Symphorien Champier (1471–1539) was a
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
nese doctor and writer. Born in
Saint-Symphorien,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, Champier was a relation of the
Chevalier de Bayard through his wife, Marguerite Terrail.
Life
A doctor of medicine at
Montpellier, Champier was the personal physician of
Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, whom he followed to
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
with
Louis XII
Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the tim ...
, attending to several battles, and finally settling in Lyon. He worked in Lyon alongside
François Rabelais (who wrote satirically of him in ''
Gargantua and Pantagruel
''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...
''), where he established the ''College of the Doctors of Lyon''. There he fulfilled the duties of an alderman and contributed to numerous local foundations, in particular L'Ecole des médecins de Lyon ("The School of the Doctors of Lyon").
His fame was considerable in Lyon, which in the 16th century was the greatest manufacturer of medical books in France, with editors such as
Sébastien Gryphe
Sebastian Gryphius (french: Sébastien Gryphe; c. 1492, in Reutlingen – 1556, in Lyon) was a German bookseller- printer and humanist.
Biography
He was the son of Michael Greyff (Greif, Gryff, Gryph), and learned from him the new craft of pr ...
. In addition to medicinal science, Champier studied
Greek scholars
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Arab medicine and composed a great number of historical works, including ''Chroniques de Savoie'' in 1516 and ''Vie de Bayard'' in 1525. During his last years in Lyon, he printed several medicine books against Arab medicine, a falsification of Greek science according to his judgment.
He is most famous today for his pro-woman tract La nef des dames vertueuses
he Ship of Virtuous Ladies one of the first 'feminist' tracts written in French. This book, first published in 1503, is composed of four books. Book 4 essentially imports neoplatonism
rom Marsilio Ficinoto France for pro-woman ends.
He was an extreme opponent to
Renaissance occultism, and wrote in 1532 a 'Epistola campegiana de tranmutatione metallorum contra alchimistas'.
Champier added a
codicil to his
last wills in May 1539, and he is not noticed in any document after this date, so historians believe that he died in the second part of 1539.
See also
*
Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard
Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (c. 1476 – 30 April 1524) was a French knight and military leader at the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard. Throughout the centuries since his ...
*
François Rabelais
References
* Champier, Symphorien. ''
Dictionnaire Bouillet
''Dictionnaire Bouillet'' is the informal title of the ''Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de géographie'' ("Universal Dictionary of History and Geography"), a French reference work in the public domain. The first edition was published in 18 ...
''.
* Copenhaver, Brian. ''Symphorien Champier and the Reception of the Occultist Tradition in Renaissance France.'' The Hague: Mouton, 1979.
* Reeser, Todd, ''The Ship of Virtuous Ladies'' (Toronto, 2018). Translation of three books of the text.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Champier, Symphorien
16th-century French physicians
16th-century French historians
1471 births
1539 deaths