Geoffrey Tory resembled many others of the early printers in being also
a scholar; but he was also an artist and an engraver, taking up and
carrying on the great work inaugurated by Vostre and Vérard. He was born
at Bourges in 1480, and one of his earliest works, which was published
by Petit and printed by Gilles De Gourmont, was an edition of the
“Geography” of Pomponius Mela, 1507, and between this time and his death
he produced a number of Books of Hours, the decoration of which can only
be described as marvellous. One of the most beautiful is undoubtedly the
“Heures de la Vierge,” executed for Simon De Colines. What interests us
most, however, is the Mark which he adopted when he entered into
business as a printer and bookseller; it is perhaps the most elegant
that had been up to that time designed. This Mark of the broken pitcher,
with the motto “Non plus,” first appeared at the end of a Latin poem
issued in 1524, is regarded as a _memento_ of the death of his little
daughter in 1522, and is thus explained: the broken pitcher symbolizes
her career cut short; the book with clasps her literary studies; the
little winged figure her soul; and the motto “Non plus,” “Je ne tiens
plus à rien.” He gives his own interpretation of this Mark, however, in
that curious medley of poetry and philosophy which he called
“Champfleury,” 1529. It may be mentioned that on some of the bindings of
his quarto volumes the broken pitcher is transversed by the wimble or
_toret_--an obvious pun on his name.
The Estienne or Etienne family is probably the most important and
interesting of the sixteenth century printers of Paris. Silvestre
reproduces twenty Marks which one or other of the Estiennes employed,
and a description of these might very well form a distinct chapter. But
a condensed review of the family as a whole must suffice. Henry, the
first of the name and chief of the family, was born at Paris about 1470;
he started in 1502 a printing and bookselling business in the Rue du
Clos-Bruneau, near the _Ecoles de Droit_; he adopted the device, “Plus
olei quam vini”; and twenty-eight works are catalogued as having been
printed by him. He died in 1521, leaving a widow and three
children--François, Robert, and Charles. François I. continued the
profession in company with Simon De Colines, who had been associated
with his father, and who married the widow of Henry: his Mark is given
as an initial to this chapter. Robert I., the second son of Henry, was
born in 1503, and is probably more generally known as a Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew scholar than as a printer. For several years he, like his
brother, was associated with De Colines; he married Pétronille, daughter
of Badius “Ascensius,” and was a Protestant; in 1526 he established a
printing-press in the Rue St. Jean-de-Beauvois at the sign of the Olive.
His editions of the Greek and Latin classics were enriched with useful
notes, and promises of reward were offered to those who pointed out
mistakes. He used the types of his father and De Colines until about
1532, when he obtained a more elegant fount with which he printed his
beautiful Latin Bible. In 1552 he retired to Geneva, when he printed,
with his brother-in-law, the New Testament in French. He established
here another printing-press, and issued a number of good books, which
usually carried the motto: “Oliva Roberti Stephani.” His Marks are at
least ten in number, of which seven are variations of the Olive device,
and three (in as many sizes) of the serpent on a rod intertwined with a
branch of a climbing plant. With the exception of François the other
members of the family used the Olive mark, sometimes however altering
the motto, and adding in some instances an overhead decoration of a hand
issuing from the clouds and holding a sickle or reaping hook. He died in
1559. The third son of the founder, Charles, after receiving his
diplomas as a doctor of medicine, travelled in Germany and Italy,
returning to Paris in 1553, and started in business as a printer. Among
the ninety-two works which he printed, special mention may be made of
the “Dictionarium historicum ac poeticum, omnia gentium, hominum,
locorum,” etc., Paris, 1553, reprinted at Geneva in 1556, at Oxford in
1671, and London, 1686. He possessed the opposite attributes of being
the best printer and of having the worst temper of the family, and he
alienated himself from all his friends and relations; he was confined in
the Chatelet in Paris, and died there after two years in 1564. Henry
II., son of Robert I., was born in Paris in 1528; after leaving college
he travelled on the continent and visited England. He returned to Paris
in 1552, when his father was leaving for Geneva. In 1554 he started a
printing-press; in 1566 he published a translation of Herodotus by
Valla, revised and corrected, defending, in the preface, the Father of
History against the reproach of credulity. Charles, brother of Robert
I., established a printing-press in 1551, and died crippled with debts
in 1564. Robert II., second son of Robert I., was born in 1530, and,
refusing to adopt the new religion, was disinherited by his father; he
started a printing-press on his own account when his father retired to
Geneva, and issued forty-eight books, some of which possessed the mark
of the Olive; he was the royal printer in 1561, and died in 1575.
François II., third son of Robert I., printed in Geneva from about 1562
to 1582. Robert III., elder son of Robert II., died in 1629. Paul, son
of Henry II., was born in 1566, and, after a brilliant scholastic
career, travelled on the continent, and started a printing-press at
Geneva in 1599, where he issued twenty-six editions of the classics
which were particularly notable for their correctness and notes. He died
in 1627, and his son Antoine, born 1594, established himself at
twenty-six years of age as a printer in Paris, reverted to Roman
Catholicism, was appointed printer to the king and to the clergy, dying
at the Hotel Dieu in 1674. The number of editions which this celebrated
family, starting in 1502 and finishing in 1673, issued, reaches the very
large number of 1590, thus classified: theology, 239; jurisprudence, 79;
science and arts, 152; belles lettres, 823; and history, 297. Of the
eleven members of this family, one died in exile, five in misery, one in
a debtor’s prison, and two in the hospital--“Lecteur, que vous faut-il
de plus?”
[Illustration: SIMON DE COLINES.
S D C
S DECOLINES]
[Illustration: R. ESTIENNE.