(These two images show Renée of France, both done during her lifetime, the one on the left obviously being an earlier portrait done by Jean Clouet, the second portrait done by François Clouet.)
Renée of France, the duchess of Ferrara offered sanctuary to
Jean Calvin during his travels; specifically she invited him to visit her court
in Italy in 1536 (Zophy 216). Her more conservative husband, Duke Ercole II did
not enjoy Calvin’s stay. By 1540 Calvin had succeeded in convincing Renée to
stop practicing Roman Catholicism altogether. Her husband responded by first
taking away her children, and then allowing her to be sentenced and imprisoned
for heresy in 1554. She signed a form of recantation and was released, a lucky
situation indeed. With his death in 1559, Renée returned to France the
following year and offered a safe place for Calvinists to stay inside of
France.
Renée always enjoyed allowing the various religious
reformers to visit her court. The group she paid the most attention to was the
French Protestants offering them safety when being pushed out of France in
response to Calvin’s activities. Duke Ercole did not enjoy this; he viewed them
as heretics and dissenters (Zophy 216). Yet she also allowed intellectual
thinkers into her court as well. The humanist Olympia Morata was brought for a
visit, as well as Clément Marot, a famous French poet. For her life, Renée held
quite a strong perspective on intellectual and religious beliefs, even if it
brought problems into her marriage, which ended after thirty-one years
together, due to the duke’s death. Her own death in 1574 came after a lifetime
of support for various religious opinions and ideas.
Information not found in Zophy:
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