Le Cymbalum mundi et les Trois imposteurs

This article examines the theme of the triple fraud, which appears twice in the work of Bonaventure Des Périers. We find it in a poem written between 1536 and 1538, in which he expresses great bitterness towards three false prophets of doom, namely, Calvin, Guillaume Farel and, possibly, Olivétan. Most notably, the theme appears in the second dialogue of Cymbalum mundi (1537, wherein three other reformers, Luther, Bucer, and “Girard”, victims of a fraud set up by Christ-Mercury, are described as the worthy heirs of his art of deception.