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Kern, Judy, ed. Symphorien CMmpier. La Nef des dames vertueuses. Paris: Editions Champion, 2007. Pp. 305.
Champier's La Nef des dames vertueuses is composed of four texts. The first is entitled La Fleur des dames, followed by the Gouvernement de mariage, the Prophéties des sibilks, and a fourth part called the Livre de maye amour dedicated to Anne de France (published in 1962 by James Wadsworth). Kern's introduction includes biographical details as well as analyses of Champier's feminism and medical humanism. The text itself is complemented by explanatory footnotes, including references to Biblical or classical texts and the extremely useful transliteration and translation of Latin marginal quotations (notes of variants are awkwardly placed at the end of each part). Three appendices conclude this edition. The first is a letter in Latin dated April 1485 by Bartolomeo Fonte (followed by a French translation) sent to his friend Francesco Sasseti; the second is a letter from Symphorien Champier addressed to three doctors: Jean Guercin, Louis de Villeneuve, and Antoine Fedelio. The third appendix (another letter) is addressed by Champier to André Briau and deals with Platonic love, where Symphorien writes, incidentally, that "it is clear that our science, medicine, is to be preferred to all the other human arts that exist, because of the excellence of its origin, the nobility of its object, and the perfection of its goal" (268). The choice of these appendices and their relevance to the Nef axe unfortunately not explained; the volume ends with a glossary, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and an index nominum.
Since the instant popularity of Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools (1494), the framing device of a "ship" as a genre comparable to that of "mirrors" became used frequently. Champier, a polyvalent and eclectic humanist, used the device to embed his four texts on women in it. Born in c. 14 72 near Lyon into a family of notables, Champier received a medical education first in Paris and later at Montpellier. As early as 1497 he turned to writing and publishing. His first book was published in Lyon and seems to have been inspired both by Aristotle's Physics via. Lefèvre d'Etaples, and by his animosity toward Parisian Scotists (such as Pierre Tateret) . Symphorien's first vernacular...