Teaching and Notable Students
Rondelet was a popular and effective teacher and lecturer and was elected chancellor of Montpellier University in 1556. Among his pupils were Charles de l'Écluse (Carolus Clusius), Matthias de l'Obel (Lobelius), Pierre Pena and Jacques Daleschamps. Rondelet also taught Jean Bauhin and Felix Platter, the latter arriving at Montpellier aged only 15 after riding a pony all the way from Basel in Switzerland. Under Rondelet's chancellorship, the university attracted students from across France and abroad and received sponsorship from the French crown; he persuaded King Henry II to fund the construction of an anatomy theatre in Montpellier.
However, the university suffered the effects of France's growing division between Catholics and Protestants that broke out into the French Wars of Religion in 1562. Many students came from Protestant areas of France, reflecting the Protestant sympathies of Rondelet's home region of Languedoc. They had been unable to study elsewhere in France where Catholics controlled the universities. Rondelet himself was drawn into the religious dispute when his friend Bishop Pellicier was imprisoned, prompting Rondelet to make a public protest by burning his own theology books. It is unclear whether Rondelet himself was a Protestant but he seems to have either converted to Protestantism late in his life or to have been generally interested in Protestant thought.
In 1566 Rondelet retired to Réalmont in the Tarn. He died there a few months later.
A genus of fish and a plant genus are both named Rondeletia after Rondelet.
Read more about this topic: Guillaume Rondelet
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