ELSEVIER (ELZEVIER). - A family of printers and booksellers active between 1583 and 1712 in the houses of Leiden, Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Copenhagen.

The most important are those of Leiden, founded by LODEWIJK I (b. at Louvain c. 1540), extinct in 1713, and of Amsterdam, founded in 1637 by LODEWIJK III (1604-70) and ended in 1681. The first reached its apogee with the partners BONAVENTURA and ABRAHAM, who in 1625 began the series of the Républiques, 62 small 12mo volumes containing the description of the principal countries of the world, and in 1629 the no less fortunate library of Latin classics. The second flourished above all through the work of DANIEL (1626-80), who linked his name to the French edition of the Bible in 2 vols. (1669).

The Elzevir editions are characteristic for their small format (12mo, 16mo and 24mo) and for their thin and very elegant typefaces.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: A codex of the Laurenziana in Florence is very important (Auburn, 1243, 17th cent.), entitled Adémoires relatives à la famille des E. - Fundamental A. Willems, Les E. Histoire et annules typographiques, Bruxelles 1880; G. Berghmann, Études sur la bibliographie elzevirienne, Stoccolma 1885; id., Nouvelles études, ivi 1897; H. B. Copinger, The Elsevier Press, Londra 1927.

Alessandro Pratesi

@incollection{ec5_elzevier_elsevier, author = {Pratesi, Alessandro}, title = {Elzevier (Elsevier)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {267--268}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/elzevier-elsevier} }

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Elsevier (Elzevier)

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