« Snouckaert van Schouwenburg, dit Zenocarus, biographe de Charles Quint »
Résumé
Snouckaert van Schouwenburg, known as Zenocarus, biographer of Charles V
After having been secretary to Cornelius de Schepper, ambassador of Charles V, Snouckaert van Schouwenburg, known as Zenocarus, became in 1543 extraordinary counsellor at the Dutch court, in 1545, ordinary counsellor and later librarian to the emperor and then to Philip II. He wrote a particularly laudatory biography of Charles V, entitled De republica, vita, moribus, gestis, fama, religione, sanctitate Imperatoris, Caesaris, Augusti, Quinti, Caroli, Maximi, Monarchae, Libri septem […], first published in Ghent in 1559 by Quirinus Balliolus, and republished the following year by Gistenus Manilius. Of the seven books announced, only five were published. Although he was not one of the official chroniclers hired by Charles V, his familiarity with the emperor makes his narration valuable in spite of her hagiographic character. Snouckaert contributes to the heroic construction of imperial identity ; he shows the providential character of the emperor by underlining the importance of certain numbers in his life and in his portrait and he exploits his intimacy with Charles V by describing objects and works of art he may have contemplated and scenes he witnessed.