Ambroise Firmin-Didot 1790-1876

Ambroise Firmin-Didot came from a distinguished dynasty of printers, publishers and booksellers, established in Paris since 1713. He was born in 1790 and, together with his younger brother Hyacinthe, took over his father’s business in due course. They maintained its reputation through the middle years of the nineteenth century, particularly through publishing Estienne’s Greek dictionary (1855-1859) and also a major series of Greek, Latin and French classical texts.

Ambroise was fascinated by Greek language and culture. He had learnt the Greek language from the renowned humanist and scholar Adamantios Korais, he supported the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and in 1824 was one of the founding members of the Comité philhellène de Paris. Closer to home, he published a proposal for a major simplification of French spelling along phonetic principles as well as several works lookingon aspects of the history of books and of printing.

He was a great collector of books and manuscripts. When in 1850 he purchased the Château de la Bûcherie at Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies and undertook a substantial programme of rebuilding, the project included construction of a large, free-standing library to house his collection. At his death in 1876, a significant part of the collection was auctioned off in a series of sales held between 1878 and 1884 (our own copy of pseudo-Acro (1474) is listed as item 246 for the sale in June 1883).