François Villon Author

François Villon (born circa1430) is widely recognised as one of France’s greatest lyric poets. A graduate of the Sorbonne and a chronic lawbreaker, he was pardoned for knifing a priest, jailed for stealing from a college chapel, and eventually sentenced to hang. He successfully appealed the sentence and was instead banished from Paris in 1463. He was never heard from again.

David Georgi studied medieval literature and modern poetry at Yale University and New York University. He works at Vanity Fair magazine as a freelance writer living in New York City.