Jean de La Ceppède

Jean de La Ceppède ( – 1623) was a French nobleman, judge, and poet from Aix-en-Provence. He was a Christian poet and wrote Alexandrine sonnets in Middle French during the Renaissance in France. His father was Jean-Baptiste de La Ceppède and his mother, Claude de Bompar. According to Keith Bosley, the La Ceppède family was of Spanish heritage and may have been related to Saint Teresa of Avila, who was born a Cepeda.

He received his Doctorate in Law in 1577.

Career La Ceppède became an Advisor to the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence on 22 October 1578.

As France was increasingly reunified by the armies of King Henry IV, La Ceppède published his first collection of poems, which was an imitation of the Seven Penitential Psalms. According to Keith Bosley, La Ceppède's book was one of many peace offerings to the new King by the poets of Provence, where support for the Catholic League had been overwhelming.

When it was published in 1613, La Ceppède dedicated the first volume of the Theorems to the queen mother, Marie de Medici. He also sent a copy to Saint Francis de Sales, who had been a highly successful Catholic missionary among the French Protestants of the Chablais and who was then the Roman Catholic Bishop of overwhelmingly Calvinist Geneva. In response to La Ceppède's frequent comparison of Jesus Christ to figures from Greek and Roman mythology, the Bishop wrote, "[I am] drawn by that learned piety which so happily makes you transform the Pagan Muses into Christian ones."

Malherbe himself admired La Ceppède's poetry, and wrote a sonnet to this effect, calling him "one of the first ornaments of our times." Among many testimonies in his private correspondence of his friendship with La Ceppède: "One of the principal considerations that brings me to Provence is the sweetness of [La Ceppède's] conversation." "His is a friendship I hold extremely dear and that I wish to conserve by all sorts of testimonies of my affection." which is now part of the 15th arrondissement of Marseille. In 1689, part of the estate was purchased by the aristocratic de Guillermy family, who built upon it the Bastide de la Guillermy, which is now the oldest building in the city.