Pierre Belon

Pierre Belon

Pierre Belon (1517–1564) was a French naturalist, deeply interested in classical Antiquity, who extolled the "happy and desirable renaissance" of "all kinds of good disciplines" in his lifetime. He is sometimes known as Pierre Belon du Mans, or, in the Latin in which his works appeared, as Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus.

Belon was born in 1517 at the hamlet of Soulletière near Cérans-Foulletourte. Encouraged and supported by René du Bellay, bishop of Le Mans. He studied medicine at Paris, where he took the degree of doctor, and then became a pupil of the botanist Valerius Cordus (1515–1544) at Wittenberg, with whom he travelled in Germany.

On his return to France he was taken under the patronage of Cardinal François de Tournon, who furnished him with means for undertaking an extensive scientific journey. Starting in 1546, he travelled through Greece, Crete, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine, and returned in 1549. A full account of his Observations on this journey, with illustrations, was published in Paris, 1553. Returning to the household of Cardinal de Tournon at Rome for the conclave, Belon encountered the naturalists Guillaume Rondelet and Hippolyte Salviani. He returned to Paris with his copious notes and began to publish. In 1557 he travelled again, this time in northern Italy, Savoy, the Dauphiné and Auvergne.

Belon was highly favored both by Henry II and by Charles IX, who accorded his lodging in the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne; there he undertook the translations of Dioscurides and Theophrastus. He was assassinated one evening in April 1564, when coming through the Bois on his return from Paris.

Besides the narrative of his travels he wrote several scientific works of considerable value, particularly the Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons (1551), De aquatilibus (1553), and L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555), which entitle him to be regarded as one of the first workers in the science of comparative anatomy.

Works by Belon

All first published in Paris.

A comparison of the skeleton of birds and man in Belon's book on birds, 1555

• 1551: Histoire de la nature des estranges poissons marins, which includes the first French illustration of a hippopotamus
• 1553: De aquatilibus A French translation of this treatise on fishes, a foundation of modern ichtyology, was published in three editions at Paris, 1555, and the volume was reprinted in Frankfurt and Zurich.
• 1553: De arboribus Coniferis, Resiniferis aliisque semper virentibus..., a basic text on conifers, pines and [[evergreens
• 1553 De admirabili operi antiquorum et rerum suspiciendarum praestantia..., treating the funerary customs of Antiquity, in three volumes, of which separate titles head the second, on mummification (De medicato funere seu cadavere condito et lugubri defunctorum ejulatione) and third (De medicamentis nonnullis, servandi cadaveris vim obtinentibus).
• 1553: Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étrangèrs.
• 1555: revised edition of the Observations; it was translated into Latin for an international readership de Charles de l'Ecluse, 1589
• 1555: L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pierre Belon". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Pierre_Belon.