Blandrata (or Biandrata), Giorgio (1516–1588)

Italian doctor and Unitarian theologian. He promoted the anti-Trinitarian movement in Poland 1558–63 and Transylvania from 1564. He helped to secure legal recognition for Transylvanian Unitarianism and thus ensure its continuous existence.

Blandrata was born of an old Piedmontese family. He graduated in medicine at Montpellier, attached himself to the left wing of Protestantism in Italy, but went to Poland for 12 years as physician to the queen, the Milanese Bona Sforza. When he returned to Italy, the Inquisition drove him in 1556 to Geneva, Switzerland, where he fell foul of Calvin and went back to Poland.