Guillaume Rondelet

Guillaume Rondelet
Guillaume Rondelet in 1545
Born	27 September 1507 Montpellier
Died	30 July 1566 (aged 58) Réalmont
Nationality	France
Fields	Anatomy Botany Medicine Zoology
Institutions	University of Montpellier
Alma mater	Collège de Sorbonne
Academic advisors	Johann Winter von Andernach
Notable students	Volcher Coiter
Author abbrev. (botany)	Rondolet

Guillaume Rondelet (27 September 1507 – 30 July 1566), known also as Rondeletus (Rondeletius), was Regius professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier in southern France and Chancellor of the University between 1556 and his death in 1566. He achieved renown as an anatomist and a naturalist with a particular interest in botany and zoology. His major work was a lengthy treatise on marine animals, which took two years to write and became a standard reference work for about a century afterwards, but his lasting impact lay in his education of a roster of star pupils who became leading figures in the world of late-16th century science.

Rondelet was born in Montpellier in 1507. His father was an aromatius, a combination of pharmacist, grocer and druggist. Both parents died while he was a child and he was brought up in the care of his elder brother and sister, who was the wealthy widow of a merchant from Florence. He was educated in Montpellier and was enrolled at the city's university before being sent to Paris in 1525, where he studied at the Collège de Sorbonne.

He matriculated in 1529 and returned to Montpellier; having developed an interest in medicine, he joined the Faculty of Medicine at his home town's university. He became procurator (Student Registrar) within a year. He became friends around this time with a fellow physician, François Rabelais, who later wrote La vie de Gargantua et Pantagruel in which Rondelet is satirised under the thinly disguised alias of "Rondibilis". In October 1529, while serving as procurator, Rondelet expelled the newly enrolled Nostradamus from the university for being an apothecary and slandering doctors.

Rondelet moved to Pertuis in the Vaucluse after gaining his medical degree from Montpellier and tried to supplement his income by teaching local children, but met with little success. He went back to Paris to learn Greek and to study anatomy, again supporting himself through teaching. He practised for a while as a medical doctor at Maringues in the Auvergne before returning to Montpellier in 1537. There he finished his doctorate and married Jeanne Sandre the following year. The couple lived with Jeanne's family for the next seven years.