CHAPTER TWO

FROM GOLDSMITHS TO PUBLISHERS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE DE BRY FAMILY

2.1. The early years: Liège and Strasbourg (1528–1577)

When Theodore de Bry was born in Liège in 1527 or 1528, nothing foretold he was to be the founder of one of the most remarkable pub- lishing fi rms of early modern Europe (ill. 1).1 Like many generations of De Brys before him,2 he was trained as a goldsmith, and it was in the 1530s and 1540s in the local goldsmiths’ guild that he served his apprenticeship, almost certainly with his father. In a singular reference to his youth in the preface to one of his publications of the 1590s, De Bry writes that he was “the offspring of parents born to an honourable station and was in affl uent circumstances and in the fi rst rank of the more honoured inhabitants of Liège”.3 Theodore’s father of the same name had indeed been a prominent guild member and magistrate since the early 1520s,4 responsible for making a reliquary and several chalices for St. Lambert’s cathedral around 1550.5

1 The best studies available are: M. Sondheim, “Die De Bry, Matthaeus Merian und Wilhelm Fitzer”, Philobiblon 6 (1933) 9–34; Idem, “Die De Bryschen Grossen Reisen”, Het Boek 24 (1936–37) 331–64; W. K. Zülch, Frankfurter Künstler 1223–1700 (Frankfurt 1935) 365–68, 439–42; P. Colman, “Un grand graveur-éditeur d’origine liégeoise: Théodore de Bry”, La Wallonie II (1978) 189–93; Gossiaux (1985) 111–20. 2 Colman (1978) 189; J. Brassinne, “Les trois Thiry de Bry”, Chronique archeologique du pays de Liège I (1906) 13–17 ; Th. Gobert, Liège à travers les ages (11 vols., 2nd ed.; Brussels 1975–78) IX 438. 3 App. 1, nr. 39 [A3v]: “. . . qui & parentibus honesto loco natis progeneratus, & opi- bus affl uens, atque adeò inter honorationes Leodii vel primarius fuerim”. The English translation is taken from: M. S. Giuseppi, “The work of Theodore de Bry and his sons, engravers”, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London XI (1915–17) 204. 4 Brassinne (1906) 14, describes Theodore’s father as a ‘commissaire de la cité’ from 1536. On his position in the guild: J. Breuer, Les orfèvres du pays de Liège. Une liste de membres du métier [Bulletin de la Société des bibliophiles liégeois XIII ] (Liège 1935) nr. 174; E. Poncelet and E. Fairon, “Liste chronologique d’actes concernant les métiers et confrèries de la cité de Liège”, Annuaire d’histoire liégeoise III (1943–47) 649. 5 X. van den Steen de Jehay, Essai historique sur l’ancienne cathédrale de St.-Lambert à Liège (Liège 1846) 201, 210.

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Ill. 1. Portrait of Theodore de Bry (1597)

De Bry never entered the guild as a master, and apparently worked for his father until his departure from Liège before 1560. No work from this period survives, and information on these years is limited. Prominent artists could have exerted infl uence on the young Theodore, and one such suggestion, De Bry’s supposed relationship with the Liège-born painter Lambert Lombard, has proved attractive.6 After returning from Italy in 1539, Lombard founded the ‘Académie Liégeoise’ to kick-start the Renaissance in the Prince-Bishopric. Members of this informal school of art and architecture included the engravers Lambert Suavius and Hubertus Goltzius, as well as the geographer Abraham Ortelius.7 Theodore’s acquaintance with Ortelius should have awakened his

6 Gossiaux (1985) 111–13, esp. n. 17; J. Yernaux, “Lambert Lombard”, Bulletin de l’Institut archéologique liègeois LXXII (1957–58) 360. 7 On the academy of Lambert Lombard: S. Collon-Gevaert, ed., Lambert Lombard et son temps (Liège 1966a); G. Denhaene, ed., Lambert Lombard: renaissance en humanisme te Luik (Liège 1990).

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