Guillaume Postel

Guillaume Postel (25 March 1510 – 6 September 1581) was a French linguist, Orientalist, astronomer, Christian Kabbalist, diplomat, polyglot, professor, religious universalist, and writer.

In Cosmographicae, Postel clearly set out his ideas on the continents of Asia (Semia, after Shem), Africa (Chamia or Chamesia, after Ham), Europe (Iapetia, after Japheth), the Americas (Atlantides), and Australia (Chasdia, after Cush).

[6] He denoted the Americas as boreal and austral, and distinctly separated them from Australia (Terre Australle or Chasdia) by the Strait of Magellan (Fretum Martini Bohemi).

Through his efforts at manuscript collection, translation, and publishing, he brought many Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic texts into European intellectual discourse in the Late Renaissance and early modern periods.

[12] While working on his translations of the Zohar and the Bahir in Venice in 1547, Postel became the confessor of Mother Zuana, an elderly woman who was responsible for the kitchen of the hospital of San Giovanni e Paolo.

Zuana confessed to experiencing divine visions, which inspired Postel to believe that she was a prophet, that he was her spiritual son, and that he was destined to be the unifier of the world's religions.

When he returned from his second journey to the East, he dedicated two works to her memory: Les Très Merveilleuses Victoire des Femmes du Nouveau Monde and La Vergine Venetiana.

Czech Renaissance humanist Šimon Proxenus ze Sudetu (1532–1575),[14] reports that in 1564 Postel was detained to the monastery of St. Martin des Champs in Paris, "because of his delusions on the Mother Jeanne".

[15] Postel resumed his life in Paris, but the alleged miracle at Laon in 1566 had a profound effect on him, and that year he published an account of it, De summopere considerando miraculo, in which he again expounded upon the interrelatedness of all parts of the universe and his imminent restoration of the world order.

[16] As a result, he was sentenced to house arrest by the Parlement of Paris, and eventually spent the last eleven years of his life confined to the monastery of St. Martin des Champs.