Jacques Peletier du Mans - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jacques Pelletier du Mans, also spelled Peletier, in Latin: Peletarius , (1517–1582) was a humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

and mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

of the French Renaissance

French Renaissance

French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...

.

Born at Le Mans

Le Mans

Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...

into a bourgeois family, he studied at the Collège de Navarre

Collège de Navarre

The College of Navarre was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris, rivaling the Sorbonne and renowned for its library. It was founded by Queen Joan I of Navarre in 1305, who provided for three departments, the arts with 20 students, philosophy with 30 and theology with 20...

(in Paris) where his brother Jean was a professor of mathematics and philosophy. He subsequently studied law and medicine, frequented the literary circle around Marguerite of Navarre

Marguerite de Navarre

Marguerite de Navarre , also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was the queen consort of Henry II of Navarre...

and from 1541-43 was secretary to René du Bellay. In 1541 he published the first French translation of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

's Ars poetica
Ars Poetica
Ars Poetica is a term meaning "The Art of Poetry" or "On the Nature of Poetry". Early examples of Ars Poetica by Aristotle and Horace have survived and have since spawned many other poems that bear the same name...

and during this period he also published numerous scientific and mathematical treatises.

In 1547 he pronounced a funeral oration for Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

and published his first poems "Œuvres poétiques", which included translations from the first two cantos of Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

and the first book of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Georgics

Georgics

The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...

, twelve Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

ian sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

s, three Horacian

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

ode

Ode

Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...

s and a Martial-like

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

; this poetry collection also included the first published poems of Joachim Du Bellay

Joachim du Bellay

Joachim du Bellay was a French poet, critic, and a member of the Pléiade.-Biography:He was born at the Château of La Turmelière, not far from Liré, near Angers, being the son of Jean du Bellay, Lord of Gonnor, first cousin of the cardinal Jean du Bellay and of Guillaume du Bellay.Both his parents...

and Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...

(Ronsard would include Jacques Peletier into his list of revolutionary contemporary poets "La Pléiade

La Pléiade

The Pléiade is the name given to a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The name was a reference to another literary group, the original Alexandrian Pleiad of seven Alexandrian poets and...

"). He then began to frequent a humanist circle around Théodore de Bèze, Jean Martin, Denis Sauvage.

Jacques Pelletier tried to reform French spelling

Reforms of French orthography

The orthography of French was already more or less fixed and, from a phonological point of view, outdated when its lexicography developed in the late 17th century and the Académie française was mandated to establish an "official" prescriptive norm....

(which in the Renaissance had, through a misguided attempt to model French words on their Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

roots, acquired many inconsistencies (see Middle French

Middle French

Middle French is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from 1340 to 1611. It is a period of transition during which:...

)) in a treatise (1550) advocating a phonetic-based spelling using new typographic signs which Pelletier would continue to use in all his published works (because of this system, "Peletier" is consistently spelled with one "l").

After years spent in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, Poitiers

Poitiers

Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...

, Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

(where Peletier may have been the tutor of the son of Maréchal de Brissac

Château de Brissac

The Château de Brissac is a noble mansion in the commune of Brissac-Quincé, in the département of Maine-et-Loire, France. It was originally built as a fortified castle by the Counts of Anjou in the 11th century. After the victory over the English by Philip II of France, he gave the property to...

) and Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

(where he frequented the poets and humanists Maurice Scève

Maurice Scève

Maurice Scève , French poet, was born at Lyon, where his father practised law.He was the centre of the Lyonnese côterie that elaborated the theory of spiritual love, derived partly from Plato and partly from Petrarch...

, Louise Labé

Louise Labé

Louise Labé, , also identified as La Belle Cordière, , was a female French poet of the Renaissance, born at Lyon, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, Pierre Charly, and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet...

, Olivier de Magny and Pontus de Tyard

Pontus de Tyard

Pontus de Tyard was a French poet and priest, a member of "La Pléiade".He was born at Bissy-sur-Fley in Burgundy, of which he was seigneur, but the exact year of his birth is uncertain. He became a friend of Antoine Héroet and Maurice Scève...

). In 1555 he published a manual of poetic composition, "Art poétique français", a Latin oration calling for peace from Henry II of France

Henry II of France

Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...

and emperor Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

and a new collection of poetry, L'Amour des amours (consisting of a sonnet cycle

Sonnet cycle

A sonnet cycle is a group of sonnets, arranged to address a particular person or theme, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual sonnets....

and a series of encyclopedic poems describing meteors, planets and the heavens) which would influence poets Guillaume du Bartas and Jean-Antoine de Baïf

Jean-Antoine de Baïf

Jean Antoine de Baïf was a French poet and member of the Pléiade.-Life:He was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French ambassador at Venice...

.

His last years were spent in travels (Savoy

Duchy of Savoy

From 1416 to 1847, the House of Savoy ruled the eponymous Duchy of Savoy . The Duchy was a state in the northern part of the Italian Peninsula, with some territories that are now in France. It was a continuation of the County of Savoy...

, Germany, Switzerland, maybe Italy, and various regions in France) and in publishing numerous works in Latin on algebra

Algebra

Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...

, geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

and mathematics, medicine (a refutation of Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

, a work on the Plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

). In 1572 he was briefly director of the College of Aquitaine

College of Guienne

The Collège of Guienne was a school founded in 1533 in Bordeaux. The collège became renowned for the teaching of liberal arts between the years 1537 and 1571, attracting students such as Michel de Montaigne.-History:...

(Bordeaux), but, bored by the position, he resigned. During this period he was friends with Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne

Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...

and Pierre de Brach. In 1579 he returned to Paris and was named director of the College of Le Mans. A final collection of poetry "Louanges" was published in 1581.

Pelletier died at Paris in July or August 1582.

New naming convention for large numbers

While maintaining the original system of the French mathematician Nicolas Chuquet

Nicolas Chuquet

Nicolas Chuquet was a French mathematician whose great work, Triparty en la science des nombres , was unpublished in his lifetime...

(1485) for the names of large numbers, Jacques Pelletier proposed names for the intermediate numbers. Grouping by six digits moved towards the modern grouping by three digits. The already existing series of terms ending -illion were supplemented by a related series ending -illiard, representing three powers of ten greater than the corresponding term in -illion. This convention is used widely in countries with European-derived languages, except English-language countries, Brazil, Greece, Turkey, Russia and Puerto Rico.

Base 10	Systematics	Chuquet	Peletier	SI Si Si, si, or SI may refer to :- Measurement, mathematics and science :* International System of Units , the modern international standard version of the metric system... Prefix
The Chuquet-Pelletier system (long scale Long and short scales The long and short scales are two of several different large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten. Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale whereas most English-speaking countries use the short scale... )
10⁰	million⁰	unit	unit	(none)
10³	Million^0.5	thousand	thousand	k (kilo)
10⁶	Million¹	Million Million One million or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione , from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.In scientific notation, it is written as or just 106...	Million	M (mega)
10⁹	Million^1.5	thousand million	Milliard	G (giga)
10¹²	Million²	Billion	Billion	T (tera)
10¹⁵	Million^2.5	thousand billion	Billiard	P (peta)
10¹⁸	Million³	Trillion	Trillion	E (exa)
10²¹	Million^3.5	thousand trillion	Trilliard	Z (zetta)
10²⁴	Million⁴	Quadrillion	Quadrillion	Y (yotta)

New naming convention for large numbers

See also