Laboderie, Guy Lefèvre de

(1541-1598)

   French poet and biblical translator. His mastery of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean, and Syriac brought him into touch with the older scholar and Cabalist Guillaume Postel, whose influence led to the selection of Laboderie and his brother Nicolas to participate in editorial work on the great polyglot Bible published by the Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin. While living in Antwerp he became associated wth the underground antinomian religious sect known as the Family of Love, but at the same period, he was also close to the Jesuit community at Louvain and dedicated several poems to them. He published French translations of the spiritual poems of the Florentine Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino (1578) and a poem on poetic and musical theory and the orgins of civilization, La galliade, as well as a French translation of the widely admired work of Pico della Mirandola commonly known by the title Oration on the Dignity of Man. Laboderie's erudition made him an able translator, but his erudite etymological references made some of his work inaccessible to most readers.