Robert Gaguin

Robert Gaguin; Engraving by Nicolas de Larmessin († 1725)

Robert Gaguin , also Robert Guaguin (* 1433 in Calonne-sur-la-Lys , † May 22, 1501 in Paris ) was a French Renaissance humanist and philosopher; from 1472 he was temporarily and from 1473 finally general minister of the Trinitarian order .

Life

Robert Gaguin lost his father at a young age, whereupon his mother placed him in the Trinitarian convent of Préavin (in the forest of Nieppe near Morbecque ). Thanks to the donations of Isabella of Portugal , Duchess of Burgundy, who resided nearby, in the Château de la Motte-aux-Bois, he was able to attend the University of Paris from 1457 ; here the same age Guillaume Fichet was his teacher, who also enabled him a university career as a professor of rhetoric and canon law . He performed several missions for the Trinitarian order, returned to Paris, where he was at the time of the Battle of Montlhéry (July 16, 1465) between King Louis XI. and the Ligue du Bien public , especially the Duke of Burgundy, whereupon he preferred to spend the rest of the year and the following year in Spain. In 1468 he became minister of the Trinitarians in Paris and made another long trip through Spain; In 1470 Gaguin and Fichet worked together to set up the first Parisian printing house. In 1471 he was found in Rome. In the following years taught at Paris University. In 1472 he was elected provisional and in 1473 final general minister of the Trinitarian order . In 1477 Louis XI sent him. to the Reichstag in Frankfurt to thwart the marriage project between Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Maria of Burgundy ; it failed and Gaguin remained in disgrace until the king's death in 1483.

In 1483 under Charles VIII he was on an important mission in Rome, in 1486 he returned to Italy, in 1489 he was ambassador to England; In 1492 he was sent to Germany and had a dispute with Jakob Wimpfeling - just as he was involved in all theological and literary feuds of his time despite his other activities. He took care of the editing and publication of numerous works of various kinds until he died on May 22, 1501 at the age of 68 in Paris. He was buried in the Church of the Trinitarian Convention in Préavin.

Works

The most important work of Gaguin is the Compendium de origine et gestis Francorum . Since the time of Louis XI. he tried to have the king entrust him with an official history of the French nation in classical Latin; his submissions were unsuccessful and it seems that Gaguin wrote his work between 1483 and 1495 on his own initiative. In his lifetime it saw four editions, 1495, 1497 (two editions) and 1501; The report was expanded a little with each edition; the last one ends in 1499. Initially divided into ten books, there were eleven in 1501, the last volume dealt with the history of Charles VIII. The first nine books (up to 1461) are a short version of the Grandes Chroniques de France in the edition of 1477, from which the author removed some mythical parts, e.g. B. the legends about Charlemagne . The passages on the government of Louis XI. and Charles VIII make an interesting chronicle: Gaguin is Louis XI. not very favorably disposed, but without showing an exaggerated rejection. In sum, this work complements the Grandes Chroniques , but it seems to have been disregarded for a long time; it is not a standard summary, but one written by a contemporary who was usually well informed.

The Compendium was frequently reissued after the author's death, and this with various additions until 1586; several of these reprints are entitled Annales rerum Gallicarum ; it was also translated into French; one of these translations was continued by Pierre Desrey until 1514 and appeared as La mer des croniques & mirouer hystorial de France .

We also owe Gaguin a certain number of epistles which are interesting for the history of humanism and which show the extent of his contacts; he made a collection of 89 pieces out of it, plus a certain number of orationes or ceremonial speeches that were published in Paris by Josse Bade in 1498 : Epistolae ... quædam orationes etc. Among Gaguin's correspondents Ambroise de Cambrai , Chancellor of the Church of Paris, the State Secretary Florimond Robertet , Pierre Doriole , Chancellor of France , Guillaume Fichet, John II , King of Portugal , Louis de Rochechouart, Bishop of Saintes , Charles de Gaucourt , Councilor and Chamberlain of Louis XI, Miles d'Illiers, Bishop von Chartres , Jakob Wimpfeling, Jean d'Amboise, Bishop of Albi , Erasmus of Rotterdam and many prelates and scholars from Spain.

He translated several works from Latin into Central French , including Caesar's Gallic War , which was published in Paris by Antoine Vérard in 1485 (with the miniatures of the illuminator referred to as the master of Robert Gaguin ), texts by Titus Livius , and in 1498 Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas Conseils prouffitables contre les ennuis et tribulations du monde in 1498. Conversely, in 1473 he translated Alain Chartier's Le Curial from Central French into Latin.

literature

• Pascale Bourgain, Gaguin, Robert , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Volume 4, 2003, column 1078
• Sylvie Charrier, Recherches sur l'œuvre latine en prose de Robert Gaguin (1433–1501) , Paris, H. Champion, 1996.
• Franck Collard, Un historien au travail à la fin du XVe siècle: Robert Gaguin , Geneva, Droz (Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance, CCCI), 1996.
• Auguste Molinier, Robert Gaguin , in: Les sources de l'histoire de France - Des origines aux guerres de l'Italie (1494) , Volume 5, Paris: A. Picard et fils, 1904, pp. 26-28
• Louis Thuasne (ed.), Roberti Gaguini Epistole et orationes , Paris, Bibliothèque littéraire de la Renaissance, Émile Bouillon, 1903

Web links

• Literature by and about Robert Gaguin in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Robert Gaguin in the Encyclopédie Universalis