was produced by CASTELLIOin the late 1540s to save
learned Protestants from the necessity of using the Vulgate.
Further reading: Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters:
The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired
(New York, Simon & Schuster, 2001); Stefan Füssel (ed.),
The Luther Bible of 1534, facsimile, 2 vols and booklet
(Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2003); Alister E. McGrath,
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How
it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York:
Doubleday, 2001); Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The
Making of the King James Bible (New York and London:
HarperCollins, 2003).
Bicci, Neri di See NERI DI BICCI
Bidermann, Jakob (1578–1639) German Jesuit dramatist
Born at Ehingen, near Ulm, and educated at Augsburg,
Bidermann entered the Society of Jesus in 1594. For eight
years he was in charge of dramatic activities in the Jesuit
school in Munich, before being sent to Dillingen univer-
sity and finally to Rome, where he died. Bidermann was
probably the greatest exponent of Jesuitendrama, plays
written in Latin which were predominantly educational
and propagandist in intent, but which nevertheless ex-
erted a powerful influence not just in Germany, but
throughout Europe. His most famous plays were Ceno-
doxus (1609) and Belisarius (1607). Most of his work
draws on the Old Testament and legends of the saints.
Bigi (Italian, “Greys”) The party that intrigued for the
restoration of the MEDICIduring their period of exile from
Florence (1494–1512), following the ousting of Lorenzo
the Magnificent’s son Piero Medici. The Bigi triumphed in
1512 after the threat of invasion by Spanish troops had ef-
fectively wrecked the Florentine republic.
Bijns, Anna (1493–1575) Dutch poet
As one of the first secular women writers, she is often re-
ferred to as “the Sappho of Brabant”. Born in Antwerp, she
taught in a school, possibly as a lay nun, and eventually
founded her own school when she was in her forties. She
associated with the Antwerp Minorites and strongly op-
posed the Reformation, attacking the teachings of Martin
Luther in her writings. She published lyric verse in the
form of lamentations on the state of the Catholic Church,
as well as verse satires in the style of the rhetoricians (see
CHAMBERS OF RHETORIC), in which she commented on the
decline in morality. Three volumes of her verse (Referey-
nen) appeared in 1528, 1548, and 1567, and her work is
regarded as an important step in the evolution of the
Dutch language (Nederlands) into a literary medium.
Binchois, Gilles de (c. 1400–1460) Franco-Flemish
composer
Binchois was probably born in Binche, near Mons, and
from 1419 to 1423 was organist at the church of Ste.
Waldetrude, Mons. He was possibly in the service of the
duke of Suffolk in the early 1420s but from at least 1431
served PHILIP THE GOODat the Burgundian court chapel,
remaining there until 1453. On retirement he moved to
Soignies, where he became provost at the church of St.
Vincent. Binchois is generally regarded as a major figure in
15th-century music along with DUFAY(whom he knew)
and DUNSTABLE. Binchois’s sacred music is simple in style;
he wrote 28 Mass sections, six Magnificats, and around 30
smaller works (motets and hymns). He is chiefly remem-
bered for his secular compositions; he wrote around 55
chansons, mostly in the rondeau form, with texts dealing
with courtly love. Nearly all are set for one voice and two
instruments, with graceful melodies; they are symmetrical
and pay great attention to the form of the poetic text.biography The narrative re-creation of another person’s
life. Secular biography in the modern sense was very
much a Renaissance invention. Saints’ lives had been very
popular reading in the Middle Ages, but nondevotional bi-
ography had tended to take the form of extended pane-
gyrics of princely patrons; BECCADELLI’s life of ALFONSO Iof
Naples (1455) falls into this category. Another use to
which biographical materials was often put was to demon-
strate the futility of human affairs and in works of this
kind the subject’s motives and personality are strictly sub-
ordinated to the moral lesson; BOCCACCIO’s De casibus vi-
rorum illustrium was a leader in the genre, starting a
tradition that survived well into the Renaissance with
such works as the English verse biographies in the multi-
author Mirror for Magistrates (1559).
The prime classical inspiration for early biographers
was Plutarch, whose Parallel Lives of Greek and Roman
dignitaries was very widely read. In Italy in the 15th cen-
tury Aenea Silvio Piccolomini (see PIUS II) and Vespasiano
da BISTICCIled the way in writing biographical accounts
of their important contemporaries, often on the basis of
personal knowledge. The culmination of the Italian bio-
graphical effort is reached in the following century with
VASARI’s Vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architetti
(1550; revised and expanded edition 1568).
Before the 17th century, however, biography remained
a comparatively underexploited genre in most countries,
although biographical material is of course embedded in
letters and memoirs (as in the Memoirs of Pierre de BRAN-
TÔME). In England Sir Thomas MORE’s controversial His-
tory of Richard III (1543), written, though never finished,
in both English and Latin around 1513, is a landmark in
the evolution of biography, notable for the strikingly dra-
matic quality of the scenes and its insights into human
motivation. The life of More himself was written (c. 1535)5566 BBiiccccii,, NNeerrii ddii