ESTIENNE (STEPHANÚS), ROBERT

A French biblical scholar and printer to Francois I,* Robert Estienne was born in Paris, the son of Henri Estienne and father of Henri, Robert II, and Francois, all of whom were notable printers. In 1526 he took over his father's printing business and married the daughter of Josse Badius Ascensius, the great Paris publisher. Despite criticism from the Sorbonne, royal patronage (he was appointed by Francois I as royal printer in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek) kept his books from the Index until the ascension in 1547 of Henri II. His annotated editions of Scripture had provoked criticisms from the Sorbonne, and to avoid proscription, he moved to Geneva in 1550, though keeping his publishing busi­ness in Paris, and became a member of the Reformed church in 1551.

He is recognized for his pioneering Latin dictionary (Thesaurus linguae Latinae, 1531) and his vernacular French dictionary.His Latin editions of the Bible, edited and printed by himself, became famous as examples of critical textual scholarship, particularly his 1528, 1532, and 1540 editions, which fol­lowed the text of St. Jerome. In 1557 he printed another Latin Bible coedited with Theodore Beza.* His Hebrew versions of the Old Testament came out between 1539 and 1546, and in 1544 he began printing in Greek, using the famed Garramond type in his edition of Eusebius's Historia ecclesiastica.He proceeded to issue numerous editions of the church fathers, many being the first printed editions of such works. The most influential Greek version of the New Testament he printed was that of 1550, the first edition to contain a critical textual apparatus and the first with verse divisions. He was the publisher of works by Desiderius Erasmus,* Ulrich von Hutten* and Huldrych Zwingli* and in 1553 of John Calvin's* Institutes and in 1554 of Beza's tract De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis (Heretics to be Punished by the Civil Magistrate).

E. Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer, 1954/1986.

D. Starnes, Robert Estienne's Influence on Lexicography, 1963.