Guy Marchant

Guy Marchant, also known by his Latin name Guido Mercator, was a printer of books, active in Paris from 1483 to 1505/1506. At first he worked at an address in the Champ gaillart behind the Collège de Navarre, from 1493 he was at the sign of the Lily in the rue Saint Jacques, and finally from he worked at an address called Beauregard behind the Collège de Boncourt.

His output was mainly of moderate-sized devotional texts but he is particularly famous for a series of publications illustrated with magnificent woodcuts. Among these are his five editions of Danse macabre (dance of death) with woodcut reproductions and explanatory verses from the earliest known example of the fully developed dance of death formerly in the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, but destroyed in 1699. Today there are about 200 editions printed by the press of Guy Marchant.