Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance

CCCLXXVIII

Alison Adams

WEBS OF ALLUSION

FRENCH PROTESTANT EMBLEM BOOKS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

LIBRAIRIE DROZ S.A.

11, rue Massot

GENÈVE

2003

FRONTISPIECE

Frontispiece : Jean Jacques Boissard,

Emblematum liber

(Frankfurt am Main, 1593). Engraving from Emblem 15, "Omne bonum opus invidiam sentit", p. 31 (detail). (GUL, SM188)

Mentions légales

Résumé

Centré sur les emblèmes de Georgette de Montenay, Théodore de Bèze, Jean-Jacques Boissard et du moins connu Paul Perrot de la Sale, Webs of Allusion est le premier ouvrage qui soit consacré à l’ensemble de la littérature emblématique protestante publiée en France au XVIe siècle ainsi qu’à son mode de lecture. La diffusion dont jouit la littérature emblématique est en effet bien documentée par les diverses traductions qui s’en sont saisies – Georgette de Montenay du français au latin, à l’espagnol, à l’italien, à l’allemand, à l’anglais et au néerlandais ; Bèze du latin au français ; Boissard du latin au français et à l’allemand. Mais, alors que la compréhension des emblèmes du théologien Bèze est presque immédiate, le discours tenu par ceux de Georgette de Montenay et de Boissard requiert l’agilité intellectuelle du lecteur, qui se trouve confronté à tout un éventail de stimuli, visuels et verbaux, d’origine mythologique et surtout biblique. Cette lecture entre texte(s) et image, aussi active soit-elle, invite finalement à la méditation, encouragée par le réseau complexe des allusions. Webs of allusion vise à introduire le lecteur moderne à ce mode de lecture ardu sans doute, mais édifiant.

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Abstract

This study examines the emblems of Georgette de Montenay, Theodore de Beze and Jean Jacques Boissard, as well as the lesser-known Paul Perrot de la Sale. For the first time, the complete corpus of sixteenth-century French Protestant emblematic material is subjected to a detailed analysis providing insight into what was expected of a contemporary reader, notably through the evidence of the various translations: Montenay from French into Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, English and Dutch; Beze from Latin into French; and Boissard from Latin into French and German. While the emblems of the theologian Beze are relatively clear-cut, the discourse encountered in those of both Montenay and Boissard requires engagement in a process of active reading, responding to a range of stimuli, both visual and verbal, and of classical and especially biblical origin. This active reading, moving between image and text(s), encourages a kind of meditation, prompted by the complex web of allusions; this study aims to reintroduce modern readers to this challenging potential.

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www.droz.org

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Références papier

ISBN-10 : 2-600-00874-8

EAN : 9782600008747

ISSN : 0082-6081

Copyright (2003) by Librairie Droz S.A., 11, rue Massot, Genève.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission.

Distribué en France par de Boccard :

www.deboccard.com

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Références numériques

EAN ePUB : 9782600308748

EAN PDF : 9782600108744

ISSN : 0082-6081

Copyright (2021) by Librairie Droz S.A., 11, rue Massot, Genève.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

ix

Note on the Illustrations

x

Chapter I : Introduction

1

Chapter II : Georgette de Montenay : a Biblical Subtext

9

The 1567 / 1571 Edition

24

The 1584 Latin Version

74

The 1619 Edition

81

Chapter III : Théodore de Bèze : Theologian and Poet

119

Postscript : Bèze’s Influence on the Emblem Tradition

149

Chapter IV : Jean Jacques Boissard : Humanist and Christian

155

Theatrum Vitae Humanae,

1596

156

Emblematum Liber / Emblemes latins… avec l’interpretation

françoise,

1584 / 1588

186

Emblematum Liber,

1593

230

Chapter V : Paul Perrot de la Sale : Catholic or

Réformé ?

293

Chapter VI : Conclusion

305

Appendix : Boissard :

Theatrum vitae humanae,

Chapter 58 : Biblical Sources

309

Indexes

315

Index of Proper Names

315

Index of Mottoes Cited

319

Index of Biblical References

322

DEDICATION

FOR RICHARD, MARIANNE,
AND SPECIALLY STEVE,
IN GRATITUDE FOR HIS INFINITE PATIENCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For this study, which draws on materials from a number of libraries, and texts in many different languages, and which has tempted me to stray well outside the normal confines of my disciplinary background, I am indebted to a huge number of individuals and organisations : for access to libraries and provision of microfilms, photographs and photocopies ; for assistance with linguistic problems in Latin, Greek, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish and even English ; for advice on a range of topics, especially regarding the historical and theological contexts of the works, and for general moral support. While the responsibility for any errors remains mine, I record with pleasure my thanks for help of different kinds, encouragement, and in many cases for sharing in my enthusiasm to : Marigo Alexopolou, Amsterdam University Library, Julie Barr, Astrid Balsem, Michael Bath, Jill Bepler, the Bibliothèque de l’Institut, Jantien Black, Peter Black, Hans Brandhorst, the British Library, Karl Brunner, Terence Cave, Christophe Chazalon, Paulette Choné, Bob Cummings, Paul Donnelly, Alain Dufour, Max Engammare, Fanny Esterházy, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Andrew Folks, Thomas Ford, Christopher Francis, Bénédicte Gaulard, Michael Giordano, members of the Glasgow French Department Honours Option group on Emblems 2002-2003, David Graham, Roger Green, Billy Grove, Peter Hainsworth, Tony Harper, Sophia Hasioti, Peter Hasler, Arnaud d’Hauterives, Ian Hazlitt, Theo van Heijnsbergen, Erma Hermens, the Herzog August Bibliothek, Francis Higman, the Houghton Library, the Huntington Library, the IHRT, David Jasper, Betty Knott, Ronald Knox, Femke Kramer, Judi Loach, Ainslie McIntyre, Ian McLean, Nico Mann, Bill Marshall, Noel Peacock, Nikki Pollock, Richard Rawles, the Royal Library in Brussels, Dan Russell, Alison Saunders, Michael Screech, Peter Sharratt, Jeremy Smith, Jane Stevenson, Julia Storey, Margit Thøfner, Marianne Tsioli-Bodenmann, Arnoud Visser, Gareth Walters, Marleen van der Weij, David Weston, Domenico Zanre, with apologies to anyone I have not mentioned by name. Of particular importance at all stages were, of course, the Special

Collections Department of Glasgow University Library, to whom, along with the Photographic Unit, I express my gratitude for providing me with reproductions of the major texts I have studied. For financial support, I am grateful to the French Department and the Arts Faculty of the University of Glasgow, to the Society for Emblem Studies, to the British Academy, for funding a research trip to Paris and Wolfenbüttel, and to the AHRB, for research leave without which this work would not have seen completion. I must single out especially my husband Stephen Rawles who has offered moral support at all times and who, recently, and most expertly, has undertaken the preparation of the illustrative material.

NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

With three exceptions the illustrations in this book are from copies in the Stirling Maxwell Collection in Glasgow University Library. Figure 7a is from a copy in the Library of the University of Amsterdam, and Figures 60-61 are from a copy in the Houghton Library of Harvard University. In the case of Figures 1-17 (apart from 7a), which reproduce the engravings of Pierre Wœiriot for Georgette de Montenay, and Figures 28-32 and 44- 59, reproducing the engravings of Theodore de Bry for the

Theatrum vitae humanae

and 1593

Emblematum liber

of Jean Jacques Boissard, half-tone images from ‘grayscale’ have been produced in order better to reveal the important detail central to the interpretation of these exceptional examples of the engraver’s art. All the other illustrations have been reproduced in the less sophistitcated line or ‘bitmap’ technique, which involves considerably less expense. It is believed that no important detail has been lost in either procedure.

Thanks are due to the Librarians of Amsterdam University Library, the Houghton Library, and, in particular, to David Weston, Keeper of Special Collections, Glasgow University Library, for waiving reproduction fees, and to the Librairie Droz for a generous attitude to the necessity of copious illustration in a work such as this.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In the sixteenth century, France led the way in establishing the popular and influential genre of the emblem. While the first book of emblems, Alciato’s

Emblematum liber

of 1531, was published in Germany, thereafter the focus shifted first to Paris and later also to Lyons, before spreading across the whole of Europe. Less obvious is the fact that France played an equally central role in the development of specifically religious emblems, with the publication in Lyons in 1567 / 1571 of Georgette de Montenay’s

Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes.

1

Georgette de Montenay was a Calvinist, and during the sixteenth century it was the Calvinists who dominated this development. My aim is to analyse these Protestant works, not only Montenay’s

Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes

, but the emblems by Théodore de Bèze which appear in his

Icones

(1580),

2

and the two emblematic works of Jean Jacques Boissard, the

Emblemes latins…,

with editions in 1584 and 1588, and the

Emblematum liber

of 1593.

3

The close analysis which I shall provide will of course serve to facilitate our understanding of texts which, because they demand an active and informed reading, pose particular problems for a modern reader, but will also allow some conclusions to be drawn about the rhetoric of these Protestant works, the source of the meditative quality which is the purpose of religious emblems.

The

corpus

of material which I have grouped together here under the general heading of French Protestant emblem books has been granted uneven attention. Georgette de Montenay certainly has been the object of a large number of studies, benefitting no doubt from her status as a woman poet, but Théodore de Bèze’s emblems, despite, or maybe because of Bèze’s central position within the history of the Protestant movement in France, have attracted relatively little notice, and what little there is has been

subordinated to an interest in his

Icones

, in the context of which the emblems first appear.

4

Boissard’s emblems are also only a small part of his total output, and they have fared little better than those of Bèze ; understandably since Boissard’s importance overall lies in his artistic endeavours, the emphasis has tended to be on the engravings. My own starting point, however, is textual, prompted in part by my experience of tackling emblems with students, both undergraduate and postgraduate. While emblems with a religious significance engage the interest of contemporary students, even those with a committed Christian background are in the main poorly equipped to grasp their full significance. Although classical reference, for instance, is obvious enough, even if only as something which needs to be elucidated, biblical allusion is much more elusive. It depends often not on a name or a narrative, as is the case for most classical references, but on the recognition of a phrase or, appropriately for emblems, an image, which conjures up a biblical context. The Christian resonance of a vineyard, or of the idea of bearing fruit, for example, is unrecognised by many students in the late twentieth or twenty-first century. Moreover, the main barrier to recognising the biblical phrases — whether in Latin or French — which are such an important feature of Montenay in particular is not the linguistic one, but a fundamental lack of sensitivity to biblical expression, probably related to the variety of different biblical translations used these days.

This experience was an important catalyst in my decision to seek to provide a full analysis of this group of texts produced within a broadly Christian context. Alongside this lies my interest in translations.

5

The 1619 polyglot edition of Montenay’s emblems provides particularly fertile ground for such study which can throw light on the reception of the original emblems. It is indeed a feature of all three of the major works within my purview that they survive in different language versions and thus that a comparison of the original (French in the case of Montenay, Latin for Bèze and Boissard) with its translation or translations sheds important light both on the original — for instance on the recognition of biblical allusion — and on the different cultural expectations of the target audiences.

We are of course well aware of the success with which emblems were used as a vehicle for religious argument, especially though by no means exclusively by the Jesuits during the seventeenth century. The Jesuits, their educational methods and their distinctive rhetoric, have been the object of

an enormous amount of critical attention in the last decade.

6

Within an English framework, the confessional issue has also been analysed, with particular attention given to what happens when Roman Catholic texts, such as Herman Hugo’s influential

Pia desideria

,

7

are adapted for a different religious context.

8

In the French-speaking world though the situation was reversed. It was the Protestants (Calvinists) who first produced explicitly Christian emblem books in the latter part of the sixteenth century — though certainly not in the systematic way that the Jesuits consciously exploited the genre in the seventeenth, from Jan David’s

Veridicus christianus

and Louis Richeome’s

Tableaux sacrez

(both in 1601) onwards.

9

It should not of course be thought that earlier emblem books were necessarily devoid of any Christian reference, but as Daniel Russell has put it :

the emergence of the emblem form was… one of the signs of a new independence from an epistemology so dominated by religion that nothing could be conceived in complete isolation from the Church and its view of the world.

10

Alciato, whose

Emblematum liber

launched the genre in 1531, certainl ncluded within his emblems a small number which, from 1548 onwards, were classe nder the heading ‘Deus, sive religio’ (God or religion), but

these are in the minority an re not explicitly Christian.

11

Later commentators sometimes imposed a Christian interpretation, bu lciato’s mode of expression does not encourage this. The two first native Frenc mblem books of 1540, La Perrière’s

Theatre des bons engins

an orrozet’s

Hecatomgraphie

are similar in favouring classical myth as eans of expressing religious ideas.

12

These early emblem books sought to explore moral truths of the most genera nd indeed varied kind. In his

Devises heroiques

(1551) on the othe and, Paradin includes among the devices he presents a considerable number wit xplicit Christian significance, and reveals his position within the Roman Catholi radition.

13

Coustau too in his

Pegma

(1555), although his vers

ubscriptiones

follow a strategy comparable to La Perrière an orrozet, adds his own commentary in the form of his ‘Enarratio philosophica’, an his is often explicitly Christian in orientation.

14

It is in this context that Georgette de Montenay conceived her Christian emblems which, she argues, are the first to be Christian, and which, despite the considerable problems involved in the publication of the work, sowed the seed for the development of religious emblems not only in France but throughout Europe. She provided a stimulus first for the theologian Bèze, which shows the seriousness with which her work was regarded, and in due course the archaeologist and artist Boissard followed suit. Despite their undoubted historical importance, these early emblematic texts by Protestant writers have never been brought together for consideration as one

corpus.

A word must be said though about the whole concept of ‘Protestant’ emblems. It has recently been argued that the divide between Catholics and Protestants in France was far from being as absolute as might be imagined with our retrospective gaze.

15

Moreover, literary historians have thrown doubt on the notion of a specifically Protestant rhetoric, even within much meditational poetry in the latter years of the sixteenth century.

16

Protestants

and Catholics at this period often expressed similar attitudes on questions such as justification through faith alone or the centrality of Christ.

A particularly formative influence on both Catholics and Calvinists was Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas, himself a moderate Calvinist, and the anthologies produced in the name of the Protestant Maisonfleur even group together poems by Catholic and Protestant authors.

17

Terence Cave asserts that Calvinists were in many religious literary contexts the initiators : ‘vernacular theology, paraphrase of the Psalms, drama poetry — but by the 1570’s the counter-attack, led chiefly by the Jesuits, was well under way’.

18

Emblem books, it would seem, could be added to this list. The importance of Montenay’s emblems in the development of the genre has long been accepted, and Bèze’s influence is also demonstrable. The characteristic structure of meditative verse, which finds its roots in the Loyolan (Jesuit) tradition of composition, analysis and colloquy or affective prayer, has also in fact much in common with the structure of the emblem.

19

***

Although the explicitly Calvinist credentials of the three main emblematists who engage my attention will be seen to be reliable enough, the inclusion of Paul Perrot de la Sale in my purview is much more speculative. We know very little about Perrot the man, and even less about the circumstances in which his emblems were produced. Nevertheless, there are enough markers in his rhetoric to justify at least his provisional classification within this category.

SOURCES

While working on this study, I have for the most part been able to rely for primary sources on books held in Glasgow University Library’s Stirling Maxwell Collection. It has provided me with copies of all the editions of Georgette de Montenay’s emblems (1567 / 1571 (SM771), 1584, and its reissue in 1602 (SM772, SM773), 1619 (SM774, SM775)) ; with the Latin and the French versions of Théodore de Bèze’s

Icones

within which his emblems are contained (SM1248, SM161, SM161A,

SMAdd104), as well as various later editions of his

Poemata,

and with Jean Jacques Boissard’s

Tetrasticha in emblemata

(SM186, SM187), the 1588

Emblemes latins…

(SMAdd415, in fact acquired during the course of my investigations), as well as the Latin and German versions of the 1593

Emblematum liber

(SM188, SM189), and the Latin and German versions of the

Theatrum vitae humanae

(SM191, SMAdd59). For the 1584 edition of Boissard’s

Emblemes latins,

I used a microfilm of the copy in New York Public Library, and for the 1588 edition a microfilm from the Royal Library in Brussels, including important manuscript additions, served me well until Glasgow acquired its own copy. The Folger Shakespeare Library supplied me with a microfilm of the French version of the 1593

Emblematum liber.

Full bibliographical details of these editions, and editions of other French emblem books, will be found in

A Bibliography of French Emblem Books

by Alison Adams, Stephen Rawles and Alison Saunders, 2 vols (Geneva : Droz, 1999-2002), hereafter referred to as BFEB followed by the entry number F.001 etc.

For emblems by Alciato, I have used the standard numbering system, D.001-D.212, from the

Index Emblematicus

, ed. Peter M. Daly (Toronto : Toronto University Press, 1985). For Corrozet’s

Hecatongraphie,

I use the numbering (H.1 etc.) from my own edition based on Janot’s fourth edition : Gilles Corrozet,

L’Hecatongraphie (1544) & Les Emblemes du

Tableau de Cebes

(1543)

(Geneva : Droz, 1997). A particularly useful source in interpreting French texts has been Randle Cotgrave’s

A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611),

introd. William S. Woods (Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 1968), referred to simply as ‘Cotgrave’.

In quoting from primary sources, I have not only resolved abbreviations, but also adopted modern usage with regard to the distinction between i and j and u and v. Apart from that, I follow the spelling of the original text. I have provided translations for texts in Latin, Greek or Dutch. Since the purpose of these translations was often comparison with another version, I have made every effort to make the translation as literal as possible. This makes it possible to appreciate the translation or adaptation process operating in the sixteenth-or seventeenth-century texts.

While the resources of Glasgow University Library were vital to my research, thes ave been complemented by online searching facilities. Glasgow’s Euing Bibl ollection provided most of the vernacular sixteenth and early seventeenth-centur ibles necessary for this study,

20

but

at the sam ime, the detailed searching of the Vulgate, with links between the Vulgate an arious English translations, provided by

Bible Browser

at Brow niversity was of particular importance. Sadly, this invaluable site has bee iscontinued. The text of the Vulgate was drawn from the one previously mounted o he Bible Foundation website, and includes the two versions of the Psalms, translated from Hebrew and Greek respectively.

21

For English translation of biblical citations, I have, unless otherwis tated, used the Authorised Version (King James), because, despite bein nachronistic, it has, to some extent, the same kind of familiarity for Englis peakers as the Vulgate must have had for many readers in the sixteenth century. When not actually quoting, I have adopted the convention of capitalisin eferences to God or Christ (He, Him) since that can on occasion clarify th ense.

Many sixteenth-century readers of emblem books will also have had a certain familiarity with at least a few works of classical literature. This is even more rare for modern readers than is familiarity with the Bible. In this context, I have resorted to the

Perseus Project

for Latin texts (http://perseus.csad.ox.ac.uk), and the

Thesaurus linguae graecae

on CD-ROM for Greek.

p.1

1

See Chapter 2, pp. 9-118.

2

See Chapter 3, pp. 119-153.

3

See Chapter 4, pp. 155-308.

p.2

4

Alison Saunders has recently set Montenay and Bèze, but not Boissard, in the context of earlier French emblem books : ’The sixteenth-century French emblem book as a form of French religious literature’, in Andrew Pettegree, Paul Nelles and Philip Conner (eds),

The Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book

(Aldershot : Ashgate, 2001), pp. 38-67.

5

Alison Adams, ‘Jacques Grévin et sa traduction française des

Emblemata

d’Hadrianus Junius’,

De Gulden Passer

73 (1995), 37-66 ; ‘Jacques Grévin and his Translation of Sambucus’

Emblemata

’,

De Gulden Passer

75 (1997), 139-182.

p.3

6

John Manning and Marc van Vaeck (eds),

The Jesuits and the Emblem Tradition : selected papers of the Leuven international emblem conference, 18-23 August, 1996

(Turnhout : Brepols, 1999) ; Peter M. Daly, G. Richard Dimler and Rita Haub (eds),

Emblematik und Kunst der Jesuiten in Bayern : Einfluss und Wirkung

(Turnhout : Brepols, 2000) ; Alison Saunders,

The Seventeenth-Century French Emblem. A Study in Diversity

(Geneva : Droz, 2000), esp. chapter 4, pp. 109-160. I have been lucky enough to have had access, at a prepublication stage, to Judi Loach’s forthcoming critical edition of the Jesuit polymath Claude-François Menestrier ; Loach has also published numerous articles on Jesuit theory and exploitation of imagery, including notably : ‘Menestrier’s emblem theory’,

Emblematica 2

(1988), 317-336 ; ‘Jesuit emblematics and the opening of the school year at the Collège Louis le Grand’,

Emblematica

9 (1995 (1997)), 133-176 ; ‘The influence of the counter-reformation defence of images on the contemporary concept of the emblem’, in Peter M. Daly and John Manning (eds),

Aspects of Renaissance and Baroque Symbol Theory,

AMS Studies in the Emblem, 14 (New York : AMS Press, 1999), pp. 155-200.

7

For French editions, see BFEB F.333-400 ; more generally see Peter M. Daly and G. Richard Dimler,

Corpus librorum emblematum. The Jesuit Series

(Montreal and Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997-). The first recorded Jesuit emblem books appear in the 1580s.

8

Barbara K. Lewalski,

Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric

(Princeton N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1979) ; Karl Josef Höltgen,

Aspects of the Emblem : studies in the English emblem tradition and the European context

(Kassel : Edition Reichenberger, c. 1986).

9

Jan David,

Veridicus christianus

(Antwerp : J. Moretus, 1601). BFEB F.206-210. Louis Richeome,

Tableaux

sacrez (Paris : L. Sonnius, 1601). BFEB F.498-506.

10

Daniel Russell,

Emblematic Structures in Renaissance French Culture

(Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1995), p. 58.

p.4

11

Andreas Alciato,

Emblematum liber

(Augsburg : H. Steyner, 1531) ;

Emblemata

(Lyons : M. Bonhomme/G. Rouille, 1548). For French editions of Alciato’s emblems, see BFEB F.001-072.

12

Guillaume de La Perrière,

Le Theatre des bons engins

(Paris : Denis Janot, 1540). BFEB F.364-381.

Gilles Corrozet,

L’Hecatomgraphie

(Paris : Denis Janot, 1540). BFEB F. 189-199.

13

Claude Paradin,

Devises heroiques

(Lyons : J. de Tournes an . Gazeau, 1551). BFEB F.460-469.

14

Pierre Coustau,

Pegma

(Lyons : M. Bonhomme, 1555). BFE .201-202.

15

For instance, Thierry Wanegffelen (

Ni Rome ni Genève. Des fidèles entre deux chaires en France au XVIe siècle

(Paris : Champion : 1997)) explores the ‘plat pays de la croyance’ between the two polarised loyalties. In particular he argues that the belief in the role of grace in salvation was shared by many Catholics and that a more reliable sign of denominational loyalty lies in the ‘sensibilité religieuse’ felt towards the Eucharist.

16

Terence C. Cave,

Devotional Poetry in France, c. 1570-1613

(Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 23 and

passim.

p.5

17

Cave,

Devotional Poetry…,

p. 79. Further evidence of cross-fertilisation is found in Mario Richter, ‘Una fonte calvinista di J. B. Chassignet’,

BHR

26 (1964), 341-362.

18

T. C. Cave, ‘The Protestant Devotional Tradition : Simon Goulart’s

Trente Tableaux de la mort

’,

French Studies

21 (1967), 1-15, p. 5.

19

Louis L. Martz,

The Poetry of Meditation. A Study in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century

(New Haven : Yale University Press, 1954), pp. 25-39 ; Cave,

Devotional Poetry

…, pp. 32-33, 69, 148, 150, 177, 204-205 ; Russell,

Emblematic Structures

…, p. 228.

p.6

20

In particular, I have used the following Latin Bibles :

Biblia

(transl. Pagnini) (Lyons : Antoine de Ry, 1528) ;

Iesu Christi Novum Testamentum…

(Paris : Henri Estienne, 1565) ;

Novum Testamentum…

(transl. Castellion) ([Geneva] : [H. Estienne], 1582) ;

Bibli acra

(transl. Tremellius and Beza) (Geneva : Jean d ournes, 1590) ;

Biblia sacra

(transl. Tremellius an eza) (Geneva : Berjon, 1617). For Calvin’s translations

Ioanni alvini Commentarii…

(Geneva : Ex officina Crispiniana, 1572) ;

Harmonia ex Evangelistis…

(Geneva : Anchor rispiniana, 1572). For Erasmus’ translation

De libris utriusqu estamenti

(Paris : s.n., 1542).

p.7

21

I am grateful to Richard Goeritz who previously managed the ‘Bible Browser’ site for information regarding his sources. I have also referred to my ow opy of a ‘modern’ edition of the Vulgate :

Biblia sacra

(Paris : Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1887).

CHAPTER III

THÉODORE DE BÈZE : THEOLOGIAN AND POET

1

Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605), or Beza, must be esteemed as one of the leading figures of the sixteenth century ; but few would be aware that he turned his hand to emblems. His importance lies of course primarily in the role he played within the Reformed (Calvinist) church. For the theologian or historian, he is the man who represented Calvin and Geneva at the Colloque de Poissy in 1561, and succeeded him as Pastor in Geneva on his death in 1564, the man who might just have succeeded in making France a Protestant rather than a Catholic country, and who subsequently tried to negotiate with Lutherans at Montbéliard in 1586. For the student of French literature, on the other hand, he might be known for his play

Abraham sacrifiant

(1550), or for his continuation of the translation of the

Psalms

(1553-1562), originally undertaken by Clément Marot, and his work on the New Testament for the Geneva Bible.

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Bèze was born in Vézelay and received a Humanist education. His early publications, secular Neo-Latin verse, reflect this.

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But in 1548, like many followers of the Reformed faith, he fled to Switzerland where he taught Greek in Lausanne before settling in Geneva. His tragedy

Abraham sacrifiant

(1550) represented a considerable change in orientation, rejecting Pléiade ideals for Calvinist ‘simplicity’. Thereafter there seems to have been little time for literary productions. Bèze became Calvin’s collaborator, acting as his representative in France, conversing and corresponding in Latin and French with leading court figures and with theologians across Europe. Henceforward, apart from revisions of earlier works, his publications were theological and historical in orientation. Bèze’s emblems constitute a surprising anomaly within his

œuvre.

While Bèze was manifestly aware of Georgette de Montenay’s

Emblemes ou devises chretiennes,

his own could hardly be more different. To start with they are of course in Latin, and they function in a fundamentally different manner : Montenay’s, as we have seen, mostly rely on a web of complex allusions to the Bible, both through the text and through Woeiriot’s

picturae

, whereas Bèze’s emblems are mostly striking in their simplicity and logical clarity. They are presented as part of his

Icones, id est verae imagines virorum doctrina simul et pietate illustrium, quorum praecipue ministerio partim bonarum literarum studia sunt restituta, partim vera Religio in variis orbis Christiani regionibus, nostra patrumque memoria fuit instaurata : additis eorundem vitae et operae descriptionibus, quibus adiectae sunt nonnullae picturae quas Emblemata vocant

(Geneva : Jean de Laon, 1580), and the

Icones

for their part have been seen as complementing the

Histoire ecclésiastique

.

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The

leones

are translated into French the following year by Simon Goulart, Bèze’s Calvinist colleague and successor at the Genevan synod.

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Goulart completed many translations into French from both Greek and Latin, and in both prose and verse, so he must have been an obvious candidate to translate the

leones,

although no information is available concerning how he was chosen. His biographer, Leonard Jones, admires his many translations, but considers him ‘un très médiocre poète’.

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