Champier, Symphorien (c.1472-c.1540). A doctor practising mainly in Lyon, and physician to Antoine, duc de Lorraine, with whom he travelled in Italy, he was appointed for a while in 1515 to the prestigious University of Pavia. As a magistrate (échevin) he saw his house ransacked during the Rebeine (Great Revolt) of 1529. A cousin through marriage of Bayart, he wrote Les Gestes, ensemble la vie du preux chevalier Bayart (1525), whose success outshone its merit. A staunch supporter of the noble order, he published in 1535 Le Fondement et origine des titres de noblesse. We owe him numerous treatises (in Latin) on medical subjects and works on local history. He is above all memorable as one of the introducers into France of Neoplatonism (La Nef des dames vertueuses, 1503).
[Keith Cameron]
