Aleandro, Girolamo (1480-1542)

Italian humanist and diplomat. One of the leading scholars of his day, he taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew in Paris. He was also a papal envoy, and was one of the leading adversaries of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521.

Born at Treviso, he studied at Padua and then Venice, where he met the scholar and printer Aldus Manutius. In 1508 he went to Paris on the recommendation of Erasmus, and in 1509 began a course of lectures in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. It was these lectures that were largely responsible for introducing Greek studies to France. He taught in Paris intermittently until 1513, his lectures popular and influential - sometimes as many as 1500 students attended. The French scholar Budé, who was also to play a significant role in French Greek scholarship, was among his best-known pupils. In 1512 Aleandro published Lexicon Graeco-Latinum, a Greek-Latin dictionary.

After ill-health forced him to give up teaching, he was employed first as a librarian at the Vatican in 1519, and then as a papal envoy. He represented Pope Leo X at the Diet of Worms, where he clashed with Luther and then drafted the edict, issued by Emperor Charles V, that branded Luther the ‘devil incarnate’. He went on several other diplomatic missions and played an active role in fighting the Reformation.

He was made archbishop of Brindisi in 1524 and a cardinal in 1538.