Geoffroy Tory

Geoffroy Tory (* 1480 in Bourges, † 1533 in Paris) was a French printer and scholar.

Life

Geoffroy Tory was born in 1480 in the suburb of Saint- Privé Bourges and studied at the Faculty of Bourges. The city of Bourges was considered a center of humanistic culture. From 1505 to 1506 Tory made ​​his first trip to Italy and studied at the Sapienza University of Rome and at the University of Bologna. He also studied with Philippe Beroalde and Jean -Baptiste le Pitoyable ( Johannes Baptista Pius ), manufactured in touch with Italian humanists and finished with this trip his studies. The studies with a cultural trip to Italy to finish was considered a tradition in the 16th century. During this first trip to Italy and Erasmus of Rotterdam at the University of Bologna studied. His stay in Bologna ended Tory because of the death of his professor Philippe Beroalde in the year 1505.

To 1506/1507 Tory returned to Paris, taught at the Collège du Plessis, at the Collège de Coqueret and later he taught philosophy at the Collège de Bourgogne ( 1513) and lived in the following years in Paris. 1512 he married Perrette le Hulin and his daughter Agnes was born. In 1515 he interrupted his work at the university, to travel again to Italy. However, this second trip to Italy was not a cultural trip, but she gave Tory the opportunity to expand his knowledge and to create the basis for his later activity in the book printing and book arts.

After his return in 1518, he left the university, founded Rue Saint -Jacques, a studio for woodcut and opened a bookstore near the Pont Neuf in Paris. In 1529 he published his work Champ Fleury, in which he brought the letters of the alphabet with the proportions of the human body in conjunction and new typographic print letters developed (accents, apostrophe, cedilla ). Claude Garamond learned from him the craft of writing cutting.

1530 appointed him Francis I. to the book printer of the King ( " Imprimeur du Roi ").

Geoffroy Tory died in 1533 in Paris.

Publications

As a printer:

In addition, he also released historical works, Latin grammars and the Institutiones oratorie of Quintilius. Furthermore entertained Tory Contact to the main book printers in Paris and worked as a proofreader in Gilles de Gourmont, which also appeared first text publications. A close relationship he cherished above all Henri Estienne and Josse bathing since the pressure of the Cosmographia and the elegies of 1510. Prior to the publication of his book Champ Fleury 1529 he printed already other books in collaboration with Simon de Colines.

As the author:

Champ Fleury

General

The work appeared in 1529 Champ Fleury in Paris in French and is a treatise on questions of letterpress printing and the French language. On the title page it says:

" CHAMP FLEURY, auquel contenu est l' art et de la science et deue vraye proportion des lettres attiques, qu'on dit autrement lettres et antiques vulgairement lettre selon le corps et romaines proportionnées visage humain. "

" Flower garden, in which art and science is contained by the correct and true proportions of the Attic, roman mentioned also antique and usually letters, according to the measure of the human body and face. "

Emblematic is le Champ Fleury ( the blossoming field ) for paradise, the place where the gods of love prevail. At the same time recalls the work of Antoine Vérards Le Jardin de Plaisance et fleur Rhétorique (1501 ). The works of Tory and Verard Although different in content, but both use the image of a flower field to show that anyone can pick these flowers. Based on Champ Fleury called Geoffroy Tory with the blossoming field of the French language, which has the ability to unfold and develop.

Tory wanted to do with his work, set up the Latin letters for letterpress printing and to replace the Gothic fracture through the Antiqua pressure. These considerations he illustrated by geometrical drawings, which are based on the proportions of the human body.

Already the Italian humanist Leon Battista Alberti and Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli ( De divina proportione ) developed such as conceptual drawings constructions. Especially with Albrecht Dürer shows the unity of architecture and geometry, in which he constructs his drawings and thus the geometry considers language.

Tory's Champ Fleury work is a valuable example of early Renaissance in France. The prevailing humanism in this period was eager to introduce the Latin alphabet and seeing in man the measure of all things. This approach is also reflected in the letters of Tory. In addition, can be both antique, as well as find Italian influences in his work.

Ancient influences in Tory considerations related to the Canon de Polyclète of Vitruvius, a treatise on architecture, in which he is a young man who is neither big nor small, or neither fat nor thin, creating the image of a well-formed people. This is characterized by its adaptability and flexibility.

Italian influences are evident from the mention of Luca Pacioli, Leon Battista Alberti and Ludovico Vicentino. Ludovico Vicentino is considered as the most famous masters of his time writing and is known as a printer.

In addition to the development of letters, adds Tory explanations of the letters and explains the nature of the medieval scholastic exegesis of their real, allegorical, moral and theological significance. However, Champ Fleury should not only provide technical printing instructions. Tory loves his native language, une des plus gracieuses de toutes les langues humaines (one of the most graceful of all human languages) and defends them against Latin alienation by calling for the correct use of French. This admonition also engages du Bellay in his deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse ( 1549) again. Tory ridiculed, later to latinize Rabelais in the likeness of écolier limousin ( the students from Limoges in Pantagruel ), the preference of the French, their language.

Among other things, it was Tory's goal is to make the development of different sized antique letters possible (eg to use them for cornices of a triumphal arch ) and he dealt with the history of the dialect geography and the chronology of certain phonetic changes in France.

Furthermore, there Geoffroy Tory in his work suggestions for specifying the French orthography. For example, by introducing accents, apostrophes, and Cedille. This he justified, especially with the fact that the French language has no orthographic characters and thus the language has no rules, as they exist in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. 1531 Tory leads the Cedille and perfected in the fourth edition of L' Adolescence Clementine by Clément Marot, the system of auxiliary characters, which includes single quotes. Also in the works deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse by Joachim du Bellay, identical ideas on orthography can be recognized.

Content

Geoffroy Tory divided his work into three books and an appendix.

In the first book Tory speaks of the desire to make his countrymen familiar with the ancient letters. From this perspective, he thinks not only about education as a moral obligation to future generations, but also wonders if Champ Fleury should be written in Latin or French. Furthermore Tory lead in the first book of the necessity of grammatical rules and are at the end of its deliberations a draft of the history of writing.

Tory deals in the second book with the development of theories about the alphabet. There are, for consideration by two approaches: on the one hand he developed a system for constructing letters according to the proportions of the human body and on the other hand, he refers to this same time a mythological content.

The letters designed Geoffroy Tory geometrically and gives them a symbolic interpretation. The starting point of its construction of the Roman capital letters are the letters I and O. The letter I stands for a straight line, the letter O for a circle. These form the basis for other letters, which can be constructed with the help of straight lines and circular segments.

The reference system for the letters is a square, in which the letters are written and which is divided into small units. Horizontal and vertical lines and the diagonals and the circle inside of the square are further elements of construction.

The relationship of the letters to the proportions of the human body provides Geoffroy Tory ago using the measurement of I and O.

The measurements of the font ( based on the proportions of the body ) apply to a mythological content. Apollo and his muses case form the basic scheme for the observations.

In the third book of Champ Fleury cited Tory findings Roman grammarians, especially Priscian, which grappled with the letters and their use. However, it is also possible own personal linguistic considerations of Tory, which refer to the French dialects and their phonetic peculiarities ( e final, final s ). In addition, he commented on and interpreted the various pronunciations of Latin in the various countries.

The Annex of Champ Fleury continues with the major writings, such as Hebrew, Greek, Latin or French, apart and this provides explanations. Furthermore, he adds his drawings, certain numbers of the alphabet added and classifies the different fonts: this he calls the " Lettre de Forme ", " Lettre bastards ", " Lettres tour of your " and " Lettres Fantasique, Lettres Fleuries ". The " Lettre de Forme " and " Lettre bastards" as referred Tory Gothic fonts which he replaced by the Antiqua pressure.