France between Protestants and Catholics.
These includeDiscourseontheMiseryof
These Times, which satirically criticized the
followers of John Calvin, and theReproof
to the People of France. When Protestant
critics returned fire and accused him of
being a poor poet and an irreligious pagan
to boot, Ronsard replied with hisResponse
to Insults and Calumnies. His fervent sup-
port of the king earned him a stipend from
King Charles IX, and he joined the king’s
court as an honored poet.
In 1572 Ronsard brought outThe First
Four Books of the Franciad, a failed attempt
to imitate the classical epics and to create
a French national myth that traced the lin-
eage of the kings of France back to the
Trojan kings of Homeric times. In 1578 he
published a collection of sonnets, theSon-
nets for Helene. Ronsard gained fame in
his lifetime and many of his poems were
set to music. Using the classic and medi-
eval Italian modes in which Ronsard had
worked, the Pleiade group made French a
new and vital medium for poetic expres-
sion.
SEEALSO: Rabelais
Rubens, Peter Paul ..........................
(1577–1640)
Flemish painter whose elaborate religious
and mythological scenes, sensuous por-
traits, and detailed historical works marked
a transition from the Renaissance period
to the Baroque. Born in Siegen, Germany,
he was the son of a Calvinist Protestant
family that fled persecution in their home-
town and took refuge in the city of Co-
logne. In 1589 he moved to the city of
Antwerp with his widowed mother, and
converted to the Catholic faith. He studied
with Tobias Verhaeght, a minor artist, and
several other artists of Antwerp, and joined
the city’s painters guild in 1598.
Like many northern European artists,
Rubens looked to Italy for instruction in
new styles and methods of painting. He
traveled to Venice in 1600 and studied the
works of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto.
Soon afterward he joined the ducal court
at Mantua and won the patronage of Vin-
cenzo Gonzaga, the ruler of the city, who
helped him travel to Rome, where the
young artist found inspiration in the fres-
coes of Michelangelo Buonarroti and
Raphael and the paintings of Leonardo da
Vinci and Michelangelo da Caravaggio.
Rubens served Mantua as a diplomat as
well, traveling to Spain and the court of
King Philip III on a mission in 1603. In
Spain he began painting portraits, a me-
dium he continued when he returned to
Italy.
In Rome Rubens won commissions to
paint altarpieces for the Church of Santa
Croce and Santa Maria in Vallicella, whichPeter Paul Rubens’ self portrait. GETTYIM-
AGES.Rubens, Peter Paul