Nicolas Denisot, also Nicholas Denizot, (1515–1559) was a French

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

poet and painter.

Family

Denisot was born in

Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Man ...

where his family, described as an "ancient and illustrious family of

Perche Perche () (French: ''le Perche'') is a former province of France, known historically for its forests and, for the past two centuries, for the Percheron draft horse breed. Until the French Revolution, Perche was bounded by four ancient territorie ...

" fixed a long time in

Nogent-le-Rotrou Nogent-le-Rotrou () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture and is located on the river Huisne, 56 kilometres west of Chartres on the RN23 and 150 kilometres south west of Paris, to which it is li ...

, lived. They were noble and wore "three ears of corn in a field of blue". His father Jehan Denisot the Elder was a lawyer. Jehan's eldest son John was born with his first wife Simone Moreau who died soon after. Nicolas was the product of his father's second marriage. His older brother Francis, born of the second marriage and the eldest of Nicolas, joined the church. Francis practiced poetry as a hobby, and later became

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

of La Perine and then

Prior Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be l ...

at Asse-le-Riboul. Denisot - Noelz, 1847

Early career

Denisot's studies were rather poor where he studied in school run by monks. He did have the opportunity to become friends with the poet

Jacques Pelletier du Mans Jacques Pelletier du Mans, also spelled Peletier ( la, Iacobus Peletarius Cenomani, 25 July 1517 – 17 July 1582) was a humanist, poet and mathematician of the French Renaissance. Born in Le Mans into a bourgeois family, he studied at the Co ...

. Then he probably went to college Saint-Benoît. The college was located in the Saint-Pavin-de-Ia-Cité where Denisot remained. There he met and became friends with the writer Jacques Tahureau. Denisot followed in the footsteps of his father, made a career as a lawyer and was later appointed Attorney in Le Mans.

Works

He published a Christmas poem collection in December 1545, preceding those of Barthélémy Aneau, under a pseudonym "Count of Alsinois". He then went on to produce numerous writings and poetry using this alternate identity, as well as occasionally painting portraits. His writing brought him into a network of friends and contacts included many well-known French ''literati'' of his time, such as

François de Belleforest François de Belleforest (1530 – 1 January 1583) was a prolific French author, poet and translator of the Renaissance. He was born in Samatan (actual department of Gers), into a poor family, and his father (a soldier) was killed when he was s ...

Joseph Scaliger Joseph Justus Scaliger (; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a French Calvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewis ...

, Bernard de Girard,

Pierre Boaistuau Pierre Boaistuau, also known as Pierre Launay or Sieur de Launay (c. 1517, Nantes – 1566, Paris), was a French Renaissance humanist writer, author of a number of popularizing compilations and discourses on various subjects. Beside his many popul ...

Jean-Antoine de Baïf Jean Antoine de Baïf (; 19 February 1532 – 19 September 1589) was a French poet and member of the '' Pléiade''. Life Jean Antoine de Baïf was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French amb ...

, Claude Roillet, and

Jacques Grévin Jacques Grévin (''c''. 1539 – 5 November 1570) was a French playwright. Grévin was born at Clermont, Oise in about 1539, and he studied medicine at the University of Paris. He became a disciple of Ronsard, and was one of the band of dramati ...

. One painting executed by Denisot ''

Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, KG, PC (20 March 1549) was a brother of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII. With his brother, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, he vied for control of ...

'' is part of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United ...

collection. National Maritime Museum portrait by Nicolas Denisot
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References

* H. LA MAYNARDIERE, Christian Poets of the sixteenth century, Paris, 1908, 8vo, p. 77. * Abbot Godet, Nicolas Denisot in: Bulletin of the Percheron Society of History and Archaeology, vol. VII (1908), No. 2, April 15 HJ08, Bellême, p. 96. * H. Chardon, Scarron unknown, Paris, 1903-1904, 2 vols. See the family tree of the family Denisot. * E. Desvaux MarteviIJ-e, Manor Perche, op. cit., p. 41. * A. BUTTON, Maine ... fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, p. 419. * History of the nature of Oyseaux Pierre Belon, Paris, 1555, fol. {{DEFAULTSORT:Denisot, Nicolas 1515 births 1559 deaths French Renaissance painters People from Le Mans French poets French male poets