Out of the Flames

by Lawrence Goldstone

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We had a good deal of help in writing this book. Many people took the time to speak at length with us, both to help us find obscure references and to provide background that was not available in print. Miriam Man-delbaum at the New York Public Library first set us on the trail. Toby Appel, the librarian at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at Yale, and Mona Florea, her assistant, were consistently patient, enthusiastic, and invaluable. Time after time, they helped us find what we were looking for, even when we weren't sure ourselves, and let us have access to an amazing variety of materials, from a genuine first edition of De Trinitatis Erroribus to the catalog of the Lavallière auction, complete with the almost impossible-to-find price list. At the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, curators Christa Sammons and Vincent Giroud were always willing to take the time to fill in a blank for us, send us in the right rather than wrong direction, or translate a passage.

  As for Unitarian history, John Tolley and Dean Grodzins at Meadville-Lombard University were generous with their time and knowledge, as was the Reverend Barbara Fast at the Unitarian congregation of Westport. Dr. Géza Jeszenszky, the Hungarian ambassador to the United States, and a former professor of history, was of enormous assistance in helping us trace both the Teleki and Szent-Iványi families. As to the former, Paul Teleki gave us further details of his remarkable family, and for the latter, István Szent-Iványi, a member of the Hungarian parliament, and his sister Ilona helped us trace the history of theirs.

  On the book front, we are deeply indebted to Geneviève Guilleminot-Chrétien at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for her help in learning more about the Duc de Lavallière and Joseph Van Praet, but mostly for allowing us a private viewing of the Colladon copy of Christianismi Restitutio. And without the help of Claudia Oudey and François Giraud of Room Y at the BNF, we would never have had the opportunity of speaking with Mme. Guilleminot.

  Also in Paris, the staff of the Village Voice bookshop, specifically Odile Hellier (owner), Michael Neal (wizard of the Bibliothèque Nationale), and Aude Samarut and Barbara Bessat-Lelarge (ways and means of the French post office), obtained photoreproductions for us in the face of enormous odds. Without Don Bell (“Don the Bookman”) none of it would have been possible.

  Monika Kiegler at the National Library of Austria took the time to send rare material on the Teleki copy of Christianismi Restitutio, as did Jean Archibald at the Edinburgh University Library for the Douglas copy. Murray Simpson, director of Special Collections at the National Library of Scotland, helped us with the history of the Douglas family, as did David Wright of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh.

  We'd like to include a special thank-you to Lewis Leist, who was kind enough to send a book that was very enlightening on the life and times of Gutenberg. Robert Fleck of Oak Knoll Books was quite helpful in filling in details of the early history of printing, and Ross King helped us understand the fate of the great aristocratic libraries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Christine Ruggere at Johns Hopkins helped with the evolution of medical education in America, and Dr. Albert Klainer contributed some priceless anecdotes about William Osler.

  Our editor at Broadway Books, Gerry Howard, not only immediately saw that this was a good story, but more importantly envisioned the telling as we did. He shared our enthusiasm and helped guide us to producing a better book. Thanks also to Jay Crosby at Broadway, who was consistently patient and helpful. Our agent, Jed Mattes, let two strangers walk into his office one day, then sat with us for two hours discussing a project that he could not have known would come to fruition. Not only has he always been supportive, but he is a thoroughly kind and decent man. As Erasmus said of Froben, he is a man with whom you can play dice in the dark.

  Finally, we want to thank our daughter, Emily (age ten as this is written), who was patient and understanding during a period when she did not get the attention she deserved, and who helped her parents resolve an embarrassing number of fights about just whose prose was more turgid or whose research more thorough.

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Frontispiece—Servetus woodcut (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Erotic illustration from the Hypnerotomachia (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  Dolphin anchor logo (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  Erasmus (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Francis I (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

  Marguerite d'Angoulême (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

  Charles V at 16 (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

  Coronation at Bologna (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

  Calvin drawing by student (Centre d'Iconographie genevoise, Collections Bibliothèque publiqueet universitaire, Genève)

  Map from the Geography (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Vesalius (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Title page of the Fabrica—1553 (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University) Title page of Syrups (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Map of Geneva (Centre d'Iconographie genevoise, Collections Bibliothèque publique et universitaire, Genève)

  Title page of Christianismi Restitutio (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

  Servetus's last letter from prison (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Pulmonary circulation passage from CR (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

  Loyola in armor (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

  Servetus passage from Wotton (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Colladon's notes (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

  Leibniz (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Title page of Impartial History (Authors' collection) Louise de la Vallière (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

  Duke de Lavallière (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Errors of the Trinity, genuine and counterfeit (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Priestley (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  Blockley dead house (Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill Universit
y)

  Geneva stone monument (Authors' collection)

  Servetus sculpture (Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University)

  NANCY GOLDSTONE is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, and the Boston Globe Magazine.

  LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE has written both fiction and nonfiction, and won a New American Writing Award for his first novel, Rights. Together, they are the authors of Used and Rare, Slightly Chipped and Warmly Inscribed. They live with their daughter in Connecticut.

  OUT OF THE FLAMES. Copyright © 2002 by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

  BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit our website at www.broadwaybooks.com

  Frontispiece: An early eighteenth-century engraving of Michael Servetus. There is no surviving image made during his lifetime.

  Goldstone, Lawrence, 1947–

  Out of the flames: the remarkable story of a fearless scholar, a fatal heresy, and one of the rarest books in the world/Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  1. Servetus, Michael, 1511–1553. 2. Heretics, Christian—Europe—Biography. 3. Persecution—Europe—History—16th century. 4. Religious tolerance—History of doctrines—16th century. I. Goldstone, Nancy Bazelon. II. Title.

  BX9869.S4 G57 2002

  273′.6–dc2i

  [B] 2001056710

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48924-1

  v3.0