Jean de Serres

Jean de Serres
Signature of Jean de Serres
Born	1540 Villeneuve-de-Berg, France
Died	19 May 1598(1598-05-19) (aged 58)
Nationality	French
Other names	Joannes Serranus
Occupation	historian, classicist, Plato scholar
Known for	1578 translation of Plato in edition of Stephanus

Jean de Serres (1540–1598) was a major French historian and an advisor to King Henry IV during the Wars of Religion that marred the French Reformation in the second half of the Sixteenth Century. As a refugee from religious persecution, he was educated in Switzerland and became a Calvinist pastor, humanist, poet, polemicist, and diplomat. His complete translation of Plato appeared in the famous 1578 edition published by Henri Estienne, which is the source of the standard 'Stephanus numbers' still used by scholars to refer to Plato's works. In 1596, de Serres was appointed 'Historian of France' by King Henry IV. His posthumously published History of France was an 'immense success' and was not superseded for almost a century.

de Serres was also known in Latin as Joannes Serranus.

He was born at Villeneuve-de-Berg, France, in a Calvinist family. His mother was Louise de Léris (or Lheris). He was the brother of the celebrated agriculturalist Olivier de Serres and of another brother Raymond. Jean de Serres married a daughter of Pierre Godary and Bernardine Richier named Marguerite on April 25, 1569. The bride's family were French Protestent refugees from Lorraine living, like de Serres, in Switzerland. The marriage produced nine children.

At about the age of 13, de Serres escaped from France into Switzerland to avoid the persecutions and massacres of Protestants that preceded the French Wars of Religion (1562–98). He studied classical literature at the Académie de Lausanne (now the University of Lausanne) in Switzerland from 1557 to 1559, and then theology at the Académie de Genève (now the University of Geneva) until 1566. He was a member of the first class to attend this school, which was founded by Calvin himself. He was next a pastor at the Reformed Church of Jussy.

In 1569-71, de Serres began publishing his Commentaries on the State of Religion and the Republic in the Kingdom of France, which described the recent massacres and civil war in France. It was written in Latin to appeal to a European-wide audience and was extended and reprinted many times. According to de Serres, the Queen, Catherine de' Medici, had long plotted the destruction of Protestantism, and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572 was only the culmination of her plans.