Des Periers, Bonaventure, a French humanist and story-teller, born at Autun, in Burgundy; valet-de-chamber of Margaret of Valois; wrote “Cymbalum Mundi,” a satirical production, in which, as a disciple of Lucian, he holds up to ridicule the religious beliefs of his day; also “Novelles Recréations et Joyeux Devis,” a collection of some 129 short stories admirably told; was one of the first prose-writers of the century, and is presumed to be the author of the “Heptameron,” ascribed to Margaret of Valois; (d. 1544).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
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