Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

THE first reference in the annals of France to the new art of printing occurs in a record bearing date October 3, 1458, the original document of which is still preserved in the Library of the Arsenal.[1] In this document it is stated that the King, having learned that Messiro Gutenberg, Chevalier, residing in Mayence, in Germany, a man dexterous in the engraving of stamps and of letters, had brought to light, by means of such characters, the invention of printing, and, curious concerning such valuable knowledge (bel trésor), the King had ordered the masters of the mint to select persons skilled in the engraver’s art and to dispatch them to Mayence that they may inform themselves of the said invention. Under this mandate, Nicholas Jenson, an expert engraver, was sent to Mayence, where he did acquire the art as he had been instructed to do. But before his return to Paris, the King had died, and Jenson, understanding that the new monarch was not likely to be interested in the undertaking, carried his knowledge to Venice, and was the means (as we have seen in a previous chapter) of securing for this city an early prestige for artistic typography and for scholarly publishing.

The King who had planned to bring the printing-press to Paris was Charles VII., whose reign had begun with a full measure of disaster and misfortune, but who had succeeded, in his later years, in the task of consolidating his kingdom and in securing for his subjects, long harassed by wars and invasions, some years of peace and prosperity. During his stormy reign, Charles could not have enjoyed much leisure for the cultivation of literature, but he is described by his biographers as an appreciative patron of learning and as possessing an intelligent interest in scholarship. It is probable, therefore, that if it had not been for his unexpected death in 1461, the beginning of printing in Paris would have been advanced by a decade, and that, with the aid of royal favour and influence, Paris would have taken a much more important place than it did among the earlier publishing centres of Europe.

Louis XI., the son of Charles, during his reign of twenty-two years, busied as he was with the work of securing a firm foundation for the authority of the Crown, was not able to devote much thought to the interests of literature. He found time, however, to reorganise the Library of the Louvre, which had been founded in 1369, by Charles V. (the Wise), and the continuation of which is represented to-day by the Bibliothèque Nationale. Louis, while characterised as miserly, was also known as a collector of choice books, and was an important patron of certain scribes and illuminators, among others, of Jean Fouquet of Tours.

It was in 1462 that the first examples of printed books were seen in Paris. In that year, Fust brought from Mayence a supply of his folio Bible, copies of which he was able to sell for fifty crowns. The usual price for manuscripts of this compass had been from four to five hundred crowns. It seems probable that there was little or no foundation for the stories that were, later, told of Fust’s being harshly treated as a magician, on the ground that the volumes he was offering for sale could not have been produced by human hands, or without the aid of the powers of evil. There was a manifest improbability in the idea that Satan would interest himself in securing a wider circulation for the holy Scriptures, unless possibly he had taken occasion to inject into falsified texts some heretical or pernicious doctrine. It is probable also that, by the time of Fust’s arrival, more or less information must already have reached Paris about the new art, and that, while it was still regarded as mysterious and wonderful, it was recognised as a human invention that had in other cities already been applied to practical uses.

The first publishing office in Paris was founded, in 1469, at the request of two savants of the Sorbonne, Fichet and Heynlin, by Gering, Krantz, and Friburger from Constance. The work was carried on in one of the Halls of the Sorbonne. Forty years later, there were in Paris over fifty printing concerns. The policy of cordial encouragement still prevailed, and no restrictions had as yet been placed upon the business. After the introduction of printing, the printers took a position in society much above that occupied by their predecessors, the copyists. The difference could have been due only in part to the possession of greater scholarly attainments, for the better class of copyists must themselves have had some knowledge of the subject-matter of their manuscripts. The business of the printers required, however, the control of a certain amount of capital, while the selection of works for reproduction and the preparation for the compositors of trustworthy texts called for a wide range of literary information and scholarly training. The printers were, in the first place, left as free as had been the copyists to reproduce such works as they might select. No claim had thus far been made for exclusive ownership in, or control of, literary productions, and no censorship supervision had been established on the part of the Government. This state of things continued during the reign of Louis XII., and, in an edict issued April 9, 1513,[2] the King confirmed and extended the privileges previously acquired by booksellers as officials of the University.

In this edict, Louis speaks with great appreciation and admiration of the printing art, “the discovery of which appears to be rather divine than human.” He congratulates his kingdom that in the development of this art “France takes precedence of all other realms.” A year later, the King put on record his opinion that dramatic productions and representations should be left free from any restrictions. In 1512, the King writes to the University requesting the Faculty to examine a book which the Council of Pisa had condemned as heretical. In place, however, of demanding or suggesting that measures of severity should be taken against the writer of the book, the King proposed that the professors should have the book gone over chapter by chapter and should put into form a refutation of any of its conclusions which seemed to them to be contrary to the truth.

It was hardly possible that so wide a spirit of toleration should long continue. Francis I. prided himself on his taste for literature and was disposed to favour men of letters, but his fancies for toleration were easily overcome by the persecuting earnestness which actuated the clergy and the Parliament, and when his anger or his suspicions had once been aroused, he showed himself to be fiercer in the infliction of penalties than those whom he had at first restrained. The spirit of the time was stronger than any one king, and it would be absurd to suppose that in the sixteenth century the Church and the State could be depended upon to permit the free development and the unrestricted expression of thought.

The first book printed in Paris by Gering and his associates was a collection of the Letters of Gasparino of Bergamo. The volume was in Latin, and the Roman form of type was used, notwithstanding the German control of the office. Humphreys is of opinion that specimens of the beautiful volumes which had been printed in Venice by Jenson had been forwarded to Paris, and that these served as models for the earlier issues of the Paris Press. The Gasparino was followed by an edition of Sallust’s Catiline Conspiracy and by an epitome of Livy compiled by Florus. A little later, appeared a work on Rhetoric by Fichet himself, one of the earliest printed volumes which was the production of a contemporary writer.

The second Press established in Paris was that of Cæsaris and Stoll, who began work for themselves in 1473. They were both students of the University but they found it desirable to carry on their business outside of the University limits. The demand in Paris, both within and without the University, for printed books, increased very rapidly, and before the close of the century the trade in books far exceeded that of any city in Europe. For a number of years, however, a very large proportion of this demand was supplied from the presses of Mayence, Strasburg, Venice, Milan, Cologne, and Bruges.

Schoiffher, or Schöffer, of Mayence, was the first of the foreign publishers who maintained a permanent agency in Paris. This agency naturally excited the jealousy of the licensed Paris book-dealers, and, in 1474, the stock was seized on an application from the Guild on the ground that it was the property of an alien who was not a licensed dealer. Louis XI. gave evidence, however, that his interest in the new art was superior to any local or national prejudice, and, on a petition from Schoiffher, he caused to be paid over to him the sum of four hundred crowns as an indemnification for the loss of his books. In 1474, the King also granted to Gering and his associates letters of naturalisation which secured a protection for their business.

The first volume printed in Paris in French was Les Grandes Chroniques de France, which was issued in 1477, by Pâquier Bonhomme, bookseller to the University. This was, however, not the first printed book that had appeared in French, as it had been preceded, by some years, by the Recueil des Histoires de Troyes published in Bruges by Caxton. In 1495, Anthony Vérard, who had previously been an illuminator and probably also an engraver of block-books, established a printing-office and devoted himself particularly to the production of illustrated works. In 1503, he printed in English, for sale in the English market, the Art of Good Living and Dying, the illustrations in which occupy about as much space as the text.

After Paris, Lyons was the city of France in which the art of printing secured the earliest introduction and the most rapid development. The printer-publishers of Lyons showed themselves “enterprising” in more ways than one. They were free from the immediate supervision and control of the authorities of the University of Paris, and, as the history of the Paris Press shows, the difficulties placed in the way of publishing undertakings by the bigoted and ignorant censorship of the theologians, must have more than offset the advantages usually to be secured in the production of scholarly publications, through the facilities of the University collections and the editorial service rendered by the University members.

In the matter of political censorship, Lyons was, of course, in form at least, subject to the same regulations that controlled the presses of Paris. It was, however, evidently much more difficult to exercise any strict and continuous supervision over the printers of the provinces than over those of the capital, and in politics, therefore, as well as in theology, the publishers of Lyons enjoyed a greater freedom of action. “The freedom of action,” of which their Paris competitors made the sharpest criticism and the most reiterated complaints, was shown in the practice of the Lyons competitors, of promptly appropriating for their own profit and reproducing, with more or less closeness of imitation, such of the Paris publications as they found available for the markets within their reach. The “privileges” issued by the Crown and the special authorisations given by the University appear to have availed but little to repress this appropriating enterprise on the part of the publishers of Lyons.

It was no consolation to the organised publishers, les libraires jurés, to know that their Lyons competitors utilised, with precisely the same freedom, the available publications of Venice, Milan, Mayence, and Basel, and, later, of Geneva. For this class of reprinting there was, as a rule, not even the nominal obstacle of the State privilege. As a result of their favourable commercial position, the publishers of Lyons were not infrequently able to secure for their unauthorised reprints of the classic editions of the Paris Press a much larger proportion of the foreign sales than was obtained by the original publishers.

The enterprise of these early Lyons publishers was manifested also in another and more legitimate direction. They gave attention to the production of books in light literature, such as popular romances, legends, folk-songs, etc., printed, of course, in the vernacular, at a time when the printers of Paris and, for that matter, the printers of nearly all the other book-manufacturing cities of Europe were devoting their presses exclusively to theology and to the classics. Other cities the printers of which interested themselves in light literature were Bruges and London, the records of which are referred to in another chapter.

In connection with these romances and with some few other classes of literature, the book-makers of Lyons gave particular attention to the production of high-class illustrations. They used for the purpose the work not only of French, but of foreign designers and engravers. The printer Le Roys, for instance, employed Holbein to design a new Dance of Death, and also to prepare a series of illustrations for the New Testament. In 1488, Jacques Locher published an edition of the famous Ship of Fools, accompanied by graphic illustrations from an unknown artist. Locher’s edition was issued in Latin. The first French translation, under the title La Nef des Fouls, appeared in 1497. This was followed a little later by a companion work published under the title of La Nef des Folles, which illustrated in like manner the absurdities of women in various walks of life.

The first Paris printer who was able to present in his text any Greek characters was Jodocus Badius, who issued, in 1505, the Annotationes in Novum Testamentum of Laurentius Valla, in which several passages of Greek were of necessity included. In 1519, the same publisher issued an impression of the Institutiones Imperiales, in which were included a few Greek passages. The characters for the type used in these were designed by a certain Hermonymus, a Lacedæmonian, who was at the time sojourning in Paris.

In 1507, a Greek Press was established in Paris by Giles Gourmont. The Press was under the general supervision of the University, but the immediate responsibility for the undertaking rested with Francis Tissard. Tissard was a French scholar, who, having studied in Padua and Bologna, had become imbued with an earnest zeal for the development of classical scholarship in France. He had secured instruction in Greek from a certain Demetrius Spartiata, and it was his special object to establish in the University of Paris the study of Greek language and literature, and to bring the cost of Greek books within the means of the poorer instructors and students. The few scholars in France who had heretofore been interested in Greek books had been obliged to incur the expense of securing these from Milan or from Venice.

Tissard succeeded in interesting in his undertaking the Duke de Valois, who afterwards, as Francis I., rendered most important service to the cause of literature for France and for Europe. As the first Greek book issued from the Press of Aldus, twelve years earlier, had very properly been a Grammar for the instruction in Greek of students already proficient in Latin, in like manner the volume selected by Tissard as the first issue from Gourmont’s Press was an elementary work containing the Greek alphabet, the rules of pronunciation, and exercises for the beginner.

The second Greek publication was the Batrachomyomachia, and the third, an edition of the Works and Days of Hesiod (probably the first printed issue of this author). The fourth Greek volume was the Grammar of Emanuel Chrysoloras, a Greek scholar, whose influence had been of so great service in furthering the study of Greek literature in Florence.

After the publication of this Grammar, Gourmont assumed the title which he had fairly earned, Primus Græcarum Litterarum Parisiis Impressor. In the following year, he established his claim to the like honourable distinction for the Hebrew, by his impression of two works from the zealous pen of his scholarly patron Tissard, the Grammatica Hebraica et Græca, in quarto, and the Alphabetum Hebraicum et Græcum, also in quarto.

Shortly after the issue of these two volumes, Tissard died. His work as the supervising scholar of the Greek Press in Paris was carried on by Hieronymus Aleander, an Italian scholar who had been invited by Louis XII. to take up his residence in Paris. Aleander gave lectures in the forenoon in the University on the language and literature of Greece, while the evenings were devoted to readings in Cicero. In the year 1512, he was elected Rector of the University, and in this position and by means of a liberal use of the pension given him by the King, he was able to do much in furthering the development of the printing, in Paris, of Greek texts. In the year 1512, Aleander gave to the public a Lexicon Græco-Latinum, which bore the imprint of Gourmontius and Bolsecus, the latter being the second Greek typographer of Paris.

Aleander had been a member of the Academy of Aldus, who inscribed to him his edition of Homeri Ilias Græce, and who speaks in high terms of his literary qualifications. Aleander had also been a friend and literary associate of Erasmus, and had given to the learned Hollander valuable assistance in the compilation of his Adagia. This friendship failed to stand the test of religious differences, and Aleander, when later employed by Leo X. to combat the doctrines of the Lutheran heretics, exercised his tongue and pen with great acrimony against the Sage of Rotterdam.[3]

The next printer in Paris whose work, in connection with the production of classic literature, was important, was Jodocus Badius Ascensius. According to the record of the historian Panzer, there were produced from the Press of Badius not less than four hundred separate works, nearly all of which were printed in folio or quarto. The business career of Badius extended over a period of about twenty-five years, beginning with 1498. It is difficult to understand how it was practicable to secure at this early age a remunerative sale for costly editions of the Latin authors selected by Badius for his Press. He was a Fleming by birth, and, as was the case with not a few of the early printer-publishers, he united with his other business responsibilities work as an instructor. He gave lectures on the Latin poets, first in Paris and later in Lyons. It was in the latter city that he first interested himself in printing, having been engaged by Preschel as a corrector of the press. One of the more noteworthy of his publications, outside of the list of Latin classics, was an edition of the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury. He was also the publisher of the first Paris edition of the Navis Stultifera (the “Ship of Fools”) of Sebastian Brandt. Of this book he also printed a translation in French, (the second French version) under the title of La Nef des Folz du Monde, which was edited by himself and with which he included certain variations of his own. It may be considered as an evidence of the accepted orthodoxy of Badius that he was employed by the University to publish certain censorial works which had been prepared ex cathedra by members of the Theological Faculty. Examples of these, printed respectively in 1521 and 1523, were treatises on the doctrine of Luther and on “certain contentions of Dr. Luther.” Among the more important works of later and contemporary authors that came from the Press of Badius were editions of the Opera Omnia of Politian and of the Opera Omnia of Valla, and a long series of works by Budæus, who ranked as one of the most comprehensive and voluminous scholars of his time. In 1500, Badius printed an edition of the Regula S. Benedicti, the famous Rule which, as described in an earlier chapter, had exercised so important and so abiding an influence on the literature and the intellectual development of Europe.

Badius was a libraire juré of the University, and the thoroughness of his scholarship was attested by so good an authority as Erasmus, for whom he published editions of the Adagia and the Praise of Folly. The printing mark of Badius is a representation of the printing-press of the time. Beneath this he occasionally used the motto Aere meret Badius laudem auctorum arte legentum. Greswell says that by filling up the ellipsis, this is to be interpreted that Badius by his liberality elicits the praise of authors, and by his typographic skill and accuracy that of readers.

Budæus, whose friendship and scholarship were of marked service to Badius during his career, was one of the most noteworthy scholars of his generation and is to be ranked in the group with Erasmus, among the great scholars of Europe. He had studied Greek with Laskaris, whose lectures and whose Greek grammar had done so much to further the study in Italy of the language and literature of Greece. Three of the kings of France, Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., appreciating the distinction given to France by the scholarship and literary productions of a man like Budæus, had honoured him with their friendship and had bestowed upon him various marks of distinction. It was a time when learning was held to be an essential qualification for diplomacy and statesmanship, and Budæus was more than once called away from his study and from his lecture-room to take charge of important embassies. In 1520, he was in attendance upon Francis I. at the celebrated meeting between Francis and Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

The subsequent interest taken by Francis in the work of the University and in the foundation of the Royal Library at Fontainebleau was doubtless due to the influence of Budæus, and it was in his power so to educate the King as to enable the latter to realise the value and importance to the kingdom of the work that was being done by the printer-publisher, and to be ready to further this work with the royal protection, with privileges, and at times with direct financial aid.

At this stage in the history of book-production, the “producers,” the men who brought into existence the current literature of the time, and who, having planned and initiated the undertakings, taken the risks, met the outlay, and provided the labour (in many cases with their own heads and hands), claimed the ownership of the works produced, were the publishers. The literature with which the publishing of printed books was entered upon was comprised, with a few rare exceptions, of editions of old-time classics, prepared to meet the requirements of the scholars of the day. It was for this class of publications that were secured the first “protections” and “privileges,” and the labour of extracting such privileges from the rulers first of one State and then of another, until a sufficient territory to provide a market for the work had, at least in form, been protected, fell of course upon the publishers.

These “privileges” were for but brief and varying terms, and often (as in the small States of Italy and Germany) the territory covered by any one privilege was very inconsiderable; while it was further the case that the penalties for infringement were absurdly inadequate, and could but rarely be enforced. The protection afforded to property rights was, therefore, for the most part unsatisfactory enough, but it was the best that in the existing state of public opinion could be secured. The system of privileges marked an epoch in the history of human relations and in the development of the recognition of human rights, and it constituted, of course, the beginning of the later system of copyright law.

The special labours of the earlier publishers were not even completed when they had secured for their productions the protection, at least pro forma, of the State. They still had upon their hands the work of conciliating the Church, and, as has been noted in the account of Aldus, and as will appear in the later chapters, the task of creating and of carrying on the business of publishing of books for scholarly and critical readers was enormously increased by the burdens and the exactions of a zealous and ignorant ecclesiastical censorship.

The printer-publishers of the first century of printing who, in the face of this complex series of difficulties, responsibilities, and requirements, succeeded in creating a business and in producing for their own generation and for posterity long lists of costly and scholarly editions of the great books of their world, may fairly be called men of achievement.

With the requirement came, as always, the men. The press that Gutenberg had given to the world was not allowed to rust for want of plucky and public-spirited printers to develop its full scope and usefulness. In Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and England, scholarly and capable pioneers devoted themselves to the new art until it had become “understanded of the people,” had made a place for itself in the community, and could be pursued as an industry and without the necessity of exceptional individuals for its direction. Not a few of these pioneer publishers founded families or dynasties which for successive generations continued to discharge the responsibility of providing high-class literature for the community, and at the same time of fighting ecclesiastical and political censorships, of widening precedents, and of maintaining and extending the claims of literature and the rights of literary producers.

I have already noted for Italy the achievements of Aldus Manutius and his successors, and I propose in later chapters (selecting a few of the more typical of the great printer-publishers) to give some description of the work of the Kobergers in Nuremberg, of Froben in Basel, of the House of Plantin in Antwerp, of Caxton in Bruges and in London, and of the Elzevirs in Leyden and Amsterdam.

For France, after the foregoing brief references to the undertakings of the earliest printers, some special mention is fairly due to the famous family of the Estiennes or Stephani, the members of which took rank not only with the great publishers but with the distinguished scholars of their time, while they are also to be commemorated as having, in troublous times, shown themselves to be strong-hearted men, possessing the courage of their convictions. No other family, excepting possibly that of the Elzevirs, was for so many generations engaged in the business of printing and publishing, while the work of the Stephani was carried on under exceptional difficulties, commercial, literary, theological, and political. The editorial responsibility in preparing for the press the scholarly publications of later publishers was for the most part confided to professors or other scholarly associates, but it was the case that the books issued by the Stephani were, with a few exceptions, edited and supervised by the publishers themselves, nearly all the members of the family being men of scholarly training, while one or two took rank with the most learned men of their generation. No publisher, except Aldus of Venice, has ever contributed to the issues of his press as much original scholarly work as is to be found in the books bearing the imprint of Robert Stephanus.

The founder of the family, or at least the man whose name first becomes known in connection with the production of books, was Henry, known as Henry the elder, in order to be distinguished from his grandson. His name first appears as a printer in the year 1496, in conjunction with that of a German named Wolffgang Hopyll. The book bearing this double imprint was an introduction to the Ethics of Aristotle, written by a certain Jacobus Faber. The first book issued by Estienne bearing his sole imprint, and which may therefore be considered as the earliest publication of a House whose business was to continue for nearly a century and a half, was an edition of the Ethics of Aristotle, Latinised by Aretinus, which bears date 1504. According to Panzer, Henry Estienne the first published in all about one hundred separate works, which, with hardly an exception, were issued in Latin. He associated with the editorial work of his printing-office three learned doctors, Charles Boville, Jacques Le Fèvre d’Estaples, and Josse Clictou. Le Fèvre is known as the instructor of the reformers Calvin and Farrel. His so-called heretical opinions rendered him obnoxious to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, and if it had not been for the special interference of Francis I., by whom his learning and his merits were held in high esteem, his life would more than once have been in jeopardy. His theological opponents succeeded, however, in procuring his expulsion from the University, and, driven from Paris, he was compelled to seek the protection of the Queen of Navarre.

The case above cited is one of a long series of instances in which the liberal views and the scholarly interests of King Francis brought him into conflict with the Doctors of the Sorbonne. In the end, however, the Theological Faculty, backed by the majority of the ecclesiastics of France and by the continued influence of the papacy, proved too strong for the liberal tendencies of the Crown. With the final triumph of Catholic orthodoxy in France, the leading publishers and their editorial associates found so many difficulties placed in the way of their literary undertakings, that these could no longer be carried on to advantage in Paris. While it was the case that a large number of these publishers and of their authors were in sympathy with the views of the Reformers, this formed only the smaller part of the difficulty. The chief trouble was due to the ignorance and the suspiciousness of the Doctors of the Sorbonne. These doctors possessed at this period little or no knowledge of Greek, and were inclined to imagine that any Greek sentence must contain, or might contain, some dangerous heresy. Any critical analysis of Latin texts which, in some earlier and usually imperfect or defective form, had received the approval of the Church, also seemed to them likely to prove dangerous, and in any case constituted a reflection upon the orthodox scholarship of the previously accepted versions. Their apprehensions became most keen and their indignation most active when the “new criticism” (as they probably called it) was applied to the text of the Scriptures, whether for the purpose of correcting the early, clumsy, Latinised versions of the New Testament, or of securing more accurate rendering of the texts of the Hebrew books. The production of editions of the Scriptures constituted, however, during the first half century of printing, the most important division of publishing undertakings. It is not surprising, therefore, that the printers, who were giving their time and their capital to the preparation of these editions, and who found themselves hampered and harassed by ignorant and bigoted censorship, came to the conclusion that the advantages of Paris as a literary and commercial centre were not sufficient to offset the continued difficulties and annoyances of such antagonism. If the publishing business of Geneva received, after the beginning of the Reformation, an exceptional impetus and development through the migration of Paris publishers and the transfer of the literary undertakings of French scholars, the responsibility for the loss to France must rest first with the Doctors of the Sorbonne, and secondly with the weakness and vacillation of the successors of Francis I.

Henry Estienne associated with his imprint the arms of the University, but he had no exclusive control of such use, as these same arms appear on the title-pages of the publications of one or two of his contemporaries. He appears to have been one of the first of Paris printers to assume a personal responsibility for the typographical accuracy of his texts, and in securing the services of competent scholars as correctors for his Press, he made a practice of adding their names to the title-pages or to the colophons of their editions. This served at once to secure for them the credit of good work and to fix the responsibility for work that did not stand the test of later criticism. Greswell mentions that the celebrated scholar Beatus Rhenanus was at one time discharged by Henry from the post of press corrector, because he had permitted certain errors or oversights to remain in the printed text as passed by him. Henry took the ground that the publishing imprint should stand as a voucher or guarantee for trustworthy work and that every typographical error constituted a stain upon his character as a publisher.

Henry died about 1520. The work of his Press was at the outset continued by Colines, who married his widow. Colines gave special attention to the production of impressions of the best Latin classics, and was the first of Paris printers to adopt for these the italic type and the more convenient cabinet or sixteenmo form which had been first utilised by Aldus. Robert Estienne, the most famous printer of his name, owed to his step-father his typographical education, and it must have been largely due also to the influence of Colines that the taste of the young Robert was from the beginning directed to the dissemination of classical literature.

The editions of Colines included a very full list of the leading Latin authors, special attention being given (as was the case with nearly all the printers of the first and second generations) to the writings of Cicero. In preparing the works of Cicero for the press, Colines had the advantage of the carefully revised and ably annotated text of Paul Manutius, the son of Aldus. The most important of the works of contemporary writers which bore the imprint of Colines was an edition of the Colloquies of Erasmus, which was issued with the authorisation of the author, by whom it had been carefully revised. The sale and perusal of this book were interdicted by the censor of the Sorbonne, but before it was withdrawn from the market there were printed, according to the account given by Erasmus, no less than twenty-four thousand copies.

The chief prestige that attaches to the undertakings of Colines was secured through his beautiful editions of works in the Greek character. The list of these comprised in all fourteen separate issues, including his three impressions of Euclid. As a libraire juré of the University, Colines was employed to print the Acts of the Council of Sens, in which council, in the year 1528, the Lutheran heresies were condemned. He also printed, probably in his official capacity, a number of the tracts or treatises which were issued under the direction of the Theological Faculty to combat the Protestant heresies. To his long list of publications must be added a complete edition of the works of Galen, which was followed by several other medical treatises.

As has been previously pointed out, up to the year 1507, the University of Paris was practically destitute of texts for the study of Greek, although for nearly twenty years, in the universities of Italy, Greek lecturers had found a large support for their work, and although, since 1495, the presses of Aldus in Venice had been busied in the production of carefully edited and well printed editions of the Greek classics. While it is probable that there was no serious difficulty in securing in Paris at this time copies of the issues of the Venetian Press, it would appear that the knowledge of Greek in the University and the interest in acquiring such knowledge prior to 1510 had been very inconsiderable.

The Greek exiles from Constantinople who had done so much to further in Italy an enthusiasm for Greek literature, not only in the university towns but in great commercial centres like Florence and Venice, had apparently been less attracted towards France, and it was not until later in the sixteenth century that we find the names of Greek instructors associated with the Faculties of Paris and Orleans. Greek had been taught in Paris as early as 1472, by a certain Tiphernas, an Italian, who had been a pupil of Chrysoloras. He was succeeded after a considerable interval by Hermonymus and Laskaris. The latter was the author of the famous Grammar, which was the first Greek publication of Aldus. According to Greswell, Laskaris never secured any official appointment in the University, although he had the favour of Charles VIII. and of Louis XII.

Gourmont, whose name has already been mentioned, was the first of the Paris typographers who was willing to incur the very considerable risk and expense required for the production of a series of Greek texts. His list included an edition of the Institutiones Grammaticæ of Aldus Manutius, issued in 1513, and the Grammatica Græca of Theodore Gaza, in 1521. In 1522, Pierre Vidouvé, of Verneuil, printed the Dragmata Græcæ Litteraturæ of John Œcolampadius, and a Greek and Latin Lexicon edited by Magnus and Chæradamus. The former was preceptor to the children of Budæus.

These ventures were followed by similar undertakings on the part of Colines and Badius. The former issued editions of Sophocles, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, and Lucian, while from the press of the latter came the great Commentary of Budæus on the Greek language, and the Areopagiticus of Isocrates.

Another Greek printer of enterprise was Christianus Wechel, who was a friend of Erasmus. He issued, in 1529, a further edition of the frequently printed Greek Grammar of Gaza, and, later, many of the Opuscula of Galen, the latter printed in the original Greek with Latin versions. Wechel came into trouble in 1534 for having sold the treatise of Erasmus De esu interdicto Carnium, which had been censured by the Theological Faculty.

In the year 1530, the production of Greek books in Paris was taken up energetically by Gerardus Morrhius Campensis, who dates his impressions from the College of the Sorbonne. His list includes a Lexicon Græco-Latinum, the Rhetorica and Poetica of Aristotle, the Ajax of Sophocles, and a number of the essays of Galen. The titles of the works selected by these earlier Parisian printers have interest as indicating the direction of the studies pursued at the time in the University, or which were taken up in connection with special scholarly undertakings outside of the routine university curriculum. While these printer-publishers were usually able to secure, in preparing their editions for the press, the services of scholarly editors (or, as they were more frequently called, correctors), it is evident that no little original learning as well as scholarly judgment was required on the part of the publishers themselves in the selection of the texts and in the supervision of the correctors, while in the majority of cases the publishers added to their volumes original work of their own. Thus to the Lexicon Græco-Latinum, Morrhius had contributed an elaborate Latin preface, while to the Interpretatio Didymi in Odysseam, he prefixed an analytical introduction in Greek.

Morrhius, writing in 1531 to Erasmus, says: “There are even within the precincts of this college [the Sorbonne] those who wish well to you, but they are obliged to whisper, fearing to declare in public their real sentiments, to such a pitch has tyranny attained here. Your friends rejoice exceedingly that you have replied with so much moderation to the Determinationes of our divines, for they were afraid you would have branded the whole Faculty with a stigma that would have marked them to posterity, which you would have certainly been justified in doing.” It is apparent from this and from many similar references that Erasmus was obliged to carry on contentions, so to speak, with both hands. On the one side, he was bitterly assailed by Lutherans no less than by Calvinists for failing to support with his talents, his learning, and his world-wide influence the cause of the Protestants. On the other side, the divines of the Roman Church stigmatised as a dangerous heretic a man who insisted that the writings of the Fathers, and even the Roman versions of the Scriptures themselves, must be subjected to critical analysis and to textual corrections, and that not a few of the dicta, which had been made the basis of doctrines called authoritative, were either fraudulent interpolations in the original texts, or were the result of the glosses and blunders of incompetent copyists.

Vascosanus, who was a son-in-law of Badius, continued the work of printing classic texts, and won repute for the beauty and correctness of his editions. He interested himself particularly in the production of the works of Cicero, printed in quarto with commentaries. The writings of Cicero were, as we shall note, very largely favoured by the publishers of the first century of printing. The only important contemporary author with whose work the imprint of Vascosanus is associated, was Budæus, for whom he published an edition of the treatise De Asse et ejus Partibus. The device adopted by Vascosanus was a fountain, delineated, according to Maittaire’s description, with artistic ornaments, and surrounded by the motto, ἐν βιβλίοισ ῥέει ἡ Σοφίας πηγὴ.[4] From 1566 to 1576, Vascosanus was Typographus Regius. The great typographer, Frederic Morel, was one of his grandsons.

Without undertaking to give in detail the list of the printer-publishers who are recorded by Maittaire and Greswell as having rendered honourable service during this period in the production in Paris of scholarly Latin and Greek texts, I will proceed at once to the record of Robert Estienne, whose work was of first importance for France and for Europe, and who is to be ranked with the great printer-publishers of the world.

Robert’s responsibilities as a printer in his own name begin with 1524, in which year he became proprietor of the paternal Imprimerie. He was then twenty-one years of age. He had been able to profit but little from the training of his father, Henry, the first of the Estiennes who had devoted himself to printing, as the latter had died when Robert was but seventeen, but he had, as before noted, had the advantage of the supervision of his step-father Colines, himself both a skilled printer and a good scholar. The work of the young printer was begun in troublous times both for France and for Europe. It was but eight years since, by the burning at Wittenberg of the papal bull, Luther had initiated the great contest of the Reformation. The wordy strife of the theologians was proceeding with increasing bitterness throughout all Christian lands, and behind the theological contentions of the scholars, the feelings of the common people were being aroused into a condition of ferment and dogmatic partisanship such as the world had not yet witnessed, and which was for years to come, in the name of Christianity, to bring desolation upon many lands. This excited condition of France, Germany, and Switzerland, the desolating wars which followed, the absorption of the minds of men in theological issues, and the measures for a repressing censorship of the productions of the printing-press, which, immediately after the beginning of the Reformation, were instituted by the authorities both of Church and of State, were, of necessity, serious obstacles in the way of development of publishing undertakings, or at least of undertakings depending upon purely literary interests. On the other hand, the general ferment in the minds of men, a ferment which, as we have noted, was by no means confined to the scholarly circles, brought about a very great development in the intellectual activities and the literary interests of Europe, causing “many to read who never read before, while those who read before, now read the more.” Mark Pattison points out that the Reformation was not only an appeal to Scripture versus tradition, but also “an appeal to history.”[5] The makers of such an appeal must, of course, in order to render their contention effective, place within the reach of their communities the literature of the history cited as authoritative. The printing-press had been in use for three quarters of a century, but the demand for books had still (as in the manuscript period) been in large part restricted to the scholarly circles of the universities and of the educated ecclesiastics.

It was only with the eager popular demand for instruction and information which developed with the outbreak of the Reformation, that there came to the people at large a realisation of the value to them of the invention of Gutenberg, and an understanding of its importance for the work of educating and of organising the people for the securing of the right of individual thought and for protection against the oppression of Church and State. The work of publishing material for popular circulation begins practically with the Reformation. As the people came to realise the value of the new weapon that had been shaped for its use, there was developed a corresponding distrust and antagonism on the part of the Church (which had at first been a liberal supporter of the printers), and on the part also of not a few of the State rulers. The system of censorship, ecclesiastical and political, a system which was to do much to hamper the development of literature and of publishing, dates in substance from the Reformation; no censorship, however rigorous, was competent to restrain the growing activity of the press, an activity itself awakened by the increase in the popular demand for literature, and, notwithstanding all the difficulties above referred to, the reading public within reach of Robert Estienne was very much greater than that which twenty-five or thirty years back had been available for his father. At the time Robert began his business career, Francis I. was King of France, Charles V., Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry VIII., King of England. The Paris of 1524 contained about 350,000 inhabitants. The University, which under Louis XI. was said to have comprised over 20,000 students, had seriously declined, and was destined to lose still more during the succeeding century as the Romanist spirit secured the complete control. It included, however, under Francis, not less than 10,000 students, and must still have ranked as the leading university of Europe. The printer-publishers of the city carried on their work in close connection with the University, of which, in fact, under the system handed down from the manuscript period, the libraires jurés were still members, and the University continued to claim the right to control such supervision and censorship as might be exercised over the productions of the press. The syndic of the Sorbonne (the theological division of the University) was at this time Noel Bedier, who affected the name of Beda, after the venerable Bede. He is described as a fanatical pedant and an incessant disputant, always on the lookout for heresy and for some new victim to persecute.[6] It was a gratification to him to have been born in this age of heterodoxy, and he was constantly goading the Sorbonne to censure.

King Francis gave evidence of an intelligent appreciation of the importance, as well for the prestige of the Crown as for the welfare of the State, of the development of learning and literature. He showed a cordial regard for the scholarly publishers and editors who were at that time gathered in Paris, and was ready in most instances to throw the influence of the Crown upon the side of a liberal standard of supervision for the productions of the Paris Press. The authority of the University, on the other hand, as expressed through the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne, was, from the time of the beginning of the Reformation, exercised persistently in behalf of a narrower and more rigorous censorship, and was used to restrict and to hamper nearly all classes of publishing undertakings. Behind the Sorbonne stood the Church of Rome. The co-operation of the Papacy with the literary spirit of the age, appears to have come to an end with the death of Leo X. His successors, Adrian VI., Clement VII., and Paul III., had learned to regard the printing-press as an efficient ally of the Reformers, and therefore as the enemy of the Church. They had convinced themselves that if the spread of pernicious doctrine among the people was to be checked, the issues of the press must be controlled by a rigorous and persistent censorship. As far as France was concerned, the persistency of the Church proved too strong to be offset by the friendly interest and rather vacillating liberalism of the Crown, and the ecclesiastical control of the printing-press became, before 1540, an established and an obstructive fact. One of the results of the antagonism of the Church to critical scholarship was to drive into the ranks of sympathisers with the Reformers, if not into Protestantism itself, very many of the scholars who were not at the outset Reformers and who were not keenly interested in the theological issues of the period, but who were naturally indignant at the reiterated interference, often on the part of very ignorant men, with scholarly undertakings. The men engaged in preparing for the public critical editions of the world’s literature, asked to be let alone, but they asked in vain.

It was under such conditions of strife and disturbance, of contests political and religious, of wars civil and foreign, of revolts against the Church, and of fresh assumptions on the part of the Church against any liberty of action for the community or for the individual, that the life-work of Robert Estienne was begun. He was born in 1503, and appears to have imbibed his scholarly interests and to have secured his early scholarly training principally from the learned men who had served as correctors of the press for his father, Henry. Henry died in 1520, and his widow married, in 1522, Simon de Colines, whose work as a typographer has already been referred to. Robert speedily became the assistant of his step-father, and the first important undertaking entrusted to him was the supervision through the press of an edition of the Novum Testamentum.[7] The text followed the version of the Vulgate, but the youthful editor found occasion for certain corrections. The textual changes ventured upon in the volume at once called forth criticism from the divines of the Sorbonne, who were already raising objections to any general dissemination of the Scriptures, and Robert found himself classed with the group of heretical persons who required watching. This reputation clung to him through all his career, and the hostility of the divines, thus early aroused, was never withdrawn. According to Robert’s correspondence, he held himself always ready to justify on critical grounds and by theological arguments the corrections in the Vulgate text upon which he had ventured. The divines, however, while continuing their invectives from their instructors’ Chairs and even from the pulpit, took pains to avoid any direct controversy on the points at issue.[8]

In 1525, appeared the first work published with the individual imprint of Robert, an edition of the Apuleii Liber de Deo Socratis, which was followed in 1526 by the Ciceronis Epistolæ, without which hardly any publishing list of the time could be begun. Robert adopted as his device a spreading olive tree, with one or more branches broken off, and the motto Noli altum sapere, sed time. This appears to be based upon the words in Romans xi. 20, “Be not high-minded, but fear.” Robert’s career was, however, in a sense, a contradiction of his motto. He was high-minded, and he refused to fear, or at least to be fearful. Shortly after his majority, Robert married Petronilla, a daughter of the famous publisher Jodocus Badius, and the co-operation of his wife proved of no little service in the management of the editorial portion of his business, as she was herself a thorough scholar, and could read, write, and speak Latin fluently. The publisher’s household included for many years, in addition to the members of his family circle, a number of his editors and press-correctors. These assistants represented a number of nationalities, and they had, as a convenience, adopted Latin as their common tongue. Through the example of these permanent guests, aided by the facility of the mistress of the house, Latin became the language first of the table and finally of the whole domestic establishment, even the servants and children having gained a sufficient mastery of the idioms. Maittaire mentions that it was a custom of Robert Estienne to hang up in the streets or in the precincts of the University proof-sheets of important works which were passing through his Press, and to offer a reward for every error that might be discovered.

The following list of works, selected from among the more important of the publications issued by the second Estienne during the succeeding fifteen years, will serve to give an impression of the character of his undertakings. For the titles in this list I am indebted to Greswell.[9]

• 1528. Linacer, Thomas, “De Emendata Latini Sermonis Structura,” quarto. Robert printed two later editions in octavo. Linacer was a learned Englishman, physician and ecclesiastic, and a correspondent of Erasmus, through whom probably he became known to Estienne. His death occurred in 1524, and this Paris edition of his most important work could, therefore, not have had the advantage of the author’s supervision. “Justiniani Institutiones,” and “Digestorum seu Pandectarum volumina quinque Biblia utriusque Testamenti Latina, ex veteribus MSS. exemplaribus emendata, fol. cal. Mart.” This was Robert’s first impression of the complete Bible. For its preparation he had made a very comprehensive collation of the existing manuscripts of the Vulgate with the texts heretofore printed.
• “Dictionarium seu Latinæ Linguæ Thesaurus.” This work was not completed in 1528, but during this year and the two years following, its preparation was in progress. Robert’s part in the undertaking was by no means restricted to the planning, the printing, and the publishing. Not having succeeded in securing the services of a competent editor, he finally decided himself to attempt the task of the compilation and the editing. Having secured from scholarly friends a favourable opinion on the first few sheets prepared for the press, he was encouraged to persevere, and applied himself to the task day and night for more than two years, during which he had also on his hands the responsibilities of his printing and publishing business. The work was adopted at once by the University of Paris, and, superseding the existing Latin dictionaries (of which the “Cornucopia” of Aldus Manutius, issued in 1513, was perhaps the most important), it remained for many years the standard authority on its subject, as well as a monument to the learning and industry of a representative publisher.
• 1529. “Plinii Epistolæ, Panegyricus de Viris Illustribus, Suetonius de Claris Grammaticis,” and “Terentii Opera.” In this last, Robert, with great trouble, restored the Greek passages cited by Donatus. In all preceding editions, blanks appeared where these Greek citations should have been inserted. The publisher claimed that he had also been able, by collation of the best MSS., to correct no less than 6000 errors that had found their way into texts previously accepted. Between the years 1529 and 1551, Robert printed of “Terence” no less than eleven editions.
• 1530. “Plauti Opera,” in folio, and “Rhetores Latini.”
• 1531. The first edition of the previously referred to “Dictionary of the Latin Language” bears date this year; it is printed in folio. In the course of twelve years, two later and revised editions were issued. The general acceptance of the Dictionary as the best work on its subject made it an object for the rapacity of a number of unscrupulous reprinters, and various unauthorised reprints appeared, some of which were seriously incorrect or incomplete. Estienne appears to have accepted with philosophy the inevitable injury to his business interests, but complained bitterly at the loss to his repute as a scholar, caused by foisting upon the public, over his name, slovenly and inaccurate work.
• 1532. “Virgilii Opera cum Commentariis Servii Valeriani Castigationibus”, in folio. A second impression of the Scriptures, entitled “Biblia.” “Breves in eadem Annotationes ex Doctiss. Interpretationibus et Hebræorum Commentariis, etc., cum Priv. Regis.” This was magnificently printed in a handsome folio, with brief notes or apostilles on the margin. Notwithstanding Robert’s care in fortifying himself with the royal privilege, and with a license from the University censors (who for theological works were at that time appointed by the Sorbonne), the divines of the college renewed their warfare against him on the ground that he had dared to print the Scriptures at all. From the severest effects of this odium theologicum Robert was preserved through the personal influence of King Francis. He was obliged, however, to engage to print nothing further, presumably nothing of a doctrinal character, nisi cum bona eorum gratia.
• 1533. “Virgilii Opera.” 8vo. (Again.)
• “Horatii ars poetica.” 4to.
• “Plinii epistolæ.” (Again.) The edition of 1529 had apparently lasted for four years.
• 1534. Robert again hazarded the wrath of the divines by a third edition of the “Biblia,” for which the demand had evidently continued. This time he escaped without interference.
• 1535. “Budæi Annotationes in Pandecta” and “Budæi de transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum Libri tres.” Folio.
• 1538. “Dictionarium Latino-Gallicum.” Folio.
• “Dictionnaire François-Latin.”
• “Ciceronis Epistolæ.”
• 1539. “Ciceronis Opera Omnia,” two volumes, octavo, probably the most beautiful edition of this oft printed author which had yet appeared.
• 1540. This year was marked by the appearance of a fourth impression of the Latin Scriptures. This presented some considerable modifications from the plan of the previous issues. It gave the Vulgate text, but with new and important elucidations, and it gave further, for comparison with the text, various readings based upon the Hebrew and Greek. The title is elaborate: “Biblia, Hebræa, Chaldæa, Græca et Latina, nomina virorum, mulierum, populorum, idolorum, urbium, fluviorum, montium cæterorumque locorum, quæ in ipsis Bibliis leguntur, restituta, cum Latina interpretatione et ipsorum locorum descriptione ex Cosmographis. His accesserunt schemata Tabernaculi Mosaici et Templi Solomonis, quæ præunte Francisco Vatablo, Hebraicarum literarum Regio professore doctissimo, summa arte et fide expressa sunt.”
• “Parisiis ex officina Roberti Stephani, Typographi Regii, MDXL. cum privilegio Regis.” Folio.
• This is the first publication of Robert’s containing the specification of his title as “Printer to the King.” His acknowledged erudition and the importance of the scholarly undertakings carried on by him had long before attracted the attention and the favour of Francis, and in 1539, in the thirty-sixth year of the typographer’s age, the King conferred upon him the honourable distinction of Imprimeur Royal for works in Hebrew and Latin. After June, 1539, Robert styles himself Regius Typographus or Librarius, or Regius Hebraicarum et Latinarum Literarum Typographus.

In 1540, on the death of Neobarius, the first who had received the title of “Printer in Greek to the King,” this distinction also was conferred upon Estienne. The official recognition and approval given by the Crown to his undertakings could not, however, save these from the censure and indignant opposition of the divines, and they did what they could to check and to discourage his publications. Robert was brought into special jeopardy and trouble through an impression of the Decalogue executed (in 1540) in large characters, and printed in the form of a hanging map for affixing to the walls of chambers and school-rooms. Such an undertaking seems to our present understanding innocent enough, whether considered from a Romanist or from a Protestant point of view, but in this publication of the Ten Commandments, the divines appear to have discovered little less mischief than in all the heresies of Luther.[10] Robert relates that the orthodox censors caused a counter impression of the Decalogue to be prepared by one Johannes Andreas, in which the first two commandments were combined into one, omitting the prohibition of making and worshipping images, and the tenth commandment was divided into two in order to make up the denary number.

During this year, Estienne goes on to say, there were instituted against him on the part of the Sorbonne, various rigorous proceedings. His house was frequently searched for heretical works, and in order to avoid being arrested, he was not infrequently compelled to absent himself from home and to betake himself for safety to the King’s Court. This description of a publisher taking refuge at Court in order to protect himself against the violence of officials who were (at least nominally) the King’s censors, throws a curious light on both the strength and the weakness of the Crown. With all the authority of the kingdom at his command, Francis was evidently unable to put any restriction upon the operations of the ecclesiastical censors, who in their dogmatic and unruly zeal were doing what was in their power to throw the influence of the University against the literary development of France and of Europe. On the other hand, the Doctors of the Sorbonne, although backed by the authority of Rome, were not strong enough, at least for a number of years, to put a stop to the publication in Catholic Paris of works stigmatised by them as dangerously heretical.

• In 1541, undismayed by the dissatisfaction and continued threats of the Sorbonne, Robert put forth a Latin Pentateuch, entitled “Libri Moysi quinque cum annotationibus,” etc., in folio, and as a companion volume, a “Novum Testamentum Latine, cum brevibus annotationibus,” in octavo. This last was sharply attacked on the ground that the editor (in this case the publisher himself) had expressed himself objectionably on the subjects of purgatory and confession.
• 1542. He published, as a companion to his “Cicero,” an edition in quarto of “Quintiliani Institutiones Oratoriæ.”
• 1543. Appeared a new impression of the entire works of “Cicero,” the demand for whose writings appeared to be steadily increasing.
• 1544. Editions were printed in octavo of a number of the Latin historians, including “Sallust” and “Suetonius.”
• 1545. The completion of the quarto edition of the Hebrew Scriptures, issued in twenty-four parts, which Maittaire describes as a magnificent work.
• In this year appeared also, printed in folio, the magnificent series of the Greek ecclesiastical writers, the Greek texts in which were printed with the royal Greek characters recently cast under instructions from the King. The series bears the title “Ecclesiastica Historia Eusebii, Socratis, Theodoriti, Theodori, Sozomeni, Evagrii, Græce.” To the “Historia” Robert prefixed a Greek epistle, in which, with what Maittaire calls Attic eloquence, he has celebrated the praises of Francis I., extolling at once the munificence of the King and the discriminating support given by him to the highest literary undertakings.
• “Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicæ Demonstrationes, Libri X., Græce.” Folio.
• “Moschopuli de Ratione Examinandæ Orationis Libellus, Græce.” 4to. This was a grammatical work for the instruction of youth, now first printed.
• Impressions of “Juvenal, Persius, Valerius Maximus, Lucian, and Terence.”
• A fifth impression of the complete “Biblia Latina,” for the fourth impression of which sale had evidently been found notwithstanding the denunciations of the Church authorities. Robert had for five years been making preparation for this edition by the collection both of printed texts and of MSS. For the notes, use had been made of the material of Erasmus, Gualtherus, and particularly of Vatablus, the learned Professor of Hebrew in the Collége Royal. The citations from the latter had been collected by diligent students who had attended the Professor’s lectures. The captious divines, finding the notes sanctioned by such an authority, did not at first venture to cavil at this edition. Later, however, they threatened Robert with various pains and penalties because he had omitted to procure for the work their license. They contended that the title of “Printer to the King” did not exempt him from a compliance with the regulations prescribed by the University. This claim on the part of the University, that the approval of its own representatives must be secured even for works issued under the direct authority of the Crown, was throughout the following century a frequent cause of contention. It appears never to have been formally adjusted. The charge was made at the time that the scholia or annotationes complained of were really the work not of Vatablus, but of Robert himself. Such an accusation does credit to the publisher’s scholarship if not to his truthfulness, but there is no evidence to support it.
• 1546. “Biblia Hebræa,” 16mo, or forma minima, issued in eight volumes. Le Long speaks of the correctness and extreme beauty of this edition.[11]
• A sixth edition of the Latin Bible, with a text more pure and more accurate than had been secured in any of the previous issues. This was the second of Robert’s Latin Bibles which escaped censure.
• 1546. The first and only publication from his press in Italian, which is ranked as one of the most interesting literary curiosities bearing his imprint, “La Coltivatione di Luigi Alamanni, al Christianissimo Re Francesco primo, con privilegi.” 4to. This is the first edition of what Greswell calls the georgical poem of Alamanni. The character is a bold italic, and the volume is a beautiful piece of book-making. The author was a Florentine poet, banished from his native country, who had found refuge at the Court of Francis. He is one of the very few contemporary writers who secured the advantage of Robert’s imprint.
• 1547. “Dionysii Halicarnassei Antiquitatum Romanarum, Libri X., Græce,” which Fabricius calls one of the most beautiful books produced by the Greek Press.
• “Ciceronis Epistolæ.”
• In this year (which witnessed the death of King Francis), Robert had occasion to publish various monographs presenting the funeral sermons, and describing the obsequies.
• 1548. “Alexandri Tralliani Medici, Libri XII., Græce;” and “Rhazæ de Pestilentia Libellus ex Syrorum lingua in Græcam translatus.”
• “Dionis Romanarum Historiarum, Libri XXIII., Græce.”
• 1549. “Hebraicarum Institutionum, Libri IV. Pagnino auctore.” 4to.
• “Dictionnaire François-Latin.” Folio.
• “Virgilii Opera.”
• “Horatii poemata, scholiis et argumentis ab H. Stephano illustrata.”
• “Novum Testamentum, Græce.” This edition was described by Colomesius as not containing a single error, but the industrious Greswell finds in the preface itself pulres for plures.
• 1550. “Novum Testamentum, Græce,” in folio, with Robert’s own “Præfatio Græce et Latine scripta et annotationes,” Greek Tabulæ, and biographical notices of the writers of the Gospels and of St. Paul. To the Epistles are prefixed arguments and introductions from various writers, and in all the books marginal readings are given. The work also includes what Maittaire calls an extensive copy of Greek hexameters, composed by Henry Estienne (the second), the eldest son of Robert, who was at the time barely twenty-one years of age. This magnificent edition was long accepted as a most important authority on New Testament text, and critics like Gibbon, and scholars like Porson, have held this book and its publisher (who was also its editor) chiefly responsible for the perpetration of the interpolation of the famous verse in John i., 5, 7, on the heavenly witnesses.[12] The record, however, of the long contests between the critics and the theologians, concerning this verse (now generally admitted to be an interpolation) and other similar textual issues, is foreign to my subject. It may, I think, fairly be assumed that in this instance, as in all editorial work, Robert acted honestly enough, following the best information and the most trustworthy authorities within his reach. The matter of the long contests with the Sorbonne brought about by this critical edition of the Testament, will be referred to a little later. I will here, for the convenience of reference, complete the list of selections from Robert’s list of publications:
• 1551. “Justini Philosophi et Martyris Opera, Græce.” Folio. Chevillier considers this the most excellent of the Greek impressions of the Estiennes. He contends that, “whether for the accuracy of the text, the superlative beauty of the characters, the excellence of the paper, or the evenness of the impressions, the work of Robert Estienne bore away the palm not only from the other typographers of Paris, but also from the most skilled printers in other countries.” “Robert,” he says, “raised the art to the summit of perfection.”[13]
• “Rudimenta fidei Christianæ, Græce, nunc primum in lucem edita.” Maittaire (“Vita Stephani”) explains that this is Calvin’s Catechism translated into Greek by the printer’s son Henry. The omission of any reference to Calvin was doubtless due to the desire to avoid arousing fresh indignation at the Sorbonne. It is difficult to understand, however, how a volume of this character could in any case have escaped the vigilance of the censors.
• “Novum Testamentum, Græce, cum duplici interpretatione Erasmi et veteris interpretis,” etc. Yet another impression of the volume which had already brought upon the publisher the censorship and antagonism of the jealous divines. It contained a few changes from the text of the earlier issues, but the principal peculiarity of the edition is the fact that the text appears for the first time divided into verses, versiculi.
• “Sententiæ Veterum Poetarum per G. Majorem in locos communes digestæ. Antonii Mancinelli de Poetica virtute libellus. Index sententiarum,” etc. 8vo.
• “Commentarius puerorum de quotidiano sermone, Maturino Corderio, auctore.” 8vo. Cordier was one of the small group of contemporary authors with whose work Robert’s imprint is associated. He was a schoolmaster of Paris, but having adopted the reformed faith, he withdrew to Geneva.
• “Dionis Nicæi Rerum Romanarum Epitome, Græce, auctore Joan. Xiphilino; ex Bibl. regia, ac. off. R. Stephani, Typogr. regii, regiis typis.” 4to. “Eadem Latine, Gulielmo Blanco Albiensi interprete.” 4to.