[436] These engravings are, as is well known to-day, by Luczelburger, of Basle, Holbein's regular engraver.
[437] These pages were intended to be used as an album. I have seen a very valuable copy at M. Potier's bookshop; he bought it of M. Gaullieur, who has described it in his études sur l'imprimerie de Genève, p. 207. This copy, which was arranged by Durand the bookseller, who emigrated to Geneva for religious reasons, has no title-page and contains only the empty pages, that is to say those with borders alone, within which Durand's friends, the most illustrious leaders of the Reformation—de Bèze, Goulard, etc.—have inscribed each some sentence. In some verses which come first, and which are admirably engrossed on parchment, Durand tells us that he wrote them in 1583, without spectacles, notwithstanding his great age and 'the gout in his fingers.'
[438] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[439] It may be that this fragment belongs to a collection cited by M. Brunet (Manuel du Libraire, vol. iv, col. 850), under the title, Pourtraictz divers, small octavo, Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1557, as containing 63 plates, including the title-page. M. Brunet then gives a description of this collection, which cannot possibly fit it. 'These plates represent factories, animals, scenes of divers sorts, mythological subjects, and architectural designs.' This description evidently belongs to the volume of 1556 mentioned on the next page.
[440] These portraits and many other woodcuts of the de Tournes, which are still preserved in the Fick Press, at Geneva, have lately been reproduced in a sumptuous publication entitled: Anciens bois de l'imprimerie Fick, folio, Geneva, 1864. It contains many engravings of Petit Bernard.
[441] I have already cited (page 259), on the authority of M. Didot, an edition of this book under the date of 1551, but I doubt its existence.
[442] The first 24 pages of this collection are bound with an edition of Claude Paradin's Quadrins historiques, published by Jean de Tournes, in 1558.
[445] For instance, the anonymous author of a book entitled Notice sur les Graveurs, printed at Besançon in 1807 (2 vols., octavo), attributes to Salomon Bernard, whose period of activity he places between 1550 and 1580 (vol. i, p. 63 ), the engravings of Petrarch's Triumphs, which appear in an edition of 1545, and a Resurrection of the Dead, dated 1547 (vol. i, p. 64), which dates are inconsistent with those mentioned above; he also attributes to him (vol. i, p. 65) the theatrical scenes which we have with good reason ascribed to Tory, whose cross appears on one of them; and, lastly, he attributes to him the story of Psyche, in 32 duodecimo cuts, and the medallions of Jacques Strada's Epitome des Antiquités (Lyon, 1553), his authorship of which is very doubtful. But there is no question at all concerning the following pieces, which certainly belong to Salomon Bernard:—
I. The figures of the Bible, to the number of 251, reprinted very frequently after 1553. In an edition of 1680, printed by Samuel de Tournes, at Geneva, whither the second Jean withdrew about 1580, because of his religion, is the following note: 'The figures that we offer you here are from the hand of an excellent craftsman, known in his day under the name of Salomon Bernard, called Le Petit Bernard, and have always been held in esteem by those who are learned in works of this sort.'
II. Claude Paradin's Devises héroiques, containing 184 engravings, besides a border on the title-page. Large octavo, Jean de Tournes, 1557 ( Bibliothèque Nationale). The license at the end of the volume discloses the titles of several other volumes which Jean de Tournes was then intending to publish, particularly the two following, which appeared the same year.
III. The Metamorphoses of Ovid; octavo, 1557; 178 engravings.
IV. L'Astronomique Discours, by Jacques Bassentin; folio, 1557; with a large number of astronomical plates.
V. Hymnes du temps, by Guillaume Gueroult; quarto, 1560; 88 pages, with borders and drawings. In the avis au lecteur we read: 'I hope that you will find some pleasure herein, for that the whole is the work of a goodly hand; for the invention [of the engravings] is of M. Bernard Salomon, an excellent painter as there has ever been in our hemisphere.'
VI. Virgil's Æneid, French translation; quarto, 1560; with 12 vignettes.
VII. A book of Thermes, in eighteen orders; printed at Lyon in 1572, by Jean Marcorelle.—At the tenth therme is a genie carving on a shield the letter S, the initial of Bernard's baptismal name.
A large number of vignettes, and of letters in grisaille, used by the printers of Lyon, are also attributed to this artist.
[447] Des Types et des Manières des maîtres graveurs, etc., 16th century, pp. 167, 168.
[448] Champ fleury, folio 43 verso.
[449] Eloi Gibier used previously a similar mark, which bore the following device: 'In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo.' (See Silvestre, no. 544.) He used it particularly at the end of the Coutumes générales d'Orléans, 1570.
[450] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[451] Brunet, Manuel de Libraire, vol. ii, col. 1629.
[452] This very rare and valuable edition contains a dissertation on Latin accents. Bibliothèque Nationale.
[453] See Silvestre, nos. 286 and 287.
[454] See Mattaire, Annales typographiques, vol. iii, part 1 A, p. 147.
[455] See the subscription of the first book published by him in conjunction with Wolfgang Hopyl, under the title, Artificialis introductio Jacobi Fabri Stapulensis, etc.; folio, 1502. This book is in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève.
[456] According to Lottin, it was first used in 1555. See his Catalogue, vol. ii, p. 30.
[457] I have reproduced this mark on the title-page of my Les Estienne et les types grecs de François I; octavo, 1856.
[458] [Silvestre also gives three other variants, nos. 508, 542, and 958, signed with the cross. No. 508 is reproduced above.]
[459] [1538? M. Bernard mentions no Bible of 1528.]
[460] Octavo; Paris, Robert Estienne, 1550. Bibliothèque Nationale.
[462] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[463] See the collection of Tory's work in the Print Section of the Bibliothèque Nationale.
[464] Sermonum liber unus ex Isocratis notione de regno, carmine heroico. Bibliothèque Mazarine.
[465] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[466] Bibliothèque de l'Institut.
[467] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[469] The placing of these arms on the typographical mark of Gilles de Gourmont proves, in contradiction of the common opinion, that the printer's trade was not degrading. (But see what I have said on this subject in my book on the Origin of Printing, vol. i, p. 210, and vol. ii, p. 89.) The Gourmonts of Paris were in fact descended from a noble family of the Cotentin, which may still be in existence, and which bore the same arms in the seventeenth century. Gilles de Gourmont had taken up his abode in Paris in the last years of the fifteenth century, as had several of his brothers, who practised the same trade. The oldest, Robert, appears in that city as early as 1498; Jean, who was younger than Gilles, not until 1507. We hear also of a Jérôme and a Benoît as booksellers in Paris in the middle of the sixteenth century. I do not know what their relationship to the earlier men was. Perhaps they were sons of Robert. (Benoît, who married Catherine Goulard, had a son baptized by the name of Gilles at the church of Sainte-Croix-en-la-Cité, on October 9, 1546.) We also find a Jean Théobald de Gourmont at Antwerp in 1527. As for Gilles, he was engaged in bookselling and printing from 1506 to about 1533, and left two sons, Jean and François, who retained his establishment on rue Saint-Jean-de-Latran, and printed there, in 1587, the Tableaux des Arts Libéraux de Christophe de Savigny. This is an in-plano, at the beginning of which is a superb engraving representing the arms of the family [as described in the text]. This remarkable work, which bears the monogram of the two brothers, was probably executed by Jean, the elder, who was a painter and engraver. The Musée du Louvre has a picture supposed to be by him (Notice des tableaux du Louvre, part 3, p. 156); he is the author of a fine portrait of the Cardinal de Bourbon, mentioned by Mariette and now in the Cabinet des Estampes; he is mentioned also by Abbé de Marolles and by Papillon for certain pictures of equestrian groups and bits of decoration. His mark (formed of the letters I D G entwined) and the name accompanying it are found on several pieces cited by Brulliot, on the plates of a Bible of 1560, and on certain pieces of Tortorel and Perissim (Renouvier, Maîtres Graveurs du Seizième Siècle, p. 195 ). It will be seen that Gilles had worthy successors; unfortunately the race of the Gourmonts of Paris died out with them.
[470] [That is, consisting of unfolded sheets, so that each sheet forms only one leaf, or two pages.]
[471] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[472] Bibliothèque Mazarine.
[473] Gueullard lived at the sign of the Phœnix, e regione collegii Remensis.
[474] Bibliothèque Mazarine.
[475] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[476] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[479] Bibliothèque de l'Amateur champenois, 2d part: 'Construction d'une Notre-Dame.'
[480] See Dibdin, The Bibliographical Decameron, vol. ii, p. 43; Silvestre, no. 61. The one in Silvestre is a reduced copy of that at the end of Des Coustumes et statuz particuliers de la pluspart des baillages, etc. (4to, 1527), which is of much larger format, and is also signed with the Lorraine cross. [This magnificent mark is reproduced in its full size on p. 264, supra.]
[481] Quarto; finished Jan. 8, 1536 (1537 n. s.).
[482] Bibliographical Decameron, vol. ii, p. 32.
[483] Nos. 153 and 174 seem to be by the same artist, but they are not signed.
[485] Indeed I have seen this mark, with the Lorraine cross, on a Greek alphabet of 1560, printed by G. Morel (Bibl. Nat.), and on several other works printed by Prevosteau, his son-in-law; I will mention particularly Adriani Behotii diluvium, octavo, 1591 (Bibl. Nat.), where the mark is cracked, which explains why it was reëngraved with the letters E. P.
[486] Sixteenmo; Paris, Janet, 1855.
[487] See Le Second Enfer d'Estienne Dolet; quarto, 1544; Bibliothèque Nationale.
[488] Bibliothèque du Jardin des Plantes et Sainte-Geneviève.
[489] Bibliothèque Mazarine.
[490] One of the 'Seven Sages' of Greece.
[491] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[492] See Silvestre, nos. 42 and 43.
[493] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[494] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[495] Bibliothèque Nationale.
[496] See Epistres morales d'Honoré d' Urfé; 8vo, 1619.
[499] Copies of both books are in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
[500] This book is in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. The first part is in gothic type, without typographical signs; the second, in roman.
[501] Another document which M. Boyer has kindly made known to me, dated in 1489, informs us that this Jean Thory lived on rue aux Vaches, in Faubourg Saint-Privé; so that it was on that street that Geofroy was born. 'Now,' M. Boyer writes me, 'as that street contains only two houses, I am inclined to select as the house in question the one designated by the name of maison du perron, because of a stoop (perron) with a wooden roof which is still preserved, and which is accounted for by the proximity of the river.' I saw the house in 1856; it still belongs to the Toubeau family, which tends to confirm M. Boyer's opinion.
[502] Archives of the Department of the Cher, Series C, Notarial Records; minutes of Jean Dujat, notary, 1507.
[504] On the first page of both books are the words: 'Biturigis, apud Bonaventuram Thorinum, sub signo Anchoræ, vico Maiore, 1595'; and at the end: 'Excusus fuit hic liber typis viduæ Nicolai Levez, Avarici Biturigum, juxta scholas utriusque juris.' (Bibliothèque Nationale.) The first alone contains a license to print (dated August 29, 1595). Therein the publisher is called, in French, 'Thorin,' the natural rendering of the Latin name that we find in the 'note to the reader,' where the form 'Torinus' occurs four times, and 'Thorinus' once only; which confirms my hypothesis relative to the descent of this bookseller of Bourges. For we have seen that Tory wrote his name Torinus in Latin. I must not omit to mention one objection suggested by a friend of mine at Bourges,—that our man is called Bonaventure Thorin, in a book of imposts for the year 1588. But every one knows how irregular the spelling of names was in the old days.
[505] May not Tory's son have had for his godfather Bonaventure des Périers, who committed suicide in 1544, in order to avoid a prosecution on account of his religion?
[506] This book, which bears a French title, Lesclaircissement de la langue françoise, although written in English and for the English, was printed at London shortly after the publication of Tory's Champ fleury. M. Génin issued a second edition in 1852, quarto, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale.
[507] Read 'Tory'; letters transposed.
[508] Read 'Bourges.' The error is due to the fact that the London printers were much more familiar with Bruges, where Caxton, their first master, lived a long while before he introduced printing in England, than with Bourges in Berry. (See my book on the Origin of Printing, vol. ii, pp. 347 ff.)
[510] In order to be fair to everybody I am bound to say that M. Génin's reckoning is at fault. Henry VIII having succeeded to the throne on April 22, 1509, the twenty-second year of his reign extends from April 22, 1530, to April 21, 1531, and consequently the license cited here must have been dated September 2, 1530, that is to say, a month and a half after the printing of Palsgrave's book was finished.
[511] Say a year and a half, in consequence of the correction suggested in the preceding note. However, Tory had announced a year earlier the Reigles de lorthographe du langaige françois. See supra, p. 100.
[512] Vol. iv, fol. 320 recto. MSS. folio preserved at the Library of the École de Médecine in Paris.
[516] The necessity of distinguishing between the final e which requires the acute accent (aveuglé) and that which does not take it (aveugle) led to calling the former masculine and the other feminine. Hence the term 'feminine' still given in French poetry to mute rhymes.
[517] In the fourth edition of the Manuel de Libraire; he does mention it in the fifth edition, however, citing me. It is not mentioned either in the Essai sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Marguerite d'Angoulême, by M. de Lincy, prefixed to his edition of the Heptameron, which was published by the Société des Bibliophiles Français in 1853-54. I describe it from a copy owned by M. Ferdinand Denis.
[518] The original text of these letters may be found in my book, Les Estienne et les types grecs de François Ier; I give here only a translation borrowed from M. Crapelet, Études pratiques, p. 89.
[519] By an inexplicable blunder M. Crapelet has thought fit to render the two words 'Gallicæ reipublicæ,' republic (of letters), failing to understand that the word 'respublica' stands for the State. It is needless to say that he has been followed by many others, particularly M. Duprat in his 'Histoire de l'Imprimerie impériale,' 1861.
[520] I borrow this fragment from M. Crapelet (Études pratiques, p. 116), for I have been unable to inspect the volume from which he took it, although he gives an interesting description of it.
[521] [Lettre à or sur double queue, letters on which the seal is suspended from a strip of parchment passed through the document.]
[522] See what I have to say in the Preface on the subject of Pierre le Rouge, who is given the title of king's printer once, in 1488.
[523] The dates that I give are those of the holding of the office of king's printer, and not of the carrying on the trade of printer, which, as a general rule, do not coincide, at least so far as the earlier dates are concerned.
[524] Brunet, Manuel de Libraire, 5th edit., vol. ii, col. 1672.—See infra, p. 307 King's Printers for the Mathematics.
[525] He calls himself 'architypographus regius' in a work printed by him in 1608.
[526] See the Recette générale des finances of Paris for 1671, in the national archives, KK. 356, fol. 53.
[527] See my Les Estienne, p. 35.
[528] Renouard, Annales des Estienne, 3d edit., p. 228, col. 1. See also my Les Estienne, p. 36.
[529] This appointment involved him in some difficulty with his colleagues, as may be seen from the following letter, of which I found a copy in the Bibliothèque du Louvre, in the Nyon collection.
'When I asked and obtained the office of king's printer, of which M. Le Breton had been deprived by death, I had no idea that it could cause any heart-burning on the part of my confrères, with whom I have always earnestly desired to be on the best of terms. If I had been able to foresee such a thing, I am too much a friend of peace to have voluntarily exposed myself to it by assuming a title which was subject to dispute. But, monsieur, when I submitted the question to you, I thought that I could see that it did not seem to you free from doubt. For this reason I cannot hesitate to abandon claims which seem to me well-founded.
'I beg you therefore, monsieur, to regard as not having been made the claims that I put forward on this subject, and as my confrères do not pretend that any one of them has the right to style himself first king's printer, in like manner I agree to assume simply the title of ordinary printer to his Majesty, and that we shall be placed in the Almanack Royal in the order of our reception.
'Paris, 20 November, 1779.
PIERRES.'
For this famous printer, see Lottin, Catalogue des Imprimeurs de Paris, vol. ii, p. 139.
[530] For this paragraph, see my Les Estienne.
[531] He is mentioned as 'imprimeur du roi,' without other description, in the registers of the cemetery of Les Réformés de la Trinité, rue Saint-Denis; but I think that he was simply an engraver on copper, like Tavernier.
[532] [Clearly a misprint; perhaps 1561.]
[533] He had been in business since 1784.
[534] He had been in business since 1813.
[535] He had been in business since 1785.
[536] There were royal printers in various cities of France after the latter part of the sixteenth century; but the office was neither regularly instituted nor general in its scope. These printers seem to have had it specially in charge to print official documents in the provinces, which function conferred on them certain privileges, and sometimes caused difficulties with the local authorities, who also had their special printers. The first editions of the edicts, ordinances, etc., emanating from the central authority were afterwards placed in the hands of the royal printing-office in Paris. See what I have to say on this subject in my work on Les Estienne, p. 56.
In 1844 M. Le Roux de Lincy published in the Journal de l'Amateur de livres, and also had printed separately in an octavo pamphlet of 16 leaves, a compilation entitled: Catalogue chronologique des imprimeurs et libraires du roi, par le père Adry; but those shapeless memoranda were not originally intended for printing, and I have been unable to obtain the slightest particle of useful information from them.
[537] Archives, reg. KK, 99, fol. 116 verso. 'Librairie.—To maistre Jean de Sansay, libraire ordinaire to the King our Sire, the sum of two hundred forty livres tournoys, ordered [to be paid] to him by our said lord and his warrant, for his wages as libraire ordinaire to our said lord, [said office being held] by him during this present year beginning the first day of January a thousand five hundred twenty-eight [1529 n. s.], and ending the last day of December following, a thousand five hundred twenty-nine, of which sum this present clerk has made payment to the said Sansay by virtue of said warrant, as appears by his receipt signed at his request by Mᵉ Huault, notary and secretary to the King, the twenty-third day of January in the year a thousand five hundred twenty-nine now current. For the said sum of IIe XL l. t.'