François Tallemant the Elder
François Tallemant the Elder (French: François Tallemant l'Aîné ) (born September 23, 1620 in La Rochelle , † May 6, 1693 in Paris ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman , Commendatarabbot , translator and member of the Académie française .
life and work
The family
François Tallemant was the younger brother of Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux and the cousin of Paul Tallemant . The designation "Tallemant the Elder" served to distinguish it from his cousin Paul (Tallemant the Younger), who shared the clerical status with him and from 1666 the membership in the Académie française.
The Protestant family from Tournai in Flanders had lived in La Rochelle since 1561 and became very wealthy through banking and insurance business. After a stay in Bordeaux, the family moved to Paris in 1634.
Conversion and Career
In 1638 the two Tallemant brothers went on a trip to Italy with Abbé Retz , who later became a cardinal. On a second trip to Rome, François Tallemant converted to the Catholic faith, became Abbé and in 1643 bought the office of almsman for the king. In 1651 he was elected to the Académie française (seat no. 16). In 1663 he was appointed Commendatarabbot of Le Val-Chrétien Monastery and prior of the Saint-Irénée Monastery in Lyon . Since his father's bank was ruined in the meantime, he sold his office in 1666 and in 1671 took over the office of almsman from "Madame" ( Liselotte von der Pfalz ), which he held until his death in 1693.
The translator. Portrait
Tallemant translated the parallel biographies of Plutarch from the Greek , which were already available in a famous translation by Jacques Amyot (now 100 years old) . Contrary to Boileau's negative judgment, Gerhard Ernst grants the translator Tallemant a “critical distance” from Amyot. He then translated extensive historical texts by Giovan Battista Nani (1616–1678) from Italian.
His portrait is known from an engraving by Étienne Picart .
Works
- La vie de Marcellus . Nouvellement traduite du grec de Plutarque en françois. Paris 1662.
- Les Vies des hommes illustres de Plutarque , nouvellement traduites de grec en françois. 6 vols. Paris 1663–1665.
- Giovan Battista Nani: Histoire de la République de Venise . 2 vols. Cologne 1682.
- Giovan Battista Nani: Histoire ... contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans toute l'Europe depuis l'année 1610 jusques en l'année 1671 , traduite de l'italien. 4 vols. Paris 1689.
literature
- Alain Boureau: Contes du père et comptes des fils. Le roman familial des Tallemant . In: Le corps, la famille et l'État. Homage to André Burguière . Eds. Myriam Cottias, Laura Downs and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. PUR, Rennes 2010, pp. 185–194.
- Léon Dorez: Documents relatifs à l'impression des oeuvres de Daniel Sennert (1650) and de François Tallemant (1666) . In: Revue des bibliothèques . Février 1895.
- Gerhard Ernst (* 1937): The vocabulary of the French translations of Plutarch's ›Vies parallèles‹ (1559–1694). Lexicological research on the development of the français littéraire from the 16th to the 17th century . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1977.
Web links
- Information on François Tallemant the Elder in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
- Literature by and about François Tallemant the Elder in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
- Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)
- Archive information on the biography , French
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst, p. 23
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tallemant the Elder, François |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Tallemant, François |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Roman Catholic clergyman, abbot, translator and member of the Académie française |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 23 September 1620 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | La Rochelle |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 6, 1693 |
| Place of death | Paris |