, seigneur de Breves, a learned Frenchman who had the merit of introducing
, seigneur de Breves, a learned
Frenchman who had the merit of introducing oriental
printing into his country about the beginning of the seventeenth century, was the French ambassador at Constantinople for twenty-two years. On his return, about
1611, Henry IV. sent him to Rome as ambassador
in the pontificate of Paul V. where, in 1613, he appears to have established a printing-office; for in the title
of a translation of Bellarmin’s conclusion, and a Psalter into
Arabic, they are said tp come tx typographia Savariana.
Savary is said to have cast the types, and employed on
these two works, as correctors, Scialac and Sionita, two
Maronites from mount Lebanon. In 1615, Savary returned to Paris, bringing with him Sionita and the printer
Paulin, who, in the same year, printed in small quarto, in
Turkish and French, the “Treaty of 1604, between Henry
the Great, king of France, and the sultan Amurath,
” &c.
The following year appeared an Arabic Grammar, edited
by Sionita and Hesronita. It appears that Savary had the
liberality to lend his types to those who were desirous of
printing works in the oriental languages. He died in 1627,
when, we are told, the English and Dutch made offers for
the purchase of his types, and the oriental manuscripts
which he had collected in the Levant; but the king of
France bought them, and soon after a new establishment
appeared at Paris for oriental printing, all the credit of
which was given to the cardinal Richelieu, while the name
of Savary was not once mentioned. Sic vos non vobis, &c.
These types are said to be still extant in the royal printing office. Savary published an account of his travels,
from which we learn, that he projected certain conquests
in the Levant, for the extension of the commerce of his
country, and the propagation of Christianity. The number
of oriental Mss. which he brought from the Levant amounted
to ninety-seven.