Aldus in His Printing Establishment at Venice Showing

Bodleian Libraries, De origine de amplitudine civitatis Veronae

Jean Grolier de Servières, viscount d'Aguisy ( – 22 October 1565) was Treasurer-General of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and a famous

bibliophile Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books. Profile The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...

. As a book collector, Grolier is known in particular for his patronage of the

Aldine Press The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dat ...

, and his love of richly decorated bookbindings.

Biography

Grolier was born in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

; he encouraged the belief that he was older than seems plausible given the marriage of his parents in 1485, resulting in 1479 often being given as his date of birth. Based on recently discovered documentary evidence from July 1527, when he gave his age as 37 in legal proceedings, he is now regarded as born in 1489-90. His family was of Italian origin, from

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

, but was based in Lyon where Étienne Grolier, Grolier's father, was a wealthy merchant who also held a government post as a tax collector. His mother was Antonia Esbauda; there were four daughters of the marriage, but Jean was their only son. In 1506 Étienne obtained, probably by purchase, the post of Treasurer-General of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, then held by the French. Jean Grolier was to inherit this office at the age of 19 or 20 on his father's death in Milan in 1509. Grolier still owned the family house in Lyons in 1536, though he had not lived there as an adult.Hobson, 7 In 1508 Jean Grolier was a ''secrétaire du roi'' ("secretary to the king" - a junior aide in today's terminology) who had to accompany

Louis XII Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the tim ...

and his court around France. His studies continued under the

Renaissance humanist Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

Gaspar Argilensis (or Gaspar d'Argile), who dedicated his edition of

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

to Grolier (Lyons 1508). Grolier was in Milan as treasurer from 1509 (at least) until the French were expelled in June 1512, and then returned with the French army, now under

François I Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...

, in 1515 and remained until they were again thrown out in 1521, after the disaster of the

Battle of Pavia The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Au ...

, when he returned to France. In his second period in Milan he was at the centre of a humanistic literary circle, and met

Aldus Manutius Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preserv ...

, printer of so many of his books, when he visited from Venice, probably in 1511. There is no evidence Grolier went to Venice, as is sometimes claimed. Many works were dedicated to him, and several letters to and from his circle survive, including ones from

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

. Grolier later represented the French monarchy in Italy, though claims in older works that he had a formal appointment as ambassador to the Papacy are mistaken. He was Treasurer of War from 1522–31, and after holding regional positions as treasurer he was made one of four Treasurers-General of France in 1537. He had married Anne Briçonnet, from a

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

family, who died in 1545 or so, and they had two daughters at least. He died in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and was buried in the

Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

, the funeral arranged and the tomb paid for by two daughters and two grandsons.

Book collection

Grolier's books bore the inscription, ''Io. Grolieri et Amicorum'' (Latin for "the property of Jean Grolier and his friends"), early examples adding ''Lugdunensis'' ("of Lyon") after his name. There is some debate about how he shared books with his friends, but there is evidence that his generosity in lending to friends resulted in some items going missing, and the library was largely dispersed long before 1675, a date given in older sources. A work of 1620 already claimed that "the finest libraries both in Paris and elsewhere in France owe their adornment solely to Grolier's copies". Some 500 books can still be identified as having formed part of the library, and for centuries Grolier's reputation as a collector has increased the value of any book associated with him. Some of the books are in public collections such as the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

and the National Library in Paris, the latter institution having the largest number of Grolier bindings. Grolier was particularly interested in the Latin classics, and his books were bound in different coloured leather according to subject matter. His first period in Italy already shows him taking an innovative interest in bookbinding, commissioning a series of "

plaquette binding ''Pastiglia'' , an Italian term meaning "pastework", is low relief decoration, normally modelled in gesso or white lead, applied to build up a surface that may then be gilded or painted, or left plain. The technique was used in a variety of way ...

s" with large medal-like reliefs at the centre of the cover. Previously this style had only been used for special presentation volumes, and Grolier was the first collector to apply it systematically to books for his own library, which he seems to have begun to do in 1510. Most of his library was bound in France, but the designs continued to show Italian influence. Grolier gave his name to a style of bookbinding ornamented with geometric patterns, exemplified in those he commissioned, and perhaps helped to design. Grolier bindings were mostly produced in Paris between 1520 and 1555, and show a development in style: "Simple geometrical

strapwork In the history of art and design, strapwork is the use of stylised representations in ornament of ribbon-like forms. These may loosely imitate leather straps, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings, and often interwoven in ...

designs with fleurons at the corners of the central panel developed in the later bindings into elaborate curvilinear interlacings combined with

arabesque The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...

s sometimes enclosed in roll-produced borders". Analysis of the surviving bindings shows that Grolier patronised several workshops over the years. Only a limited amount of information is known about the bookbinders involved: some bindings are in an identifiable style (for example "Grolier's last binder"), while documentary evidence allows a few of the binders to identified by name: *

Geoffroy Tory Geoffroy Tory (also Geofroy, Latin "Godofredus Torinus") was born in Bourges around 1480 and died in Paris before 14 October 1533. He was a French humanist and an engraver, best known for adding accents on letters in French. His life's work ha ...

(d. 1533), a Parisian printer and bookbinder best known as a designer of type for printing *

Jean Picard Jean Picard (21 July 1620 – 12 July 1682) was a French astronomer and priest born in La Flèche, where he studied at the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand. He is principally notable for his accurate measure of the size of the Earth, base ...

, a Parisian bookbinder and bookseller. Picard was active in the 1540s and, up to 1547, combined his bookbinding with holding the Paris agency of the Aldine Press. The

Grolier Club The Grolier Club is a private club and society of bibliophiles in New York City. Founded in January 1884, it is the oldest existing bibliophilic club in North America. The club is named after Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, Tre ...

of New York City was named after him by

Walter Montgomery Jackson Walter Montgomery Jackson (1863–1923) was the founder of encyclopedia publisher Grolier, Inc., and he was the partner of Horace Everett Hooper in publishing the 10th edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and in developing its 11th edition. ...

(1863–1923), who had also commemorated him in the publisher,

Grolier Grolier was one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including ''The Book of Knowledge'' (1910), ''The New Book of Knowledge'' (1966), ''The New Book of Popular Science'' (1972), ''Encyclopedia Americana'' (1945), ''Acade ...

, that he founded.

Horology

During his retirement he invented the “Turtle Clock”. This is a mysterious apparatus consisting of a hidden clockwork oriented face up, like a 16th-century table clock, beneath a non-ferrous plate whose rim shows the twelve numbers of the hours. The hour hand rotating underneath the plate has a magnet which causes a man-made floating turtle (with a longitudinal iron bar in its body) to point its head toward the appropriate hour.

Gallery of bindings made for Grolier

File:R. P. D. Viperae. Opus de Prisco. - Lower cover (c46i14).jpg File:Martialis. (ff. 191. In ædibus Aldi- Venetiis, 1517.) - Upper cover (c19b5).jpg File:Reliure en veau fauve réalisée pour Jean Grolier (Rés. 4287).jpg File:De bello Gottorum - Upper cover (Davis788).jpg File:Tomus primus (secundus) paraphraseon D. Erasmi ... Nouum Testamentum, etc. - Upper cover (c24c5).jpg File:Hymni novi ecclestici. - Upper cover (Davis374).jpg File:Historia naturalis -Italian- - Upper cover (ic19693).jpg

Notes

References

*Harthan, John P., ''Bookbinding'', 1961,

HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...

(for the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

) *Hobson, Anthony, ''Renaissance book collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their books and bindings'', 1999, Cambridge University Press, ,
google books

External links

British Library
- Search on "Grolier" for images and catalogue entries for over 30 bindings owned by Grolier, and others in the style.
Full-text biography
- ''Jean Grolier de Servier Viscount d'Aguisy : Some Account of His Life and of His Famous Library'' by William Loring Andrews
Jean Grolier Biography
from th
Grolier Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grolier de Servieres, Jean 1489 births 1565 deaths Civil servants from Lyon French bibliophiles French expatriates in Italy French people of Italian descent Viscounts of France Burials at Saint-Germain-des-Prés (abbey) Bookbinding