Geoffroy Tory

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Geoffroy Tory, born in Bourges around 1480 and deceased in Paris before 14 October 1533, was a French humanist and an engraver, best known for adding written letters in French.

[edit] Biography

Tory studied in Bourges, then in Rome and in Bologne, until he returned to Paris 1505. He became the dean of several schools at the University of Paris, where he taught grammar and philosophy. He also worked as a spelling-checker and as an engraver.

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.

In 1530 he became official printer to King Francis I^[1], 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.