DOLET, ETIENNE

(1509-1546)

Frenchhumanistandprinter, notorious in his own time for the boldness with which he denounced traditional learning in his own French and Latin writings and for the controversial or forbidden books (many of them written by early French Protestants) that he published after he established his own printing firm at Lyon in 1538. Educated at Paris andPadua, he also for a time worked for the French ambassador inVeniceand studied law at Toulouse. Arrested on suspicion of heresy in 1543 because of his publication of dangerous books, he was released and then rearrested in 1544. He spent two years in prison and was burned at the stake in 1546, a fate that won for him a reputation as a martyr for intellectual freedom, Renaissance learning, and evangelical religion.