LATOMUS, BARTHOLOMAEUS (STEINMETZ)

Humanist and controversialist; b. Arlon, Luxembourg, c. 1490; d. Koblenz, Germany, Jan. 3, 1570. As a result of humanistic studies at Freiburg im Breisgau (1517), he became acquainted with erasmus and traveled with him through Alsace in 1521. After teaching philosophy in Trier and Cologne, he was named professor of Latin eloquence at the Royal College of France (1534), and he taught there until called to Trier by the new elector, Ludwig Von Hagen, to act as his counselor. His work against the Reformers is exemplified in a letter written to Johann Sturm of Strassburg, which, along with Sturm's reply, is found in Epistolae duorum amicorum B. Latomi et J. Sturmii … (Strassburg 1540, 1566). Latomus became involved in controversy with Martin bucer, who tried to introduce the reform into Cologne. Against him he wrote B. Latomi adv. M. Buccerum … (Cologne 1545) and Refutatio calumniosarum insectationum M. Bucceri … (Cologne 1546). He accompanied his archbishop to Speyer, Worms, and Regensburg; and in 1557 he returned to Worms to publish the Spaltung der Auspurchischen Confession (Schism of the Augsburg Confession), a work that involved Latomus in more controversy with Petrus Dathenus (1531/32–88), a Calvinist minister. As a result of a later polemical exchange with Jakob Andreä, Latomus wrote De docta simplicitate primae Ecclesiae (Cologne 1559).

Bibliography: l. roersch, "Barthélemy Latomus, le premier professeur d'éloquence latine au Collège royal de France," Bulletins de l'Académie royale de Belgique, 3d ser. 14 (1887) 132–176. r. stupperich, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegen-wart (Tübingen 1957–65) 4:239. e. amann, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris 1903–50) 8.2:2624–26, with bibliog.

[g. j. donnelly]