Sebastian Gryphius (french: Sébastien Gryphe; c. 1492, in

Reutlingen Reutlingen (; Swabian: ''Reitlenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it has a population of 115,818. Reutlingen has a university of applied sciences, which ...

– 1556, 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 ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

bookseller Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

and

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

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 Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

. Around 1520 he came to

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 contemporaries

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 ...

Guillaume Budé Guillaume Budé (; Latinized as Guilielmus Budaeus; 1468 – 1540) was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de France. Budé was also the first keeper of the ...

and

Poliziano Agnolo (Angelo) Ambrogini (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494), commonly known by his nickname Poliziano (; anglicized as Politian; Latin: '' Politianus''), was an Italian classical scholar and poet of the Florentine Renaissance. His scho ...

. In 1536 he went into business with

Hugues de la Porte Hugues may refer to People: * Hugues de Payens (c. 1070–1136), French soldier * Hugues I de Lusignan (1194/95 –1218), French-descended ruler a.k.a. Hugh I of Cyprus * Hugues IV de Berzé (1150s–1220), French soldier * Hugues II de Lusignan ...

, who financed him in an independent venture. He founded ''l'Atelier du Griffon'', with a

griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: , ''gryps''; Classical Latin: ''grȳps'' or ''grȳpus''; Late Latin, Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail ...

mark. Around this time he introduced the

Italic type In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...

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 ...

. 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 Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mon ...

spoke of Sebastian Gryphius's printshop (''Atelier du Griffon'') as a «

société angélique The Société Angéliqué was a group of writers and other scholars which formed around the printer/publisher Sebastian Gryphius in Lyon in the mid 16th century during the "History of Lyon#Renaissance, Lyon Renaissance". It is considered to be the a ...

pour les libres-penseurs ». His friends included André Alciat,

Étienne Dolet Étienne Dolet (; 3 August 15093 August 1546) was a French scholar, translator and printer. Dolet was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime. His early attacks upon the Inquisition, the city council and other authorities in Toulouse, tog ...

Guillaume Scève Guillaume may refer to: People * Guillaume (given name), the French equivalent of William * Guillaume (surname) Other uses * Guillaume (crater) See also * '' Chanson de Guillaume'', an 11th or 12th century poem * Guillaume affair, a Cold War espi ...

and Barthélémy 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 in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

, and was burned as a

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

in 1546. From 1540,

François Rabelais François Rabelais ( , , ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He is primarily known as a writer of satire, of the grotesque, and of bawdy jokes and ...

came to Gryphius to publish his translations of

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

and

Giovanni Mainardi Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * '' Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend ...

Family

His brother Franz (François) was a printer in the ''rue des Carmes'' 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 ...

from 1532. Another brother, Johann (Jean), remained in Venice, also as a printer. His illegitimate son Antoine (1527?-1599) succeeded him at his printing shop in Lyon. Antoine Gryphius was the father of Sébastien II Gryphius, born around 1570, a bookseller in Lyon and later in Bordeaux.BnF.

Legacy

*There is a street named after him in

la Guillotière LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

, in the seventh

arrondissement An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands. Europe France The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...

of Lyon. *The journal of the

Bibliothèque de Lyon A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

is called ''Gryphe''.

Notes

References

*
Bibliothèque nationale de France.

External links

*450th anniversary of his death in 2006
''Quid novi? Sébastien Gryphe à l'occasion du 450e anniversaire de sa mort"Typographical material at Flickr by History of the Book, Amsterdam
* Gryphius Collection: Books printed by Sebastianus Gryphius in Lyons in the sixteenth century, (135 titles). From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gryphius, Sebastian 1492 births 1556 deaths People from Reutlingen German printers French printers German booksellers French booksellers