Petrus_Gyllius

Petrus Gyllius

Petrus Gyllius

French scientist, topographer and traveller (1490–1555)

Petrus Gyllius or Gillius (or Pierre Gilles) (1490–1555) was a French natural scientist, topographer and translator.[1]

Title page of Petrus Gyllius' 1535 translation of Aelian.

Gilles was born in Albi, southern France. A great traveller, he studied the Mediterranean and Orient, producing such works as De Topographia Constantinopoleos et de illius antiquitatibus libri IV, Cosmæ Indopleutes and De Bosphoro Thracio libri III, in which he provided the first written account of the Bosphorus, in Latin,[2] as well as a book about the fish of the Mediterranean. Sent by King Francis I of France to Constantinople in 1544-47 to find ancient manuscripts, he discovered a manuscript of the geographical work of Dionysius of Byzantium and wrote a Latin paraphrase of it. Most of his books were published after his death by his nephew. In 1533 he also translated Claudius Aelianus. He died of malaria in Rome while accompanying his patron, Cardinal Georges d'Armagnac.[1]

Representation in fiction

As Pierre Gilles, Petrus Gyllius plays a small but significant role in Pawn in Frankincense, the fourth volume in the historical fiction series, The Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett.[3]

References

  1. [1]
    Peter Gerard Bietenholz; Thomas Brian Deutscher (2003). Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Vol. 1. University of Toronto Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-8020-8577-1. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  2. [2]
    Freely, John (1993). The Bosphorus (1st ed.). Istanbul: Redhouse. ISBN 9789754130621.
  3. [3]
    Dunnett, Dorothy (1997). Pawn in frankincense (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0679777465.

Further reading

Media related to Petrus Gyllius at Wikimedia Commons


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