Geoffroy Tory - Biography

Biography

Geoffroy Tory was born in Bourges in 1480, about ten years after the advent of printing in France. He attended the local university, where he developed an interest in Latin literature. When he finished his studies, he left Bourges for Italy, where he studied at two more universities. First the Sapenzia at Rome, and then Bologna, where he studied under Philip Beroaldus who was greatly known as a Latanist.

Around 1505, when Tory completed his studies, he left Italy for Paris where Tory worked as a bookbinder, editor of texts, and corrector for the press, serving such clients as Jean Grolier de Servières.

The first work that is known to have Tory work on it is called the Pomponius Mela. In 1509, even though he was young, his work on the Pomponius Mela allowedTory to develop a rather large reputation. He soon became one of the youngest professors to teach at the College du Plessis. While Tory taught, he continued to work on his passion of bookbinding and editing, working on quite a few books.

Tory was known to be an extremely hard worker, often taking on large workloads. Some time around 1511, Tory became a professor at Coqueret, and soon after at the college de Bourgogne, which at the time was a principle unit in the university of Paris. It is widely known that his lectures would draw large audiences.

Tory's obsessive nature drew him into the arts. Several years after joining the College de Bourgogne, he quit and made a move to Italy, so as to better study the arts. There is not much known of Tory at this time, and it wasn't until he returned to Paris in 1518 that his work became recognized again. This time, Tory took up a love of illuminating manuscripts.

In 1514 Tory married the widow of a friend of his, fathering a daughter named Agnes. Tory doted on her, teaching her Latin and all of his life's work. Unfortunately, when Agnes was nine, she died from unknown reasons. Tory was distraught, and kept to writing poetry about his daughter. When Tory printed for the first time, his printers mark was that of the urn that he kept his daughters ashes in. Tory spent much of his time depressed over the death of his daughter. In the months following her death, Tory wrote several pieces of poetry, claiming how lucky he was to have had a daughter like his, and how her life influenced him. At the time, it was very common for children to die at a young age, so it was out of place for Tory to have taken her death as hard as he did. It is said that her death influenced the creativity in his later works.

It wasn't until 1524 that he discovered The Book of Hours. The most famous copy of which is still dedicated to Tory. In 1525 Geoffroy published a copy of 'The Book of Hours' Introduced type design that was free from the idea of handwriting based print. It also started the idea of book designing as an art in France.

In 1529 Tory published his own book, Champfleury, one of the most important and influential works of the time. It set the standard of French publishing, a standard that in many ways is still used today. In the introduction of Champfleury, Tory is quoted as saying that there are three different kinds of men who corrupt the French language; the "skimmers of Latin", the "jokers", and the "slangers".

Gradually, he managed to get on hands on French texts, which he wanted to put into print, at a time when that was only done to texts in Latin. For that purpose, he introduced the apostrophe, the accent, and the cedilla. He wanted to reform French spelling towards its Latin roots.

In 1530 he became official printer to King Francis I, and in 1532 he was made a librarian at the University of Paris. One of his apprentices was Claude Garamond, who became printer to the King after him.

The exact date of Tory's death is unknown, however it is said in a lease that in 1533 his wife was a widow.