Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques

Abstract

Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (Latinized Jacobus Faber Stapulensis) was a professor of Arts at the University of Paris and Biblical scholar active during the late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Heavily influenced by Italian humanists such as Ermolao Barbaro and Pico della Mirandola, Lefèvre became one of the first Northern European proponents of what is nowadays referred to as Renaissance Aristotelianism: he wrote a number of influential textbooks to the various branches of Aristotelian philosophy and significantly contributed to the spread of new translations of the Stagirite’s oeuvre through his editorial activities. Lefèvre combined this fondness for Aristotelian philosophy with a keen interest in Neoplatonism and late medieval mysticism, as found in the oeuvre of Nicholas of Cusa, Ramon Lull, or Marsilio Ficino, whose works he also saw to the press. Thus his oeuvre was of paramount importance in introducing the ideas of Neoplatonic mysticism and Renaissance Aristotelianism to Northern Europe, in a period when late scholastic philosophy still dominated the Northern intellectual scene.

Also known as: Jacobus Faber Stapulensis