François Bonivard
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François Bonivard (or Bonnivard) (1493–1570)[1][2] was a Swiss patriot, ecclesiastic and historian whose life was the inspiration for Lord Byron's 1816 poem The Prisoner of Chillon. He was a partisan of the Protestant Reformation.
He was the son of Louis Bonivard, Seigneur de Lunes, and was born at Seyssel into an old family of Savoy. He was educated by various monks under the jurisdiction of his uncle, Jean-Aimé de Bonivard, who was prior of St.-Victor, a monastery just outside the walls of Geneva. At the age of seven, Bonivard was sent to study at Pinerolo, Italy; for most of his youth, he reportedly preferred amusements to learning.[2] He attended the University of Turin and, on his uncle's death, succeeded him at St.-Victor in 1510.[3]
After Charles III, Duke of Savoy seized the Bonivards' property except for the priory, Bonivard sided with the patriots of Geneva who opposed the Savoy efforts to control the region. In 1519 he started to flee Geneva upon news that the Duke was approaching. On the road, he was cozened by men who turned him over to the Duke; the Duke imprisoned him at Grolée from 1519 to 1521.
The experience was not much of a deterrent; Bonivard continued his political activism. In 1530, he was set upon by robbers in the Jura, who turned him over to the Duke of Savoy. The duke imprisoned him again, this time underground in the Castle of Chillon. Bonivard was released by the Bernese when they conquered Vaud in 1536. His priory had meanwhile been destroyed, but Geneva awarded him a pension. He was made bourgeois of Geneva and sat on the Council of Two Hundred in 1537.[3]
Bonivard was married four times; one marriage was to Jeanne Darmeis, the widow of Pierre Corne, from 1544 until her death in 1552; they "lived very little and very badly together."[4] He is said to have been perpetually in debt.
In 1542, he was entrusted with compiling a history of Geneva from its beginning, and carried the story down to 1530 before he died. The manuscript of Chroniqves de Genève[5] (Chroniques de Genève) was sent to John Calvin for correction in 1551, but not actually published until 1831.[3] It is not a highly regarded work, being both biased and uncritical. In his later years, he enlisted the help of Antoine Froment to help with the chronicle.
In 1551, he donated his considerable library to the public. He left everything to the city of Geneva in his will. His exact date of death is not known because of a gap in the death records of the city.
References
- ^ "Bonivard, François, 1493-1570". Library of Congress Authorities. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^ a b Amstel (Madame the Baronne), Adrienne van (1900). James Knowles (ed.). "The True Story of the Prisoner of Chillon". The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review. 47. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company: 821–829. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^ a b c McClintock, John (1889). Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 11. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 555.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthor=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Kingdon, Robert M (2000). Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the Time of Calvin, Volume 1; Volumes 1542-1544. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 299.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Bonivard, François (1867). Chroniqves de Genève. Genève: J.G. Fick.