Guillaume Le Bé (; 1525–1598) was a French punchcutter and engraver who specialised in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

typefaces A typeface (or font family) is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, bold), slope (e.g., italic), width ...

. He was born in

Troyes Troyes () is a Communes of France, commune and the capital of the Departments of France, department of Aube in the Grand Est region of north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about south-east of Paris. Troyes is situated within ...

to a notable family of paper merchants and apprenticed to

Robert Estienne Robert I Estienne (; 15037 September 1559), known as ''Robertus Stephanus'' in Latin and sometimes referred to as ''Robert Stephens'', was a 16th-century printer in Paris. He was the proprietor of the Estienne print shop after the death of his f ...

in Paris. After completing his apprenticeship, he was active in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

from c. 1540 to 1550, where he produced Hebrew,

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

types for various printer/publishers, notably Marc'Antonio Giustiniani, Carlo Querini and Meir di Parenzo. On his return to France, he established a type foundry which lasted through two generations until the 18th century. Le Bé supplied types to

Christophe Plantin Christophe Plantin (; – 1 July 1589) was a French Renaissance humanist and book Printer (publisher), printer and publisher who resided and worked in Antwerp. He established in Antwerp one of the most prominent publishing houses of his time, th ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

and left two annotated scrapbooks of his and other typefaces, which are now in the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...

in Paris. He also supplied music type to the publishing house of Robert Ballard (his son-in-law) and Adrien Le Roy in the 1550s. This type was used well into the 18th century, when Christophe Ballard ran the publishing house. The typographical symbol

guillemet Guillemets (, also , , ) are a pair of punctuation marks in the form of sideways double chevrons, and , used as quotation marks in some languages. In some of these languages, "single" guillemets, and , are used for a quotation inside another ...

is named after him.decodeunicode.org . decode . LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Be, Guillaume 16th-century printers 1525 births 1598 deaths People from Troyes 16th-century French businesspeople People from Champagne (province)

See also

References