Christianisme et lettres profanes. Essai sur l'Humanisme francais. Essai sur l'Humanisme francaise (1515-1535) et sur la pensee de Guillaume Bude.

Marie-Madeleine de La Garanderie. (Etudes et Essais sur la Renaissance, 9.) Paris: Honore Champion, 1995. 448 pp. FF. 380. ISBN: 2-8520-3487-5.

This volume is the second edition of a thesis published in 1976. Its overall structure remains unchanged. As indicated by the title, the first part provides background on the world of French (mainly Parisian) humanism during the early part of Francis I's reign, while the second part pays particular attention to several works by Guillaume Bude belonging to that period. The most notable additions include new sections on Nicolas Berault's edition of Pliny and on Germain de Brie as well as a few pages on Bude's L'Institution du Prince, on the "rhythms," of his texts (limited to observations on typography), and on the 'liturgical' function of his De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum. The last two of the four brief concluding essays are also substantially different, insisting on the exemplary nature of Bude's struggle with the conflicting demands of Christianity and secular literature.

The bibliography and footnotes reflect recent work in the field, and the notes now include references to the author's recent editions/translations of two of the main works discussed, De studio literarum and De transitu. Greek characters, which were handwritten in the first edition, are here printed; this volume is far more attractive than the earlier published typescript. Unfortunately, there has been some sloppiness in the reworking. Charles VIII is said to have died at age eighteen here (218) though not in the first edition, and a new passage gives three different spellings on a single page (228) for the word [Greek Text Omitted]. Anthony Grafton is repeatedly condemned to be Crafton.

The most important question concerns the continued usefulness of this book. Although specialized studies in the past twenty years have added much to our understanding of early Parisian humanism, the first part of Christianisme et lettres profanes remains a valuable introduction to philological humanism and its conflicts with religious orthodoxy. True, one may not be convinced by the author's reasons for not considering Reformers, Evangelicals, or Charles de Bovelles in that context. The result of such exclusions, however, is some much-needed attention to such minor figures as Berault, de Brie, Thierry Morel, and, on the other side of the fence, to such "theologastres", as Jerome d'Hangest and Noel Beda.

The author's most important contribution will continue to be her elucidation of the works of Guillaume Bude; her scholarship has long been an incomparable and almost solitary guide to a difficult, fascinating writer. Yet one must keep in mind that the opposition "Christianisme et lettres profanes," does not tell everything about Bude. The author has a definite slant on her subject, one that has not changed in twenty years. For her, Bude's entire career is a preparation for the rhapsodic theology of De transitu, and what she pays attention to in his previous works is the tension between "Hellenism" and Christianity that is allegedly resolved, in the latter's favor, in his final work. But, within the study's chronological limits, very little of substance is said about L'Institution du Prince, De Philologia, Commentarii linguae graecae, not to mention (before the period studied) Bude's first major work, the Annotationes in Pandectas. The texts studied in detail her include a small portion of the "epilogue" to De Asse, De studio literarum, and De transitu. All unquestionably important, but a reader of this account could easily forget that by far the greater part of Bude's efforts went into legal, numismatic, and lexicographical philology. And, if we are to seek themes in his nontechnical texts, his meditation on the political role of bonae literae is arguably as important as their religious status.

More generally, one may wonder if the "thought" of Bude, as advertised in the title, adequately represents what he is up to in his texts and what remains of enduring interest. He is, after all, neither a theologian nor a philosopher, but a writer. That is, his doctrine, as it is well explicated here - that secular literary studies should prepare and ultimately yield to Christian orthodoxy - is thoroughly commonplace. On the other hand, he is a Latinist of stunning virtuosity and originality. Bude provides an argument for anyone who still needs to be convinced of the creative possibilities of neo-Latin. Indeed, the best part of the present book is the chapter dedicated to Budaean style, which only Bude's 1557 editor, C. S. Curio, has analyzed with comparable sharpness. Elsewhere, however, the author proceeds as if the dense texture of her subject's vocabulary, metaphor, and mythology could function as a simple vehicle for doctrine.

STEPHEN MURPHY Wake Forest University