Marie de Cotteblanche

Marie de Cotteblanche (ca.1520- ca.1580) Translator and linguist

Born into a family of parlementaires (members of Paris's Parlement), Marie de Cotteblanche was the daughter of Guy de Cotteblanche, a lawyer at the Paris Parlement, and Catherine Hesselin, whom he married in 1517. Her older brother Elie accumulated many honors, becoming a gentleman of the Chambre du Roi in 1571 and knight of the Order of Saint Michel in 1578. Marie had a sister Marguerite, as we learn from the cosmographer François de Belleforest's dedication to them of his pastoral poem, Chasse d'Amour (Love's Hunt, 1560). The bibliographer La Croix du Maine notes that she was a "Damoiselle Parisienne, très docte en Philosophie et Mathématiques" (Damoiselle Parisienne, very learned in philosophy and mathematics).

Marie de Cotteblanche was also adept at languages. Her only extant work, Trois dialogues de M. Pierre Messie, touchant la nature du Soleil, de la Terre, et de toutes les choses qui se font et apparoissent en l'air (Three Dialogues by M. Pierre Messie, concerning the nature of the sun, the earth, and all things that happen and appear in the air), a French translation of three Spanish dialogues by the cosmographer Pedro Mexia (or Mejia, Pierre Messie in French, 1497-1551), was published in 1566 and reissued some twenty-nine times between 1566 and 1643, either independently, in Claude Grujet's translation of Messie's Diverses Leçons, or in an anonymous translation of the complete dialogues of Pierre Messie.

Cotteblanche bases her translation on both the original Spanish version (either the 1547 or 1548 editions) and an Italian rendition by Alfonso d'Ulloa published in Venice in 1557. In her numerous marginal annotations, Cotteblanche compares the Spanish and Italian versions, opting sometimes for the one or the other or sometimes coming up with her own formulations. In her dedicatory letter to her friend and patron, Marguerite de Saluces, maréchale de Termes, she thanks the latter for having taught her Italian. She states her knowledge of only Italian, a privileged language at court and among a select group of translators who were state secretaries, writers, and lawyers. Marie de Cotteblanche combines her knowledge of languages with her interest in the sciences. Of the six dialogues by Messie, she retains only the three that concern geophysical and cosmological topics (the sun, the earth, and the meteors). Her choice of a scientific subject matter was not an unusual one for a woman of the elite class. Many learned women of the nobility and upper gentry were well read in the sciences. Catherine de Médicis, for instance, was interested in astronomy and the natural sciences, Marguerite de Valois and Diane de Poitiers in medical treatises, and Catherine de Clermont, maréchale de Retz, in philosophy and mathematics.

Cotteblanche's choice of the dialogue form, a favorite humanist genre, appealed to a wide readership eager to expand its learning. In her preface, she states her great love for books ("seuls m'ont faict fidèle compaignie" [they alone have been my faithful companions]), study and learning. She was also commited to writing. She viewed her translation as a stylistic exercise, a first attempt to produce a work that would eventually lead to another publication reflecting her own creativity. No other work by her has been published.

Anne R. Larsen in Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance