Everything about Fran Ois Bonivard totally explained
François Bonivard or
Bonnivard (
1496 –
1570) was a
Swiss patriot and
historian whose life was the inspiration for
Byron's 1816 poem
The Prisoner Of Chillon.
He was the son of Louis Bonnivard, Seigneur de Lunes, and was born at
Seyssel into an old family of
Savoy. He was educated in Turin starting in
1510 by his uncle Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, then succeeded him as
prior of
St Victor, near
Geneva. Young Bonivard opposed
Charles III, Duke of Savoy in his efforts to control Geneva; the duke captured Bonivard and imprisoned him at
Grolée from
1519 to
1521.
The experience wasn't much of a deterrent; Bonivard continued his political activism. In
1530, he was set upon by robbers in the
Jura, who turned him over to the Duke of Savoy. The duke imprisoned him again, this time underground in the
Castle of Chillon. Bonivard was released by the
Bernese when they conquered
Vaud in
1536. His priory had meanwhile been destroyed, but Geneva awarded him a pension. He was made
bourgeois of Geneva and sat on the Council of 200 in
1537.
Ultimately married four times, Bonivard was perpetually in debt.
In
1542, he was entrusted with compiling a history of Geneva from its beginning, and carried the story down to 1530 before he died. The manuscript was sent to
Calvin for correction in 1551, but not actually published until 1831. It isn't a highly regarded work, being both biased and uncritical. In his later years, he enlisted the help of
Antoine Froment to help with the chronicle.
In
1551, he donated his considerable library to the public. He left everything to the city of Geneva in his will. His exact date of death isn't know because of a gap in the death records of the city.
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