Fédéric I Morel (1523-83)
‘Omnis arbor bona fructus bonos facit’
or
‘Every good tree produces good fruit.’
Joachim du Bellay, Les regrets et autres oeuvres poetiques de Joach. du Bellay Ang. (Paris, 1559), title page device of Fédéric I Morel.
Fédéric I Morel (1523-83) followed the custom of his predecessors and contemporaries and chose a shop name that echoed his own name. As a scholar-printer, he used the Latin form of the mulberry tree, ‘morus’, alluding to the name ‘Morel’, as a play on words.[1] As the above image shows, the mulberry tree was also reflected in his choice of printer’s device.[2] A banner surrounds the tree with his motto in Greek: ‘Every good tree produces good fruits’. This motto can be interpreted in many ways, but generally it emphasises the idea that good actions produce good results and that the results you get depend on the effort you put into your work. It is therefore a fitting motto, illustrative of Morel’s long career.
Fédéric I Morel is also known as Fédéric the Elder to distinguish him from his son, Fédéric II Morel (c. 1552-1630). Strangely, in all the works published by his press, he always calls himself ‘Fédéric’ and not ‘Frédéric’. Joseph Dumoulin suggests that the choice might have been a personal one, though he surmises that Fédéric may well have been influenced by the Italian custom of using ‘Federigo’ rather than ‘Frederigo’.[3]
Biographers disagree about Morel’s birth and childhood, but according to La Caille, he would have been a Champenois, from Châlons-sur-Marne and from a noble family.[4] It may seem initially surprising that the son of an aristocrat should become a printer, but it should be remembered that this was the case with other famous printers, such as Johann Gutenberg (1397?-1468), the de Marnef brothers, the de Tournes family in Lyon and Michel de Vascosan (d. c. 1577). Fédéric I Morel was not related to Guillaume Morel (1505-64), another famous Parisian printer, who was born in Le Tilleul. They were, however, contemporaries.
The opening of the Collège Royal de France in 1540 by François I (1494-1547) had a real cultural impact not only in Paris but throughout France. Adrien Turnèbe (1512-65), Henri II Estienne (1528-98) and Conrad Badius (d. 1562), all brilliant members of the French book trade, had benefited from their association with the Collège Royal and Morel was no exception.[5] Between 1540 and 1545, he attended the Greek courses of Jacques Toussain (1499?-1547), who became his devoted teacher, protector and friend. As a result, Morel became a Hellenist and in turn he became a teacher of Latin and Greek, giving lessons to the only son of Louis de l’Estoile, President of the Court of Aids.[6]
In 1549 Morel decided, like many before him, to get involved in the book trade. He became a proof-reader for Charlotte Guillard (d. 1557), one of the famous woman printers of sixteenth-century Paris. The profession of proof-reader, like that of journeyman, was an important step in the printing industry, for it brought Morel into constant contact with the presses and it enabled him to learn how they worked by observing them with his own eyes. What better place to enrich his intellectual skills with practical ones than at the ‘Soleil d’Or’ in the Rue de la Sorbonne, run by an illustrious woman printer![7]
In 1550, Morel married Jeanne de Vascosan, daughter of the famous Michel de Vascosan, who lived in Rue Saint-Jacques, at the shop of the Fountain. This marriage allowed him to enter one of the most powerful and prestigious families in the Parisian book trade for Jeanne was the granddaughter of Josse Badius (1462-1535), niece of Robert I Estienne (1503?-59) and cousin of Robert II Estienne (1530-71).[8]
Morel certainly managed to fulfil the hopes placed in him. Joseph Dumoulin has written about the story behind the publication of the Catena by the Italian scholar Luigi Lippomano (1500-59), an important step in Morel’s career. When Charlotte Guillard published Lippomano’s Catena in Genesim ex authoribus ecclesiasticis plus minus sexaginta in 1546, the author enjoyed the first edition so much that he decided to travel to Paris from Italy and asked Charlotte to publish the second volume of the Catena, which was entitled Catena in Exodum ex aucthoribus ecclesiasticis plus minus sexaginta. This was published in 1550 and Morel was entrusted with this important commentary. At the same time he was busy correcting and completing the famous Greek-Latin Lexicon Graecolatinum of his former master, Jacques Toussain, which appeared in 1552. To this text Morel added a Latin preface dedicating the work to Louis de l’Estoile, a true sign of the respect Morel had for both Louis de l’Estoile and Jacques Toussain. The publication of the Lexicon Graecolatinum launched Morel’s scholarly career, even if it was only as a proof-reader, for this book convinced Toussain’s intellectual friendship network of Morel’s erudition and potential.[9]
In 1557, Morel decided to become a printer himself, following the death of Charlotte Guillard in the same year. Michel de Vascosan, his father-in-law, gave him a house in the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, the ‘Ciseaux d’Or’, a shop in the Clos Bruneau. The Vascosan style certainly seems to have influenced Morel’s output. Morel’s typography shared some similarities with that of his father-in-law for both printers used the same typefaces and typographical arrangements, similar paper and, in addition, they printed books with similar themes. Despite this, Morel did not follow his father-in-law slavishly and one of the first things he decided to change was the shop’s name, replacing it with ‘Franc-Meurier’.
Joachim du Bellay, La Defense et illustration de la langue françoise (Paris, 1561), title page.
It is clear that the poet Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522-60) and the chancellor Michel de l’Hôpital (1507-73), were among the famous authors who decided to visit the ‘Franc-Murier’. Du Bellay had previously employed a number of printers, such as Guillaume Cavellat (d. 1576/77), Arnoul L’Angelier (fl. 1536-57) and Gilles Corrozet (1510-68), but in 1558 he decided to leave them, preferring the production values at the Morel printing firm. Worth’s earliest text, written by Du Bellay and printed by Morel, was the 1559 edition of Les Regrets et autres oeuvres poetiques. This was a second edition, for the 1558 edition by Morel had already sold out on the market.[10] In 1559 Morel received letters patent from the king to publish Du Bellay’s works for six years, and the following year, 1560, proved to be particularly productive in this regard. Worth’s collection of works written by Du Bellay and printed by Morel include a reprint of the Divers Jeux rustiques, et autres œuvres poetiques (Paris, 1560), and an edition of Du Bellay’s La monomachie de Dauid et de Goliath, ensemble plusieurs autres œuures poetiques (Paris, 1560), which are bound in the same volume as his Les Regrets. In Divers Jeux rustiques Du Bellay’s note to the reader makes clear his discontent with his former printers (his text, he complains, had been ‘corrupted miserably by a bunch of printers’), but in the same work he notes his respect for his new printer, Morel.[11] As the above elegant title page of Worth’s copy of La Defense et illustration de la langue françoise (Paris, 1561) demonstrates, Morel was responsible for yet another work by Du Bellay. The work had previously been printed in 1549 by Arnoul L’Angelier, father of Abel L’Angelier (fl. 1572-1609), but following Du Bellay’s switch to Morel, he and he alone, produced editions of La Défense (in 1561, 1568 and 1569).
By 1570, Fédéric I Morel was one of the most prestigious printers in Paris. It is thus not surprising to see him being appointed royal printer on 4 March 1571, following the move by his wife’s cousin, Robert II Estienne, to Geneva. It is interesting to note that one of the first official publications to be printed by his press following this appointment was the famous Edict du Roy sur la réformation de l’imprimerie, issued by Charles IX (1550-74) in May 1571, an edict which sought to address the management of printing presses, in response to strikes at Lyon.[12]
Hippocrates, Ippokratous Mochlikon. Hippocratis De curandis luxatis libellus (Paris, 1579), p. 3.
The year 1579 is important because it is the year in which Morel moved to his father-in-law’s house in the Rue Saint-Jacques. This new departure also marked a new direction in terms of the quality and scope of the works he published between 1579 and 1581. In 1579 he edited a treatise by Hippocrates (shown in Image 3 above), which displays an elegant use of the ‘Grecs du roi‘; a translation of Xenophon’s République des Lacédémoniens et des Athéniens, traduit de grec en françois, and Michel de La Serre’s Remonstrance au Roy, par le sieur de La Serre, sur les pernicieux discours contenus au livre ‘de la République’ de Bodin, written in response to an anti-monarchical pamphlet that was causing a stir at the time, Les six livres de la république, by Jean Bodin (1530-96).[13]
In the last years of his life, Morel decided to stop printing books about contemporary events and by contemporary poets. Instead, with the help of his son, Fédéric II Morel (c. 1552-1630), he devoted himself to his first love: ancient authors. Content that he had trained his eldest son in the art of printing, Fédéric I entrusted him with the workshop, while he himself continued to write prefaces and edit works. He died on 7 July 1583 while composing a Tumulus in Latin verse in memory of his friend Jean de Morel (1511-81).[14]
Sources
Dumoulin, Joseph, Vie et oeuvres de Fédéric Morel, imprimeur à Paris depuis 1557 jusqu’à 1583 (Paris, 1901).
La Caille, Jean de, Histoire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, où l’on voit son origine & son progrès, jusqu’en 1689: divisée en deux livres (Paris, 1689).
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).
Silvestre, Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques ou Recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rébus et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’Imprimerie en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des Libraires et Imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française, 2v. (Paris, 1853-67).
Supple, James, ‘Morel, Jean de (1511-81)’ in Peter France (ed.), The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford, 1995), p. 546.
_____
[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), pp 315-316.
[2] Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques ou Recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rébus et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’Imprimerie en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des Libraires et Imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française, 2v. (Paris, 1853-67), printer’s devices no: 161, 165, 424, 569 à 571, 830, 1080, 1081.
[3] Dumoulin, Joseph, Vie et oeuvres de Fédéric Morel, imprimeur à Paris depuis 1557 jusqu’à 1583 (Paris, 1901), p. 5.
[4] La Caille, Jean de, Histoire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, où l’on voit son origine & son progrès, jusqu’en 1689: divisée en deux livres (Paris, 1689), p. 142.
[5] The date of Henri II Estienne’s birth is unclear: the Library of Congress suggests 1531 and Renouard gives 1528: Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, p. 143.
[6] Dumoulin, Vie et oeuvres de Fédéric Morel, p. 12.
[7] Ibid., pp 13-14.
[8] Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, pp 315-316.
[9] Dumoulin, Vie et oeuvres de Fédéric Morel, pp 15-16.
[10] Ibid., pp 32-35.
[11] Ibid., pp 27-28.
[12] Unfortunately Worth did not possess a copy of this publication.
[13] Dumoulin, Vie et oeuvres de Fédéric Morel, pp 72-73. Worth owned the edition of Hippocrates but did not acquire the other two works.
[14] Supple, James, ‘Morel, Jean de (1511-81)’ in Peter France (ed.), The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford, 1995), p. 546.