The Second Generation
Scholar-printers in France during the second quarter of the sixteenth century, such as Michel de Vascosan (d. c. 1577) and Adrien Turnèbe (1512-65), Jérôme de Gourmont (fl. 1524-59), and Pierre II Regnault (d. 1552), benefited not only from a better understanding of the challenges of printing, but also from the opening of the Collège Royal de France in 1530. This new institution, which placed research and teaching at its heart, was the result of an initiative of early sixteenth century humanists. It opened under the energetic leadership of the renowned scholar Guillaume Budé (1468-1540).
Guillaume Budé, De curandis articularibus morbis commentarius, Authore Guillielmo Budæo Disesio doctore medico (Paris, 1539), title page device of Pierre Regnault.
In 1539, Pierre II Regnault, printed a medical book on the treatment of joint diseases, written by Budé in his capacity as a doctor. This was but one of a growing body of printed medical material, which not only reflects the growing importance of medical teaching (an important element of the book trade in Lyon), and which led to the creation of a chair of medicine at the Collège Royal in 1542, but also the opportunities offered by the teachers and students of the new institution, both as producers and consumers of texts. The new Collège Royal offered the perfect opportunity for scholar-printers, whether they were based at Paris or Lyon, to expand the range of their publications.[1]
Above all, the ready market of the teaching staff and students at the Collège Royal offered the scholar-printers of the second generation an opportunity to introduce French scholars and students to the study of Greek and Hebrew, at a time when the kingdom of France was watching from afar as its European neighbours, especially Germany and Italy, deepened their knowledge of these languages. Italy had had chairs in Greek since the end of the fourteenth century.
The printer of Budé’s text, Pierre II Regnault, was the son of François Regnault (d. c. 1540), a ‘libraire-juré’ of the first generation.[2] As is clear in the above image, Pierre continued to publish under his father’s device of an elephant with a castle on its back, but he included some changes. He added ants turning into elephants, accompanied by the motto ‘concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia magnae dilabuntur’ or ‘Union makes strong, division weakens’, taken from the ‘Hypnerotomachia Poliphili’ by Francesco Colonna (1457). This is a far cry from the realism of the devices of earlier printers, such as those of Josse Badius (1462-1535), Gilles de Gourmont (fl. 1499-1540) or Jean de Roigny (fl. 1529-66). However, while the Regnault device was literally transmogrified into mythical and fantastic forms, other printers and booksellers of the second generation chose a far different aesthetic: instead, leading printers such as Michel de Vascosan and Adrien Turnèbe opted for a more minimalist approach.
Georg Agricola, Georgii Agricolae … sive De re metallica (Paris, 1541), title page device of Jérôme de Gourmont.
Just as Pierre II Regnault had diverged from his father’s device, so too did Jérôme de Gourmont, whose choice of device was very different from that of his father, Gilles de Gourmont. Gilles’ device had had a strong political overtone: his motto ‘tost ou tard, près ou loin, a le fort du feble besoing’ or ‘Sooner or later, near or far, the strong need the weak’, had been coupled with a device which had incorporated two winged and crowned stags carrying a shield with the emblem of Paris (a boat on a white background) and above them the Archangel Saint Michel. Instead, his son Jérôme chose the three-crowned sign visible above, which perfectly reflected the name of the shop he had inherited from his father: Les Trois-Couronnes in Rue Saint-Jean-de-Latran, opposite the Collège de Cambrai.[3] An important part of Jérôme’s production consisted of publishing the works of professors of the Collège Royal, such as Paulo Paradiso (d. 1554?), Oronce Finé (1494-1555), Jean Chéradame (fl. 16th century), and Guillaume Postel (1510-81).[4] He likewise printed the Hebrew grammar of Nicolas Clénard (1493/94-1542), while he was also responsible for a 1556 edition of Georg Agricola’s famous De re metallica, which explored mining and metallurgy.
Sources
Compère, Marie-Madeleine, ‘Collège royal’, Les collèges français 16e-18e siècle, Répertoire 3 – Paris (Paris, 2002), pp 407-413.
Renouard, Philippe, Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer & Birgitte Moreau (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens: libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie: depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle … (Paris, 1965).
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[1] Renouard, Philippe, Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer & Birgitte Moreau (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens: libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie: depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle … (Paris, 1965), p. 364.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., pp 177-179.
[4] Bibliothèque nationale de France, ‘Notice de personne “Paradiso, Paolo (14..?-1554?)”’, BnF Catalogue général.