720 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZH:RLAND.
Cochlaeus directed the attention of Quintana, at the Diet of Regensburg, in 1532, to the book of Servetus which was sokl there, and Quintana at once took measures to suppress it. The Emperor prohibited it, and the book soon disappeared.
Servetus published in 1532 two dialogues on the Trinity, and a treatise on Justification. He retracted, in the preface, all he had said in his former work, not, however, as false, but as childish.^ He rejected the Lutheran doctrine of justification, and also both the Lutheran and Zwinglian views of the sacrament. He concluded the book by invoking a malediction on " all tyrants of the Church." ^
§ 142. Servetus as a Creographer.
As Servetus was repulsed by the Reformers of Switzerland and Germany, he left for France and assumed the name of Michel de Villenedve. His real name and his obnoxious books disappeared from the sight of the world till they emerged twenty years later at Vienne and at Geneva. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics, geography, astrology, and medicine.
In 1534 he was in Paris, and challenged the young Calvin to a disputation, but failed to appear at the appointed hour.
He spent some time at Lyons as proof-reader and publisher of the famous printers, Melchior and Caspar Trechsel. He issued through them, in 1535, under the name of " Villanovanus," a magnificent edition of Ptolemy's Geography, Avith a self4audatory preface, which concludes with the hope that "no one will underestimate tlie labor, though pleasant
1 " Qun nuper contra receptam de Trinitate sententiam, septem libris, scripsi, omnia nunc, candide lector^ retracto. Non quia falsa sint, sed quia imperfecta, et tamquam a parvulo parvulis scripta. . . . Quod auteni ita harbarus, confusus et incorrectus, prior liber prodierit, imperitiie mea: et typographi incurice adscribendus est."
2 " Perdat Dominus oinnes ecclesice tijrannos. Amen."
§ 142. SERVETUS AS A GEOGRAPHER. 721
in itself, that is implied in the collation of our text with that of earlier editions, unless it be some Zoilus of contracted brow, who cannot look without envy upon the zealous labors of others." A second and improved edition appeared in 1541.1
The discoveries of Columbus and his successors gave a strong impulse to geographical studies, and called forth several editions of the work of Ptolemy the famous Alexandrian geographer and astronomer of the second century .2 The edition of Villeneuve is based upon that of Pirkheimer of Niirnberg, which appeared at Strassburg, 1525, with fifty charts, but contains considerable improvements, and gave to the author great reputation. It is a very remarkable work, considering that Servetus was then only twenty-six years of age. A year later Calvin astonished the world with an equally precocious and far more important and enduring work — the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
The most interesting features in the edition of Villeneuve
^ The following is the full title of the second edition which I found (together with a copy of the first) in the library of the American Geographical Society at New York : —
" Claudii | Ptolem.ei | Alexan | drini | Geographinc Enarrationis, \ Libri Octo. I Ex B'tlihaldi Pircke j ymlieri tralatione, sed ad Graeca et prisca exemplaria a Michaele Villanouano | secundu recogniti, et locis innumeris denuo castigati. Adiecta insuper ab eodem scho | lia, quibus et difficilis ille Primus Liber nunc primum explicatur, et exoleta Urbium | nomina ad nostri seculi morem exponuntur. Quinquaginta ilia? quoque cum ueterum turn | rcccntium Tabulae adnectuntur, variisque incolentium ritus et mores explicantur. . . . Prostant Lugduni apud Hugonem a Porta. | MDXLI." fol. Dedicited " Amplissimo illustrissimoque ac reverend issimo D. Dno Petro Palmerio, Archiepiscopo et Comiti Viennensi Michael Villanouahus Medicus G. D." Dated "Viennsepridie Cal. Martii, MDXLI." The last page has the imprimatur of Caspar Trechsel, Viennae, 1541. The work is illustrated with fifty maps. Willis (pp. 86 sqq.) gives condensed translations of some passages, which I have used, and compared with the original. Tollin represents Servetus as a forerunner of Karl Ritter in comparative geography, Michael Servet als Geograph, 1875 (pp. 182).
2 Editions were published at Rome, Bologna, Strassburg (1523 and 1525), Basel (1533, with a preface of Erasmus; 1546), Venice (1558). The last and best Grffico-Latin edition of Ptolemy is by Carl Miiller, Paris, 1883 sqq.