Philippe de Commynes | |
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Born | 1447 |
Died | c. 1511 Argenton-les-Vallées, Poitou |
Occupation(s) | writer, diplomat, politician |
Philippe de Commines (or de Commynes or "Philippe de Comines"; Latin: Philippus Cominaeus; 1447 – 18 October 1511) was a writer and diplomat in the courts of Burgundy and France.[1] He has been called "the first truly modern writer" (Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve) and "the first critical and philosophical historian since classical times" (Oxford Companion to English Literature). Neither a chronicler nor a historian in the usual sense of the word, his analyses of the contemporary political scene are what made him virtually unique in his own time.