Antoine Vérard

Antoine Vérard was a French publisher, bookmaker and bookseller who dominated French publishing from 1485 to 1512, producing some 280 individual editions. Vérard, regarded as the father of the French illustrated book, specialized in magnificently illuminated and specially crafted volumes, often on vellum, for presentation to royalty and the highest nobility of his day.

By 1485 Vérard was established as a bookseller, based at the heart of the bookselling and printing quarter of Paris, in a shop under the sign of St John the Evangelist, on the Pont Notre-Dame and in the Palais of the Cité, in front of the Sainte-Chapelle. He was the turning point between illuminated manuscripts and the modern printed edition. For his cheaper editions he printed works illustrated with woodcuts, and for his wealthier clients he produced versions on vellum with hand-made illuminations. His most notable customers were Charles VIII of France (r. 1483 – 1498) and Henry VII of England (r. 1485 – 1509).

Vérard published many books of hours and didactic works, but also poems, dramatic works and chivalric romances. Around 1503, Vérard expanded to English bookselling market with an English translation of the Calendrier des bergers (The Kalendar of Shyppars) and of L'Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir, (the Art of Good Lywyng) and of the Chasteau de Labour (Castle of Labour), a 1499 poem by Pierre Gringore. He also published many books of hours for the English market.