1547 · Paris
by GAGNY, Jean de (d. 1549)
Paris: Nicolaus Dives (Nicolas Le Riche), 1547. 8vo (187 x 118 mm.). [8], “158” leaves (recte 148, misfoliated 80, 89-143, 146-158). Title with printer’s woodcut double anchor device (Renouard 636). Italic types (imitating the Aldine italic), shoulder notes in a very small italic font. Contemporary French calf, covers paneled with double blind fillets, gilt fleurons at corners of inner panel, two mirrored impressions of a large gilt fleuron with onlays of darker brown calf, later gold-blocked arms of Vincent Richard de la Barollière (OHR. 170) stamped above the central fleuron (rebacked, preserving panels of original backstrip; restoration to corners, upper joint cracked, some old scribbles and stains to covers). Provenance: Vincent Richard de la Barollière (d. 1617), supralibros.***
Only Edition of this translation of selected Psalms from the Hebrew into Latin verse, by the philologist, theologian, and bibliophile Jean de Gagny, printed on his own press, in “Aldine-style” types commissioned by him.
For his version of the first 75 psalms, Gagny (or Gaigny, among other variant spellings) provided preliminary directions for the scansion, and philological notes on the Hebrew in the interior margins and on the Vulgate text in the exterior margins. In a note to the reader, the printer credits the translator for reviving, in France, the Aldine types, “either dead or long hidden in Italy,” by financing the cutting of new types, “almost the equal of Aldus’s, for the benefit of scholars.”
The printer Nicolas Le Riche was Gagny’s nephew (as well as the designated vendor of books from the [real] Aldine press, successor in this role to the bookseller-binder Jean Picard). Le Riche’s device of the twin anchors was intended as both a tribute to the great Venetian printer-scholar and a symbol of the two languages, Latin and Greek. The types which his uncle had paid for were cut by one Charles Chiffin, a goldsmith from Tours, of whom nothing else is known (the name appeared only in Gagny’s will). This edition was the second of 18 editions known to have issued from the Gagny / Le Riche press (Renouard know of 17 and Nicolas Barker listed 18), which functioned for only three years (1547-1549), ceasing to exist with the death of its patron.
Almoner of François I from 1536, rector at the Université de Paris, of which he was named chancellor in 1546, Gagny was a “Christian humanist” (Jammes), a Hebraicist and Hellenist. As a de facto royal librarian, he sought out unpublished manuscripts of ancient Christian texts in the abbeys and monasteries of the realm. Some of these he translated or edited and had published in print or transcribed in fine manuscripts. An inventory of his personal library, recorded in the Royal Library in 1622, was sadly lost, but it is evident that he was a lover of books. “If Jean de Gagny took a keen and well-informed interest in the texts that he sought out, he had an equal interest in the physical appearance through which he chose to disseminate them.... As well as the beauty of the types used, which caught the eye of the ‘premier aumônier’, he also took a close interest in layout.... Gagny had the same taste for sumptuous bindings” (Jammes & Barker, p. 415 & 423). Founding his own press was a logical extension of these activities and interests.
(A side-note:) As representative of the Sorbonne, Gagny was obliged to take a strict line toward theological writings, and Robert Estienne later mentioned him among the enemies who had been responsible for his exile to Geneva in 1550. Renouard went so far as to accuse Gagny of trying to get rid of Estienne because he saw him as a commercial rival to his own press. These accusations were probably untrue, as argued by Elizabeth Armstrong in her study of Estienne, and by André Jammes, both of whom doubted that Gagny, as a devoted scholar of Biblical texts, would have been willing to suppress so much excellent scholarship; they speculate that he would have sided with those who argued for censuring only some passages of Estienne’s bibles rather than the entire editions.
Adams B-1509; USTC 149866; Delaveau & Hillard, Bibles imprimées (2002) 3521; Renouard, Annales, pp. 345 and 414-15. For an account of Gagny’s bibliophilic activities and connections (and the source of this description), see André Jammes, “Un Bibliophile à découvrir, Jean de Gagny,” Bulletin du Bibliophile (1996) no. 1, 35–81; and the same text in English, slightly revised and with an additional bibliography of Gagny’s book: Jammes and N. Barker, “Jean de Gagny: A Bibliophile Re-Discovered,” The Library, Vol. 11, no. 4, December 2010, 405–446. (Inventory #: 4401)
Only Edition of this translation of selected Psalms from the Hebrew into Latin verse, by the philologist, theologian, and bibliophile Jean de Gagny, printed on his own press, in “Aldine-style” types commissioned by him.
For his version of the first 75 psalms, Gagny (or Gaigny, among other variant spellings) provided preliminary directions for the scansion, and philological notes on the Hebrew in the interior margins and on the Vulgate text in the exterior margins. In a note to the reader, the printer credits the translator for reviving, in France, the Aldine types, “either dead or long hidden in Italy,” by financing the cutting of new types, “almost the equal of Aldus’s, for the benefit of scholars.”
The printer Nicolas Le Riche was Gagny’s nephew (as well as the designated vendor of books from the [real] Aldine press, successor in this role to the bookseller-binder Jean Picard). Le Riche’s device of the twin anchors was intended as both a tribute to the great Venetian printer-scholar and a symbol of the two languages, Latin and Greek. The types which his uncle had paid for were cut by one Charles Chiffin, a goldsmith from Tours, of whom nothing else is known (the name appeared only in Gagny’s will). This edition was the second of 18 editions known to have issued from the Gagny / Le Riche press (Renouard know of 17 and Nicolas Barker listed 18), which functioned for only three years (1547-1549), ceasing to exist with the death of its patron.
Almoner of François I from 1536, rector at the Université de Paris, of which he was named chancellor in 1546, Gagny was a “Christian humanist” (Jammes), a Hebraicist and Hellenist. As a de facto royal librarian, he sought out unpublished manuscripts of ancient Christian texts in the abbeys and monasteries of the realm. Some of these he translated or edited and had published in print or transcribed in fine manuscripts. An inventory of his personal library, recorded in the Royal Library in 1622, was sadly lost, but it is evident that he was a lover of books. “If Jean de Gagny took a keen and well-informed interest in the texts that he sought out, he had an equal interest in the physical appearance through which he chose to disseminate them.... As well as the beauty of the types used, which caught the eye of the ‘premier aumônier’, he also took a close interest in layout.... Gagny had the same taste for sumptuous bindings” (Jammes & Barker, p. 415 & 423). Founding his own press was a logical extension of these activities and interests.
(A side-note:) As representative of the Sorbonne, Gagny was obliged to take a strict line toward theological writings, and Robert Estienne later mentioned him among the enemies who had been responsible for his exile to Geneva in 1550. Renouard went so far as to accuse Gagny of trying to get rid of Estienne because he saw him as a commercial rival to his own press. These accusations were probably untrue, as argued by Elizabeth Armstrong in her study of Estienne, and by André Jammes, both of whom doubted that Gagny, as a devoted scholar of Biblical texts, would have been willing to suppress so much excellent scholarship; they speculate that he would have sided with those who argued for censuring only some passages of Estienne’s bibles rather than the entire editions.
Adams B-1509; USTC 149866; Delaveau & Hillard, Bibles imprimées (2002) 3521; Renouard, Annales, pp. 345 and 414-15. For an account of Gagny’s bibliophilic activities and connections (and the source of this description), see André Jammes, “Un Bibliophile à découvrir, Jean de Gagny,” Bulletin du Bibliophile (1996) no. 1, 35–81; and the same text in English, slightly revised and with an additional bibliography of Gagny’s book: Jammes and N. Barker, “Jean de Gagny: A Bibliophile Re-Discovered,” The Library, Vol. 11, no. 4, December 2010, 405–446. (Inventory #: 4401)
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