Books and book sellers
The city of Tours was a centre of book production, probably because of the demand for luxury books by the royal court. But the ten books owned by the stocking maker Jehane Bernarde show that the book market also catered for less wealthy clients.
Several highly skilled manuscript painters were active in Tours. One of them was Jean Fouquet (c. 1420-1478/82), whose style was influenced by both Flemish and Italian art. A painter of amazingly live-like images, Fouquet was appointed as personal painter to King Louis XI. A few exceptionally good panel paintings by his hand survive, but Fouquet was above all famous as painter of manuscript illuminations. Notwithstanding his artistic fame, “Jehan Fouquet, enlumineur” was called on for the night watch on the city walls of Tours just like other artisans.
Another famous manuscript painter living in Tours was Jean Bourdichon (c. 1457-c. 1521), a former apprentice of Fouquet’s workshop. The royal accounts of several French kings and queens show that they often turned to Jean Bourdichon for the production of luxurious books, of which the Grandes Heures of Queen Anne de Bretagne is one of the most beautiful examples.
The city and notarial archives show that many artisans of the book were active in Tours. Some of them were called “libraire”: owners of book shops and often also the organisers of book production who were distributing tasks between scribes, illuminators, and book binders. Because of the frequent collaboration of several specialist artisans, it is not surprising to find them concentrated in specific locations, for example in the rue de la Scellerie near St Vincent’s church and the convent of the Franciscans. The first mention of a printer in Tours dates from 1492, when the printer Mathieu Latheron signed a rental contract for a house in the rue de la Scellerie, near St Vincent’s church. The same house was later used by the printers Mathieu Chercelé and André Trihollet, who bought Latheron’s printing press and letter types after his death.
Anne de Bretagne’s book of hours
This lavishly decorated Book of Hours, the “Grandes Heures” of queen Anne de Bretagne, is one of Jean Bourdichon’s masterpieces. It contains over fifty full-page paintings and many pages have borders beautifully decorated with plants and flowers, among which a unique depiction of a wild squash from the Americas. This page depicts the martyrdom of Saint Ursula and the thousand virgins who according to the legend sailed to French Brittany.
Early prints in Tours
This Life of Saint Martin in French is one of the first books printed in Tours. The printer was Mathieu Latheron who printed it for the “marchand libraire” Jehan du Liège, who had his shop on the western extremity of the rue de la Scellerie in a house with the sign of Saint John the Evangelist. The burial site of Saint Martin in Tours was one of France’s most important sanctuaries. It attracted many pilgrims to the city, a prime market for this book.
A copyist in the rue de la Scellerie
This fifteenth-century manuscript contains a work by the famous proto-feminist author Christine de Pizan, intended for a female audience, Le Livre des trois vertus. It contains advice to women from all levels of society. This copy is remarkable because the scribe has added a colophon stating he worked in Tours, in the rue de la Scellerie: “Here ends the Livre des trois vertus for the education of ladies, copied by the hands of Jehan Gardel, living in Tours in the rue de la Scellerie, servant of my above-mentioned lady”.
Margriet Hoogvliet
Further reading:
Margriet Hoogvliet and David Rivaud, “Tours around 1500: Deep Mapping Scribes, Booksellers, and Printers”, Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture 7/4 (2021), pp. 73-120; online: https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol7/iss4/6.
Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, Pascale Charron, Pierre-Gilles Girault, Jean-Marie Guillouët, eds., Tours 1500 : capitale des arts. Catalogue d’exposition, Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 17 mars-17 juin 2009, Paris-Tours, Somogy, 2012.
François Avril, Nicole Reynaud, eds., Les Manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520, catalogue d’exposition, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1993.
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