Belon was born in 1517 at the hamlet of Souletière near Cérans-Foulletourte in the Pays de la Loire.[2] Nothing is known about his descent. Somewhere between 1532 and 1535 he started working as an apprentice to René des Prez, born in Foulletourte but by then an apothecary to the bishop of Clermont, Guillaume Duprat.[3] Between 1535 and 1538[4] he entered the service of René du Bellay, bishop of Le Mans, who allowed him to study medicine at the University of Wittenberg with the botanist Valerius Cordus (1515-1544). He travelled around Germany with Cordus in 1542, and on his return, he travelled through Flanders and to England.[5] By the end of summer in 1542 he continued his studies at Paris.