Pernette du Guillet (c. 1520–1545) was a Renaissance poet from Lyon and a key figure of the École de Lyon. An admirer and correspondent of Maurice Scève, she composed epigrams and songs in the Petrarchan tradition. Her posthumous collection *Rymes* (1545) places her among the first women poets in French literature.
Pernette du Guillet(1520 — 1545)
Pernette du Guillet
France, Royaume de France
8 min read
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born around 1520 in Lyon, into a cultivated family
- Maintained a literary and amorous relationship with Maurice Scève, who called her "Pasithée
- Composed *Rymes* — epigrams, songs, and epistles — in both French and Latin
- Died of the plague in 1545, at around 25 years of age
- Her collection *Rymes* was published posthumously in 1545 by her husband
Works & Achievements
The only collection by Pernette du Guillet, published after her death by her husband with the help of editor Antoine du Moulin. It gathers epigrams, songs, elegies, and epistles in a Petrarchan vein, making her one of the first women poets published in French.
Short poems with a tight form and a witty closing turn, inspired by Latin epigrams and the Petrarchan tradition. Pernette explores themes of platonic love, knowledge, and the elevation of the soul.
Poems intended to be set to music, a genre highly prized in Lyonnais humanist circles. Pernette blends lyrical refinement with meditation on feeling, following the conventions of courtly and Italian poetry.
Longer poems in which Pernette engages in poetic dialogue with Maurice Scève or reflects on her own situation as a learned woman. These texts reveal a more personal and, for the time, daring voice.
Anecdotes
Pernette du Guillet received an exceptional education for a woman of her time: she was fluent in Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish, and played several instruments including the lute and the spinet. In Lyon — a city open to intellectual exchange thanks to its trade fairs and printing industry — this rare culture allowed her to join the city's humanist circles from her earliest adult years.
Her encounter with the poet Maurice Scève, one of the leading figures of the Lyon School, proved decisive. Scève, captivated by her intelligence and poetic sensibility, made her his muse and addressed numerous *dizains* to her. Their bond — built on mutual admiration and refined poetic jousting — is considered one of the most singular literary exchanges of the French Renaissance.
Pernette died at only around twenty-five years of age, in 1545, most likely carried off by a plague epidemic that struck Lyon that year. Her husband gathered her scattered poems and published them under the title *Rymes* shortly after her death, making her one of the very first women poets to be published in the French language.
In her poems, Pernette subtly subverts the codes of Petrarchism: where tradition cast women as the silent object of a man's love, she took up the pen and expressed her own feelings, her desire for knowledge and spiritual elevation. This literary boldness made her a pioneer, recognized as such by her Lyonnais contemporaries.
Lyon in Pernette's day was the capital of French printing, home to workshops such as that of Sébastien Gryphe, which spread humanist texts across all of Europe. Pernette moved in these circles of printers and scholars, giving her access to the latest works of Petrarch, Erasmus, and Clément Marot — all of which nourished her own writing.
Primary Sources
The too-great good that you cause me to feel / Leaves my spirit so dazzled with joy / That I barely know whether you wish to please me.
Like Hecate, you will make me wander / Both living and dead, a hundred years among the Shades.
Following the death of the said lady Pernette, her husband, moved by a holy desire to preserve for posterity the fruits of her fine genius, entrusted me with collecting and bringing to light her present Rymes.
Not that I wish to take the freedom / From your heart: but that in my intimacy / You might receive this long-desired good.
Key Places
Birthplace of Pernette du Guillet and cradle of the School of Lyon. A major commercial and intellectual crossroads, Lyon was home to printers, humanists, and poets who formed the circles in which Pernette flourished as a woman of letters.
The street and neighborhood where the great Lyonnais printing houses of the sixteenth century were concentrated, including that of Sébastien Gryphe. It was in this milieu that manuscripts circulated and that Pernette's texts took shape before being published.
The cultural and political capital of the kingdom, where the royal court and great patrons resided. Although Pernette was primarily a Lyonnais figure, Paris embodied the center of literary power toward which the entire French Republic of Letters looked.
The birthplace of Petrarch and cradle of the Italian humanism that inspired the entire School of Lyon. Whether or not Pernette ever traveled there, Florence represented the dominant cultural model for the poetry and thought she practiced.
Typical Objects
A stringed instrument very fashionable in humanist Renaissance circles, which Pernette du Guillet had mastered. Several of her poems evoke music as a means of expressing the soul and reaching toward the ideal.
The major work of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, the indispensable model for Renaissance love poetry. Pernette drew directly from it for her epigrams and songs, reinterpreting it with an original feminine voice.
The writing tools of the sixteenth century, which Pernette used to compose her poems on parchment or vellum paper. The very act of writing was a rare and valued assertion of selfhood for a woman of the time.
An illustrated devotional work that literate Renaissance women owned and annotated. It reflects the place of faith and meditation in Pernette's daily life, as her poetry frequently blends human love with spiritual aspiration.
A keyboard instrument that Pernette knew how to play, according to accounts from her contemporaries. Musical practice was a mark of social and intellectual distinction in the cultivated bourgeois families of Lyon.
Lyon being the capital of French printing in the sixteenth century, Pernette had access to the very latest humanist publications, in Greek or Latin. These freshly printed books circulated in the circles where she moved, nourishing her reading and her writing.
School Curriculum
Vocabulary & Tags
Key Vocabulary
Daily Life
Morning
Pernette began her day with prayer and the reading of her book of hours, a devout practice common in Lyon's bourgeois families. She then devoted part of the morning to studying languages — Latin, Greek, or Italian — and to reading the great ancient and contemporary authors available thanks to Lyon's printing presses.
Afternoon
The afternoon was often dedicated to poetic composition or to exchanges with Lyon's intellectual circles. Pernette took part in gatherings of scholars where poetry, Neoplatonic philosophy, and humanism were discussed, and where she could meet figures such as Maurice Scève or other members of the École de Lyon.
Evening
In the evenings, Pernette played music — lute or spinet — and took part in the meals and entertainments of Lyon's bourgeois society. These festive and cultivated gatherings would sometimes bring together poets, printers, and merchants, making the dinner table a place for debate on love, letters, and virtue, in keeping with the Neoplatonic ideals of the time.
Food
The table of a 16th-century Lyonnaise bourgeois family included white bread, roasted meats, fish from the Rhône or Saône, and seasonal vegetables and fruits. On feast days or when guests were invited, more elaborate preparations were served, spiced in the Renaissance fashion and accompanied by wines from the surrounding hillsides.
Clothing
Pernette wore dresses with fitted bodices and wide skirts, typical of mid-16th-century French bourgeois fashion, made from quality fabrics — silk, velvet, or brocade — but without the ostentation of great court ladies. She covered her hair with a coif or veil depending on the occasion, in keeping with the standards of feminine respectability of the time.
Housing
Pernette lived in a Lyonnaise bourgeois house, probably built around an Italian-style inner courtyard, with large mullioned windows letting in the light. Her home included a reception room for visitors and a private space where she could study and write, surrounded by books, musical instruments, and the refined everyday objects befitting a cultured woman.
Historical Timeline
Period Vocabulary
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Rymes
1545 (posthume)
Épigrammes (dans les Rymes)
vers 1536-1545
Chansons (dans les Rymes)
vers 1536-1545
Élégies et épîtres (dans les Rymes)
vers 1536-1545
