Portrait de Budé en «intellectuel»: la G. Budæi viri clarissimi Vita de Loys Le Roy (1540)
Hellenist, philologist, historian, friend and counsellor to the King, mythical founding member of the Collège de France, as well as family man, Guillaume Budé appears to us as a hero of humanism and compels our collective admiration because he could lead simultaneously a contemplative and an active life. How was he perceived by his contemporaries? A few months after the death of the humanist (August 1540), while still in mourning, his disciple Loys Le Roy — a future bright light in the study of Greek — published the G. Budaei Vita. This biography is a virtual hagiography of a lay saint, endowed with a high mission, who sacrificed his health, even his life, to the cause of knowledge and the service of the King. This paper analyzes how a young humanist defines the role of humaniores litterae in an ordered society through their greatest incarnation.