Guillaume Cavellat (d. 1576/77)
‘In pingui gallina’ or ‘At the fat hen’.
Cavellat, the Parisian printer of scientific editions.
Pierre Belon, L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naïfs portraicts retirez du naturel: escrite en sept livres, par Pierre Belon du Mans (Paris, 1555), title page device of Guillaume Cavellat.
Guillaume Cavellat was born sometime between 1520 and 1525 – the exact year remains uncertain. By 1547 he had become a bookseller and two years later a ‘libraire-juré’. In the above image we see the sign of his bookshop, ‘La Poule Grasse’ or ‘the Fat Hen’, which he also used as his printer’s device and motto. This symbol can be interpreted as an encouragement to continuous improvement, personal enrichment and hard work, leading to the acquisition of knowledge, skills and wealth, and certainly Cavellat’s career might be said to reflect these aspirations. To a certain extent he had to start from scratch for his father, Jean (who died sometime after 1549), had not been a bookseller, and the loss of his brother (also named Jean) sometime before November 1556 must have been another blow.[1] However, by the end of his career all his hard work had been worth it for he could justifiably be proud of the reputation of the firm he had built up so assiduously. The jewels in the crown of his output were undoubtedly the scientific texts he printed and, as Desgraves points out, at the beginning of his most important publications Cavellat specifically drew the attention of his readers to his role in the promotion of science in Paris.[2]
Cavellat’s printing career began in February 1547 when he became a journeyman at the firm of Oudin I Petit (who would later die during the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 24 August 1572). Cavellat stayed with Oudin I for much of 1547, but by the end of the year he had started his own business as a printer, opening a shop in front of the Collège de Cambrai. As Renouard points out, the imprint of Cavellat’s 1547 printing of the French translation of Lactantius’ famous Institutiones Divinae by René Fame (1500-40), already bore the address at which Cavellat would remain until 1563: ‘à l’enseigne de la poule grasse, devant le collège de Cambrai’.[3]
Cavellat took over the shop of Guillaume Richard (d. 1545?), whose widow, Marie Aleaume, he had married.[4] This marriage was an important step in his career for by taking over Richard’s firm, he not only gained a premises but also connections with some of the most important Parisian book trade firms of the period: the families of Josse Badius, Attaingnant and Loys (the latter were already in business with Guillaume Richard). Cavellat became the guardian of the two daughters of Guillaume Richard and Marie Aleaume, Jeanne and Catherine, one of whom married the bookseller Jean Caveiller (d. 1562?), and the other a confectioner Robert Glane.[5] Cavellat and Marie Aleaume in turn had several children of their own: a daughter, Catherine (b. 1555), and three sons, Pierre (d. 1628), Léon (d. 1610) and Jean (fl. 1584-87), who became booksellers after their father’s death.[6]
In June 1559, following the death of his first wife, Cavellat re-married, this time to Denyse Girault (fl. 1576-1600), a daughter of the ‘libraire-juré’ Ambroise Girault (d. 1546) and Denyse de Marnef (fl. 1550-52). Since both her parents had died while she was a minor, Denyse was under the guardianship of two of her uncles, both of whom were members of the Parisian book trade: Hiérosme de Marnef (1515-95) and Estienne Groulleau (d. c. 1563). Cavellat’s second marriage resulted in the births of Denise (c. 1562), Guillaume (c. 1564), Jérôme (c. 1570), Barbe (c. 1572) and Blanche (1575). Denise married Arnold Sittard, a bookseller from Cologne, and Barbe married Nicolas Duchesne, a lawyer at the Parliament, the son of Léger Duchesne (d. 1588). By marrying Nicolas Duchesne, Barbe became the sister-in-law of Fédéric II Morel (c. 1552-1630), who was married to Isabelle Duchesne.[7] This alliance with the de Marnef family (his wife’s maternal uncle) proved to be an important factor in the development of the ‘Poule Grasse’; a few years later, Cavellat and Hiérosme de Marnef decided to officially link their firms.
Michael Psellus, Michael Psellus de arithmetica, musica, geometria : & Proclus de sphæra (Paris, 1557), fols 17r and 59v.
Cavellat positioned himself as a promoter of the sciences, and, in particular, of mathematics. His edition of Michael Psellus’ De arithmetica (images from which may be seen above), illustrates perfectly his interest and investment in this text. His lavish use of woodcuts was coupled with a scientific commentary by Élie Vinet (1509-87), a leading humanist of Renaissance Bordeaux. Cavellat’s 1557 edition was in fact the third reprint of Vinet’s commentary on the works of Michael Psellus (1018-78), for the text had previously been published in 1543, 1553 and 1557. The production values, so clearly visible in the text, perfectly embodied Cavellat’s high standards.
He stayed at the same address throughout the first part of his career. As a geographical location it was strategically advantageous, for he was close to the Collège de Cambrai, and not far from the Collège Royal where professors such Oronce Fine (1494-1555), who held the chair of mathematics, and Guillaume Budé (1468-1540), a leading humanist of Renaissance Paris, held sway. Certainly Cavellat’s output was clearly influenced by his collegial connections.[8] His target audience was the student population milling around these Parisian colleges, and, while it may have been a relatively limited market it had, at least, the advantage of being a stable one and one, moreover, which was regularly renewed. His output was thus directly linked to the programmes and the initiatives of the Collège’s professors and he was especially influenced by the needs of mathematicians such as Jean Magnien and Paschasius Hamellius (d. 1565). Certainly, during the 1550s, Cavellat produced a number of mathematical text-books: the Algebrae compendiosa facilisque descriptio by Johann Scheubel (1494-1570) appeared in 1552; Ptolemaei mathematicae constructionis: liber primus in 1556 and 1557; and Hamellius’ commentary on Archimedes’ Commentarius in Archimedis Syracusani praeclari mathematici librum de numero arenae in 1557.[9]
Cavellat’s output gives an idea of the printing policy of his firm and Louis Desgraves provides the following intriguing figures:
‘Between 1547 and 1563, around 150 editions were published under the sign of the Fat Hen. The main period of production was between 1555 and 1558. Moreover, dividing these editions according to their disciplines: 75 editions of mathematical texts, including astronomy and cosmography, 18 florilegias and miscellaneous, 18 religious, 7 historical, 7 medical, 6 philosophical (including ethics), 4 on law and 2 on architecture … The 75 mathematical editions present certain peculiarities: Cavellat was the sole promoter: only one is shared.’[10]
Although Cavellat was not very interested in literature, poetry or contemporary authors, he still was a businessman and understood the economic potential of producing works by famous authors, such as Joachim du Bellay’s Recueil de poesie, presente a tresillustre princesse Madame Marguerite seur unique du Roy, which he printed in 1549, and the Odes of Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85), which he brought out twice, first in 1550 and subsequently in 1553.
Pierre Belon, L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naïfs portraicts retirez du naturel: escrite en sept livres, par Pierre Belon du Mans (Paris, 1555), p. 106.
Cavellat’s firm tended to produce smaller format books which bore a number of similar characteristics. As Desgraves notes, they were mostly illustrated octavos (a format which accounted for more than 50% of his output), printed in the same typeface.[11] The smaller format may reflect their target market, for by using less paper Cavellat could keep the costs down. However, not all of his productions were small affairs and, on occasion, Cavellat was willing to invest heavily in a work. A good example of this is Worth’s copy of his 1555 edition of L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naïfs portraits retirez du naturel: escrite en sept livres by the French naturalist Pierre Belon (1517?-64), one of the great scientists of the sixteenth century. This magnificent folio format, printed by Benoît Prévost (d. c. 1562) for Cavellat and Gilles Corrozet (1510-68), is a rarity when we consider Cavellat’s total output (which, according to the USTC, includes only twenty folios, compared to 182 octavos and 138 sextodecimos).
Each part of the book has a neat and tidy title page, adorned by the ‘Fat Hen’ device. The level of investment in the woodcuts is quite revealing: we find a portrait of the author, a comparison of human and bird skeletons (reflecting Belon’s interest in comparative anatomy), more than 160 woodcuts of individual birds, and woodcuts of Cavellat’s printer’s device on each of the 7 parts of the work. In total, more than 200 bird species were included in the book. The woodcuts were based on drawings by the Parisian painter Pierre Gourdelle (fl. 1555-88) and other anonymous artists.[12]
Despite producing such wonderful books, by the mid-1560s Cavellat’s firm was in decline. 1563 seems to have been a watershed year for the ‘Poule Grasse’ press for after that year he printed only a hand-full of scientific works. In reality, the ‘Poule Grasse’ was slowly disappearing and it was being replaced by Hiérosme de Marnef’s firm at the sign of the Pélican. However, Cavellat’s sons, while not as famous as their father, continued producing books and the strong links between the Cavellats and the de Marnefs continued into the next generation. Eventually, a descendant (possibly a grandson) of Cavellat’s succeeded the long-lived Hiérosme de Marnef as ‘libraire-juré’ on his death in 1595.[13]
Sources
Desgraves, Louis, ‘Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle’, Bulletin des bibliothèques de France, 3 (1987), 269-271.
Jimenes, Rémi, ‘Le monde du livre et l’Université de Paris (16e-17e siècles): l’apport des Acta rectoria’, Bulletin du bibliophile, 2 (2017), 270-291.
Lefranc Abel, ‘Les origines du Collège de France’, Revue internationale de l’enseignement, 19 (1890), 457-481.
Postel Claude, Les écrits de Guillaume Postel : publiés en France et leurs éditeurs, 1538-1579 (Geneva, 1992).
Poulle, Emmanuel, ‘Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, ouvrage publié d’après les manuscrits de Philippe Renouard par la Bibliothèque nationale, fasc. Cavellat, Marnef et Cavellat (Paris : Bibliothèque nationale, 1986)’ [book review], Revue d’histoire des sciences, 43, nos 2-3 (1990), 354-356.
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).
Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle. Fascicule Cavellat, Marnef et Cavellat (Paris, 1986).
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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. 71.
[2] Desgraves, Louis, ‘Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle’, Bulletin des bibliothèques de France, 3 (1987), 269-271.
[3] Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle. Fascicule Cavellat, Marnef et Cavellat (Paris, 1986), pp 1-2; Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur (abes), ‘Fame, René (vers1500-1540)’, IdRef – Identifiants et Référentiels pour l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche.
[4] Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur (abes), ‘Richard, Guillaume (15..-1545? ; libraire)’, IdRef – Identifiants et Référentiels pour l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche.
[5] Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur (abes), ‘Caveiller, Jean (15..-1562?)’, IdRef – Identifiants et Référentiels pour l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche.
[6] Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, pp 70-71.
[7] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 1-9.
[8] Lefranc Abel, ‘Les origines du Collège de France’, Revue internationale de l’enseignement, vol 19 (1890), 457-481.
[9] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, p. 9.
[10] Desgraves, Louis, ‘Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle’, Bulletin des bibliothèques de France, 3 (1987), 269-271.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 72-73.
[13] Jimenes, Rémi, ‘Le monde du livre et l’Université de Paris (16e-17e siècles): l’apport des Acta rectoria’, Bulletin du bibliophile, 2 (2017), 270-291.