The Calvinist International
Today is the 457th anniversary of the death of Philip Melanchthon, one of the most important figures of the sixteenth century. In honor of the day, I’m re-posting a couple of texts relevant to the occasion that I’ve translated in this space before. First, a list Melanchthon made on his deathbed as to why he […]
At the conclusion of his Icones, a series of tributes to the Reformers and their forerunners, Theodore Beza attaches a series of 44 emblemata, pictures with captions in verse to explain their meaning. The opening image/poem combination in the series is quite nice. The image, an empty circle, at first glance appears odd. What could it possibly […]
A nicely turned epigram on Zwingli by Theodore Beza from his Icones–all the more surprising because Protestants can’t write, and what is true in general should be true a fortiori in the particular case of writing about Zwingli! Beza’s imagination, it seems, did not get the memo that it did not exist. Zvinglius arderet gemino quum sanctus […]
As I’ve noted before, Beza includes tributes to some non-/proto-Protestants in his Icones. One of those is Girolamo Savonarola, a Florentine Dominican friar hanged and burned in the Piazza della Signoria in 1498. After a brief section in prose, Beza appends a verse-eulogy by Marcantonio Flaminio (interestingly; since generally Beza uses his own poems): singularis tuae pietatis…quam […]
I’ve written in the past a couple of times about Theodore Beza’s Icones, his bio-hagiographical tributes to several Reformers and forerunners of the Reformation from across Europe (see here on Calvin, here on Hus). Many of his vignettes conclude with a poem. Such is the case for his sketch of Philip Melanchthon, which I have translated […]
6 July is an important date in Christian history; this year it marks not only the 480th anniversary of the execution of Thomas More, but also the 600th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Bohemian Jan Hus. A while back, on the anniversary of the death of John Calvin, I posted an excerpt from Theodore […]
An addendum to recent posts on schools and schooling in David Chytraeus’ Catechismus. In an essay on Thedore Beza and humanistic studies, Scott Manetsch notes the salutary connection for Beza between philology and piety–though only the latter is absolutely essential. The reformer [Beza] was instrumental in drawing to the [Genevan] academy several of Europe’s top […]