Translation was one important aspect of the concept of imitatio--the imitation of classical models--which dominated the literary scene in Renaissance France. This first study of the practice, as opposed to the theory, of translation among French writers looks at the work and example of the humanist scholar and publisher Ètienne Dolet (1509-46), who was eventually executed for heterodoxy. Worth traces translation's relation to the intellectual and political controversies of the time, making an original and significant contribution to 16th-century French studies.