the Office of Legate, Commonly Called Ambassador), 1541.
Cantique d’Estienne Dolet (1546), on his sorrow and consolation.

References

This page is, in large part, a translation of the francophone Wikipedia page, :fr:Étienne Dolet. It also contains research and sources that do not appear on the francophone page.