Most Reverend Claudio di Seyssel
Archbishop of Turin
Portrait of Claude de Seyssel presenting to KingLouis XII of France the French translation of the book byThucydides.
Church	Catholic Church
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Turin
In office	1517–1520
Predecessor	Innocenzo Cibo
Successor	Innocenzo Cibo
Previous post	Bishop of Marseille (1511–1517)
Personal details
Born	1458 Aix-les-Bains,France
Died	1 Jun 1520 (age 62) Turin,Italy

Claude de Seyssel (Italian:Claudio di Seyssel) (died 1520) was aSavoyard jurist and humanist, now known for his political writings. He wroteLa Grande Monarchie de France as a supporter of the French crown, in the person ofLouis XII. Written around 1515, in French, it was published 1519; it supportshereditary monarchy.^[1] A Latin translationDe Republica Galliae was printed in 1548 in Strasbourg.

Seyssel was born inAix-les-Bains as the bastard son of Claude de Seyssell, marshall of Savoy. He studied law and theology inChambéry,Turin andPavia. He graduated in 1485 and started teaching at the university of Turin. In 1499, he became a counsellor to KingLouis XII of France, and was charged with various embassies to Italy and England.^[2] He praised the French king inHistoire singuliere de Louis XII (A Biography of Louis XII) (1508) and inLes louanges de Louis XII (In Praise of the King)(1509). To extricate himself from the dispute opposing Louis XII to PopeJulius II, he withdrew for a while from politics; in 1512, however, he went back to Rome to present his credentials to the new pope,Leo X.^[2] This was the apex of his diplomatic career. After the death of Louis XII in 1515, he gave up politics. The same year he was madebishop of Marseille.

His best-known work, written at the instigation of KingFrancis I of France, wasLa grant monarchie de France (1518). He is considered as one of the best examples of French political thinking in the early 16th century. Seyssel had a high regard toward the French monarchy and constitution. He thought the power wielded by the monarch was both controlled and balanced, being limited by religion, existing laws and justice. He discussed "estates", or social class as well, dividing society into the nobility, a composite class of merchants and bureaucrats, and a third class of producers and lower-ranking merchants.^[3] His ideas were very influential in the 16th century. Later French thinkers adopted a different stance and distanced themselves from his beliefs.

He was madeArchbishop of Turin, in 1517, through the king's influence.^[4][5][6]

He also wrote on theSalic law, composed propaganda after the French victory over theVenetians, and worked as a translator of ancient historians, includingAppianus of Alexandria.

• Speculum feudorum, Milano 1508.
  • Speculum feudorum (in Latin). Basel: Thomas Guarin. 1566.
• La Victoire du Roy contre les Véniciens, Paris,Antonie Vérard, 1510.
• La grant monarchie de France, A Paris, pour Regnault, 1519.
• Adversus errores et sectam Valdensium disputationes, Parisiis, in aedibus Reginaldi Chaudiere, 1520.
• Thucydide,L'Histoire de la guerre, qui fut entre les Peloponnesiens et Atheniens, translatee en langue Francoyse par feu messire Claude de Seyssel, A Paris, en l'hostel de maistre Iosse Badius, 1527.
• Eusebe Cesarien,L'Histoire ecclesiastique translatee de Latin en Francois par messire Claude de Seysse, A Paris, par maistre Geofroy Tory de Bourges, 1532.
• Appian Alexandrin,Des Guerres des Rommains livres XI, assavoir le Libyque, le Syrien, le Parthique, le Mithridatique, le Illyrien, le Celtique et cinq des Guerres civiles. Le tout traduict en Francoys par feu m. Claude de Seyssel, A Lyon, pour Antoine Constantin, 1544.
• Trogue Pompee,Les Histoires uniuerselles, abbregees par Iustin historien, traslatees de Latin en Francois par Messire Claude de Seyssel, A Paris, de l'Imprimerie de Michel de Vascosan, 1559.

• Rebecca Ard Boone,War, Domination, and the Monarchy of France: Claude de Seyssel and the Language of Politics in the Renaissance (Leiden, Brill, 2007) (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 156).

• portail.atilf.fr

• 1520 deaths
• People from Aix-les-Bains
• 16th-century French historians
• 16th-century French male writers
• Latin–French translators
• Bishops of Marseille
• Archbishops of Turin
• Bishops of Lodi
• 16th-century French Roman Catholic bishops
• Bishops appointed by Pope Julius II
• Bishops appointed by Pope Leo X
• 1458 births
• 15th-century jurists
• 16th-century jurists from the Holy Roman Empire

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