Pierre Boaistuau

He holds a very special place in literary developments in the middle and second half of the sixteenth century as the importer of two influential genres in France, the 'histoire tragique' and the 'histoire prodigieuse'.

Boaistuau was born in Nantes and later studied civil and canon law in the universities of Poitiers, Valence (where he was a student of the eminent jurist Jean de Coras), and Avignon (where he studied under the guidance of Emilio Ferretti).

During his student years, he worked as the secretary of the French ambassador to the East Jean-Jacques of Cambrai around 1550, and traveled to Italy and Germany.

Ernst Courbet put forth the hypothesis that Boaistuau had also been for some time a 'valet de chambre' of Marguerite of Navarre, an assertion which however can not be substantiated.

He was also in friendly terms with James Beaton II, ex-Archbishop of Glasgow and Scottish ambassador in Paris, to whom he dedicated his Le Théâtre du monde.

A story of "a priest who for the space of 40 years employed a familiar spirit ", illustrated in Elizabeth I of England 's copy of the Histoires Prodigieuses .
Illustration from a 1575 edition of Histoires prodigieuses