Noël Duret

Noël Duret, also Natalis Durret, born at Montbrison in 1590 and dead in Paris about 1650, was a French mathematician and astronomer, cosmographer to King Louis XIII and to Cardinal Richelieu and one of the editors of François Viète. Born into a family of lawyers from the Lyonnais, related to the lawyer Jean Duret of Moulins and the herbalist Claude Duret, he taught mathematics in Paris, obtained the title of royal cosmographer, was pensioned by Richelieu and received a publishing privilege for many mathematical books. He wrote first in French, as in his Nouvelle Théorie des planètes of 1635, and then in Latin, some works being bilingual. His books range from an introduction to astrology, Astrologia generalis, to specialised astrology, describing ephemerides, their calculation and their interpretation; his De crisium mysterio tractatus magnus of 1641 was translated into English by Culpeper, and his Fatum Universi was condemned for some of its predictions.