A Brill Calendar: February 10

Elsevier

Few surnames were as prominent in printing and publishing as ‘Elsevier’.

The ‘Curatorium’ of Leyden University appointed the first Elzevier, Isaac, as ‘Printer to the Academy’ on February 10 1620; the seventh official in that function, created in the third year of its existence. Some four generations of Elzeviers would succeed him in that well-paid academic task. However, this Isaac (Leyden, March 11, 1596 – Cologne, October 10, 1651) wasn’t the first of his dynasty seeking to earn a living and prosperity in Leyden by selling, printing and publishing books for scholars and connoisseurs.

That honour goes to his paternal grandfather Louis (1547 – 1617), born in Louvain, the University town in the deep south of the Low Countries. This ‘Lodewijk’ (in northern parlance) came to Leyden in 1580 as a book-binder employed by the Europe’s ‘arch-typographer, Christoffel Plantyn, then creating a subsidiary of his Antwerp firm in the promising new market of Leyden. Lodewijk ingratiated himself to the University, and became engaged in organizing academic events. Isaac’s father Matthijs was born in Antwerp just before the rebellion against Habsburg Spain exploded, and Isaac grew up in Leyden itself.

It is seldom that the ambitions of a family enterprise matched so perfectly objectives and aims of its immediate environment. Leyden, the hub of the mercantile Republic enabled the Elzevier successes. The surname became an English noun, indicating a well-printed, informative, small & elegant book, an ‘Elzivir’. The final business-activity of what once was a proud range of all kinds of shops, offices and presses in Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague was liquidated in Leyden in 1712. The typographical Phoenix would rise from its ashes a little later in another, subsequent dynasty, the one of Jordaan Luchtmans.