Florentius Volusenus: Christian Humanist

Study and translation of the religious and philosophical work by this Scottish-born, France-based Renaissance humanist and educator.


The Commentatio quaedam theologica of Florentius Volusenus (c.1504-c.1557) is a religious and philosophical work of the Renaissance, cast in the form of rhetorical aphorisms. Volusenus was an admirer of Erasmus, tutored the son of Cardinal Wolsey, and was close to the circles around Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. In Paris he received patronage from prominent humanist ecclesiastics, as also from bishop Jacopo Sadoleto at Carpentras. A colleague at Lyon of the poet Barthélemy Aneau, he taught Sebastian Castellio, who later broke with Calvin. Volusenus, an eirenic Catholic, favoured Church reform before the Reformation became irreversible.