Pierre Belon | |
|---|---|
 Pierre Belon | |
| Born | 1517 Souletière nearCérans-Foulletourte |
| Died | April 1564(1564-04-00) (aged 46–47) Paris |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
Pierre Belon (1517–1564) was a French traveller,naturalist, writer anddiplomat. Like many others of theRenaissance period, he studied and wrote on a range of topics includingichthyology,ornithology,botany,comparative anatomy,architecture andEgyptology. He is sometimes known asPierre Belon du Mans, or, in the Latin in which his works appeared, asPetrus Bellonius Cenomanus. The Russian physiologistIvan Pavlov (known forPavlov's dogs) called him the "prophet of comparative anatomy".[1]
Belon was born in 1517 at the hamlet of Souletière nearCérans-Foulletourte in thePays de la Loire.[2] Nothing is known about his descent. Somewhere between 1532 and 1535 he started working as an apprentice to René des Prez, born in Foulletourte but by then an apothecary to the bishop of Clermont,Guillaume Duprat.[3] Between 1535 and 1538[4] he entered the service of René du Bellay, bishop ofLe Mans, who allowed him to studymedicine at the University of Wittenberg with the botanistValerius Cordus (1515-1544). He travelled around Germany with Cordus in 1542, and on his return, he travelled through Flanders and to England.[5] By the end of summer in 1542 he continued his studies atParis. With the recommendation of Duprat, he became an apothecary to CardinalFrançois de Tournon. Under this patronage, he was able to undertake extensive scientific voyages. Starting in December 1546, he travelled throughGreece,Crete,Asia Minor,Egypt,Arabia andPalestine, and returned to France in 1549. A full account of hisObservations on this journey, with illustrations, was published in Paris, 1553. Returning to the household of Cardinal de Tournon at Rome for thePapal conclave, 1549-1550, Belon encountered the naturalistsGuillaume Rondelet andHippolyte Salviani. He returned to Paris with his copious notes and began to publish. In 1557 he travelled again, this time in northern Italy, Savoy, the Dauphiné and Auvergne.[1][2]
Belon was highly favoured both byHenry II and byCharles IX, the latter of whom accorded him lodging in theChâteau de Madrid in theBois de Boulogne. There he undertook the translations ofDioscurides andTheophrastus. Belon was murdered, possibly by thieves, one evening in April 1564, when coming through theBois on his return from Paris.[1][2][6]
Belon was typical of theRenaissance scholar and took an interest in "all kinds of good disciplines" in his lifetime. He was interested in zoology, botany andclassical Antiquity. Besides the narrative of his travels he wrote several scientific works of considerable value.
His first book wasHistoire naturelle des estranges poissons (1551) and despite its title was a work mainly on thedolphin;[a] it did have woodcuts of some fishes, possibly the first among printed books in the West.[7]
His second book,De aquatilibus (in Latin, 1553) greatly expanded on the first and included a description of 110 species of fish, with illustrations; it was a work that laid the foundation of modernichthyology.[8] Its French translationLa nature et diversite des poissons (Paris, 1555) was followed by an edition of 1560, and the volume was reprinted in Frankfurt and Zurich. His works were translated byCarolus Clusius, and he was held in high authority by the Italian naturalistUlisse Aldrovandi.
In hisL'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555) he included two figures of the skeletons of humans and birds, marking the homologous bones. This is widely seen as one of the earliest demonstrations ofcomparative anatomy.
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All of the following were first published in Paris.
A genus in the plant familyGesneriaceae was named asBellonia in his honour byCharles Plumier. A statue of Belon was erected at Le Mans in 1887.[1]
