Bonaventure des Périers
Bonaventure of Périers ( * ca 1510, probably in Arnay-le-Duc/Bourgogne; † ca 1543, probably in Lyon) was a French author.
Life and work
About the origin and youth Des Périers is virtually nothing is known. May arise from a small noble family, he received a decent education in the humanities. 1534/35 he is the first tangible, as a marginal figure in the team of young humanists, with the reformatory intentions translated the Bible under the direction of Pierre -Robert Olivétan in Neuchâtel. After that, you can find him as an employee of the famous humanist and printer Etienne Dolet in Lyon. He clearly wrong in the intellectual circles of the city, because he supported eg 1536 with a poem to returning home from exile poet Clément Marot in his victorious feud with another poet laureate. In Lyon also and also in 1536 he met Margaret of Navarre, who sympathized with the Reformation highly educated older sister of King Francis I.. He managed to draw attention to themselves with a poem, and was admitted as a chamberlain and secretary at their service.
His activity for Margaret gave him the leisure for his own works. The most important is the come out under a pseudonym early 1538 Cymbalum mundi en français, contenant quatre dialogues poétiques continued antiques, joyeux et facétieux ( = the timpani in the world, in French, which contains four rather old, fun and witty poetic dialogues ). The book told in four chapters with a high proportion of speeches satirical figure of a visit to the Jupiter - son Mercury in ancient Athens, where he is confronted with all kinds of strange people and their talk. This reflects clearly the irony and bigotry, fanaticism and selfishness, both the Catholic and the meanwhile under warring Protestant theologian and spokesman. ( In the second chapter, for example, believe a certain Rhetulus ( = Lutherus ) and Cubercus ( = Bucerus, a noted Strasbourg humanist of the time) to be able to find pieces of the Philosopher's Stone. In the last chapter, the only dialogue in the strict sense, there are two dogs entertained sit at the credulity with which people supposedly new ideas. )
This is inspiring to the ancient Greek satirist Lucian, ostensibly especially humorous work appears on closer inspection as the first literary expression of skepticism and religious freethinking between the confessional fronts. It was condemned by the Sorbonne as heretical and the Paris Parlement, forbidden, but not on its own initiative, but because King Francis personally wanted this ( perhaps believed to know the ulterior motives of the work of his sister? ). The printer is locked. Des Perier came with the horror of it, but thus appears only covered by Margarete to have been sponsored. Also, the reformer Jean Calvin blamed later cimbalom in his Traité des scandales ( 1555). The authorship of Des Périers ' way, is not completely sure, though probably.
Other texts from him, especially poems were, in 1544 as a band from a friend published ( which mentions the death of the author in the preface). It was not until 1558 appeared the book Nouvelles et joyeux devis Récréations ( = new Unterhaltsamkeiten and funny speeches), a typical time for the collection of farces and novels, which is held by some historians of literature for his best work. Des Périers it had apparently started at about the same time as Margaret her novella collection L' Heptaméron.
About the circumstances of his early death anything reliable is known, but is probably suicide.