Octavien de Saint-Gelais

Born in Cognac, Charente, he studied theology at the Collège de Navarre, and became a member of the court of Charles VIII of France.

A terrible sickness led him to abandon a formerly frivolous lifestyle and he took holy orders.

In this capacity, he reformed the monastic rules, visited the poor, decorated churches, and composed original poems, besides translating the works of the ancients.

The French poet Clément Marot praised his work, and wrote that Saint-Gelais had made his birthplace, Cognac, eternal.

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Frontispiece to a manuscript of Octavien's translation of Ovid's Heroides ( Huntington Library , MS HM 60, folio 1r).