Simon de Colines
[1] One scholar, Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer, believes Colines may have furnished French old-style typefaces to his step-son, Robert Estienne.
[2]: 17–19 [3] In 1539, Colines left Soleil d'or and moved his presses outside Paris's wall, at the sign of the four evangelists,[3] where he stayed until his death in spring in 1546.
[2]: 11, 52 Although he was not a scholar himself, he extended the range of the Estienne firm's learned and scientific works to include the natural sciences, cosmology, and astrology.
He is credited with the design of Italic and Greek fonts and of a Roman face for St. Augustine's Sylvius (1531), from which the Garamond types were derived.
For this book, Colines used a roman Gros Romain font which appears to be modeled after one of Aldus Manutius's types from Venice.
Also around this time, a new italic typeface derived from the Gros Romain appears in Colines's 1532 printing of Paul of Aegina's Opus de re medica.
"[3]: lvii In 1536, Colines printed his most famous edition: Jean Ruel's De natura stirpium, which incorporated a unique garden woodcut on its title page.
Colines published De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres, an anatomy textbook 10 years in the making, in 1545.
The woodcuts were based on illustrations and drawings by Berengario, Perino del Vaga, and Mannerist models from the Fontainebleau School.
The book was not submitted to the Parisian Faculty of Theology for approval as had been decreed the previous November, and the theologians fined Colines on 9 June 1523, and threatened to seize the remaining copies.
[3]: xlix Colines argued that the printing had started in Meaux before the decree, and the theologians consented to let him keep his remaining copies as long as he did not sell them.
The volume, over 800 pages long, was a difficult printing job and published by Galliot du Pré and Lyonese Antoine Vincent.
In 1542, French Parliament decreed that all books entering Paris should be examined, in order to make sure they contained no "Lutheran errors".
[3] Colines's types were renowned among and often praised by authors and poets of the period including Hubert Sussaneau, Salmon Macrinus, Nicolas Bourbon, and Jean Visagier.
