- Sebastian Gryphius
Sebastian Gryphius ( _fr. Sébastien Gryphe, c. 1492 in
Reutlingen ,Germany - 1556 inLyon ,France ) was a Germanbookseller -printer and humanist.Biography
He was the son of Michael Greyff (Greif, Gryff, Gryph), and learned from him the new craft of printing, in Germany and then in
Venice . Around 1520 he came toLyon and settled there, on behalf of a Venetian firm of booksellers.Initially Gryphius mostly published works on law and administration, in
Gothic script . He then moved to Latin classics. He also translated classical Greek authors into Latin. He published his contemporariesErasmus ,Guillaume Budé andPoliziano .In 1536 he went into business with
Hugues de la Porte , who financed him in an independent venture. He founded "l'Atelier du Griffon", with agriffin mark. Around this time he introduced theItalic type ofAldus Manutius .In the 1540s he was the highly-reputed 'Prince of the Lyon book trade'. He promoted the local humanist culture, and his books were prized for their clean lay-out and accuracy. The nineteenth-century scholar
Henri Baudrier spoke of the "Atelier du Griffon" as a « société angélique pour les libres-penseurs ».His friends included
André Alciat ,Étienne Dolet ,Guillaume Scève andBarthélémy Aneau , and they wrote highly of his work, even helping out in practical printing tasks. Their linguistic input was also of benefit to the works printed. Gryphius printed suspect texts and even sheltered authors in trouble for heretical writing. Étienne Dolet, an academic and satirical poet, came fresh from jail inToulouse , and was burned as a heretic in 1546.From 1540,
François Rabelais came to Gryphius to publish his translations ofHippocrates ,Galen andGiovanni Mainardi .Family
His brother Franz (François) was a printer in the "rue des Carmes" in
Paris from 1532. Another brother, Johann (Jean), remained in Venice, also as a printer.Legacy
*There is a street named after him in
la Guillotière , in the seventharrondissement of Lyon.
*The journal of theBibliothèque de Lyon is called "Gryphe".External links
*Henri Louis & Jules Baudrier. Bibliographie Lyonnaise. (Lyon: Librairie ancienne d'Auguste Brun, 1895-1921) [(F) Z145.L9 B3] .
*http://www.princeton.edu/~ferguson/h-ge-il.html
*450th anniversary of his death in 2006 : [http://www.enssib.fr/pdf/journees/colloque_gryphe.pdf/ "Quid novi? Sébastien Gryphe à l'occasion du 450e anniversaire de sa mort"]
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