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Geoffroy Tory (also Geofroy, Latin "Godofredus Torinus") was born in Bourges around 1480 and died in Paris before 14 October 1533. He was a French humanist and an engraver, best known for adding accents on letters in French. His life's work has heavily influenced French publishing to this day.
Geoffroy Tory was born in Bourges in 1480, a decade after the first printing press arrived in Paris. He attended the local university, where he developed an interest in Latin literature. After completing his studies, Tory left Bourges for Italy, where he studied at two additional universities: first, the Sapienza at Rome, and then Bologna, where he studied under Philip Beroaldus, a well-known Latinist. [1] The exact date of Tory's death is unknown, however, it is said in a lease that in 1533 his wife was a widow. [2]
Around 1505, Tory left for Paris after completing his studies in Italy. He worked there as a bookbinder, editor of texts, and corrector for the press, serving such clients as Jean Grolier de Servières. [3]
The first book Tory is known to have worked on is the Pomponius Mela, in 1508. This work helped him to develop a rather large reputation, despite his youth. In 1509 he became one of the youngest professors to teach at the Collège du Plessis. [4] While Tory taught, he continued to work on his passion of bookbinding and editing.
Tory was known to be an extremely hard worker, often taking on large workloads. Sometime around 1511, he became a professor at Collège de Coqueret, and soon after at the Collège de Bourgogne, which at the time was a principal unit of the University of Paris. His lectures were said to draw large audiences. [5]
Tory's interest in this period turned to the arts, especially painting and engraving. Several years after joining the Collège de Bourgogne, he resigned his post and moved to Italy so as to better study Italian art. Beyond his passing references to his travels in Champ Fleury, there is not much known of Tory at this time. He returned to Paris in 1518 and began regularly producing woodcuts, for which he gained a reputation among Parisian editors. It was during this same period that Tory took up selling books himself. [6]
In 1514 Tory married Pierrette Le Hullin, the widow of a friend of his, fathering a daughter named Agnès. Tory doted on Agnès, teaching her Latin and about his life's work. [7] Unfortunately, Agnès died from unknown reasons when she was nine, and Tory was long depressed over the death of his beloved daughter. When Tory published for the first time, his printer's mark was the urn that he kept Agnès' ashes in. In the months following her death, Tory wrote several pieces of poetry, claiming how lucky he was to have had such a daughter, and how her life influenced him. At the time, it was not uncommon for children to die at a young age, so it was unusual for Tory to have taken her death as hard as he did. It is said that her death influenced the creativity in his later works.
In 1524 he discovered The Book of Hours , and in 1525 Geoffroy published a copy, which became famous because he introduced there a type design that was free of the idea of printing which duplicated handwriting. This work also initiated the idea of book designing as an art in France. [8]
In 1529 Tory published his own book, Champfleury, one of the most important and influential works of the time. It set a standard for French publishing that in many ways is still followed today. In the introduction to Champfleury, Tory is quoted as saying that there are three different kinds of men who corrupt the French language; the "skimmers of Latin", the "jokers", and the "slangers". [9]
Gradually, he managed to acquire French texts to put into print, at a time when that was only done for Latin texts. For that purpose, he introduced the apostrophe, the acute accent and grave accent, and the cedilla. [10] He wanted to reform French spelling to reflect its Latin roots.
In 1530 Tory became the official printer to King Francis I, [11] and in 1532 he was made a librarian at the University of Paris.
Champfleury was written by Tory and published in 1529. It is divided into three books, and is concerned with the proper use of the French language, dealing with topics ranging from the elegance of the alphabet to the proper use of grammar. It was subtitled "The Art and Science of the Proportion of the Attic or Ancient Roman Letters, According to the Human Body and Face". [12] Champfleury was not as stylized as The Book of Hours, but it gives great insight into the mind of Tory, his pedantic attitude and his meticulous devotion to the French Language. [13] Tory used a square grid to describe the shape of letters, which eerily predicts the use of pixelation in modern-day typefaces. Although "Champfleury" roughly translates to "flowery fields", it is also a French idiom for "paradise". [12]
The Book of Hours (French Livre d'heures), Tory's most famous work was completed in 1525. It is printed in a light Roman typeface. There are 17 known copies of the 1531 Book of Hours, which is the year that Tory published it. It contained sixteen full-page borders and thirteen large woodcuts. This version is the most famous to this day for breaking all the traditions of the time. The illustrations in the book are not perfect, as Tory did them all himself, and despite a passion for art, he did not have the talent of a master artist. The Book of Hours success led to Tory's being granted specific privileges by King François I to publish his own works. [8]
Bourges is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry.
Guillaume Budé was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de France.
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Nicholas Bourbon was a French court preceptor and poet. He wrote a collection of poems called Nugae, which are known as the Bagatelles in French. He is the great-uncle of Nicholas Bourbon (1574–1644), a member of the Académie française.
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Transitus Fluvii or Passage Du Fleuve is an occult alphabet consisting of 22 characters described by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in his Third Book of Occult Philosophy. It is derived from the Hebrew alphabet and is similar to the Celestial and Malachim alphabets. The name may refer to the crossing of the Euphrates by the Jews on their return from the Babylonian captivity to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson, who wrote under the name Champfleury, was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction.
Claude de Seyssel was a Savoyard jurist and humanist, now known for his political writings. He wrote La Grande Monarchie de France as a supporter of the French crown, in the person of Louis XII. Written around 1515, in French, it was published 1519; it supports hereditary monarchy. A Latin translation De Republica Galliae was printed in 1548 in Strasbourg.
Guy Marchant was a printer of books, active in Paris from 1483 to 1505/1506. He had received a university education as a Master of Arts and is recorded as being a priest. He was succeeded by his nephew Jean Marchant (1504–1516).
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François de Tournon was a French Augustinian friar, an archbishop, diplomat, courtier, and cardinal. From 1536 he was also a military supply officer of French forces operating in Provence, Savoy and Piedmont. In the same year he founded the Collège de Tournon. For a period he was effectively France's foreign minister. He was a prominent leader in the fight against Lutheranism and Calvinism, especially at the French Royal Court, and what he perceived as the growing Huguenot menace to both doctrinal orthodoxy and the social order. He took a prominent role in the Estates General of 1560, the Colloquy of Poissy and the Colloquy of Saint-Germain in 1562. He participated in the papal conclaves of 1534, 1549, and 1559.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Simon de Colines was a Parisian printer and one of the first printers of the French Renaissance. He was active in Paris as a printer and worked exclusively for the University of Paris from 1520 to 1546. In addition to his work as a printer, Colines worked as an editor, publisher, and punchcutter. Over the course of his lifetime, he published over 700 separate editions. Colines used elegant roman and italic types and a Greek type, with accents, that were superior to their predecessors. These are now called French old-style, a style that remained popular for over 200 years and revived in the early 20th century. He used rabbits, satyrs, and philosophers as his pressmark.
Denis Janot was a printer and bookseller from Paris, France, whose store was near Notre Dame de Paris. Janot, who was born into a family of printers and booksellers and married into another such one, was notable for printing books in the vernacular, especially in the field of the humanities, and for commissioning illustrations for the books he printed. He is responsible for printing many of the notable classical authors as well as for contemporary ones, particularly in the matter of the Querelle des femmes, the contemporary discussion over the status of women.
Nicolas Barthélemy de Loches was a French Benedictine monk. He was professor of law at the University of Orléans then in Paris, and prior to Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle until 1537, when we lose track of him.
Gilles de Gourmont, Egidius Gormontius in Latin, was a Parisian bookseller and printer active in Paris between 1499 and 1533.
Philippe Ernest Augustin Renouard was a French bookseller and bibliographer, specialist of the 16th century.
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Antoine Augereau (1485–1534) was a Renaissance printer, bookseller and punchcutter in Paris. He was one of the first French punchcutters to produce Roman type, at a time where other French printers were mostly using blackletter. He worked for Robert Estienne, who was one of the earliest Parisian printers to print Roman type, in the style of Aldus Manutius.
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