LATOMUS, BARTOLOMEUS. - Luxembourgian theologian and humanist, b. at Arlon between 1485 and 1490, d. at Coblenza on 3 Jan. 1570. He Hellenized his father’s surname (stonecutter: Steinmetz, Masson) as L. A friend of Erasmus, for 25 years (1517–42) he taught literature and philology at the Universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Trier, Cologne, Louvain, and Paris.
A lover of classical antiquities, he did not fail to visit Italy (1539–40). Turning from scholarship to political life and religious controversies, in 1542 he moved to Coblenza, where, as counsellor to the elector of Trier, he opposed, by his actions and writings, the spread of the “reformation.” Present at the diets of Speyer (1544), Worms (1545), Regensburg (1546), and again Worms (1557), he took part in disputations with Protestant theologians. His polemical work was directed chiefly against M. Buceri, P. Dalthen, and J. Andreà; his work as a humanist was particularly devoted to elucidating Cicero and Horace.
Among his theological works, noteworthy are: Responsio B. L. ad epistulam M. Buceri (Cologne 1544); De Controversis... altera plenaque defensio (ibid. 1545), both published in the Corp. Cath. (VIII [1924]) edited by L. Keil; Refutatio calumniacorum insectationum M. Buceri (ibid. 1546); Handlungen des Colloquiums zu Regensburg (ibid. 1546); Spaltung der Augsburgischen Confession (Worms 1558); against P. Dalthen he published Responsio and Altera responsio (Cologne 1558 and 1560); De docta simplicitate primae ecclesiae (ibid. 1559) against J. Andreà.