ELZEVIR, arze vir, name of a notable family of printers descended from Ludovic Elsevier or Elzevier, Latinized Elzeverius, a native of Louvain: b. 1540; d. 1617. Having learned the bookbinders' trade, he practised it for some years in his native town, but in 1580 he removed to Leyden in the United Provinces and there set up a printing press. His five sons, Matthew; Ludovic, Egidy, Joost and Bona Ventura, were also printers and booksellers; but it was the youngest of the five, Bonaventura, born 1583 at Leyden, that gave the name Elzevir its great celebrity. The first work pub lished by the house of Elzevir appeared in 1583, the (Ebraicw Qumstiones et Responsiones) of Drusius, not the whole three books, but only the second and third. In 1608, nine years before his father's death, Bonaventura Elzevir founded a separate printing and publishing establishment in the same city and then commenced the issue of works in Greek, Latin and other languages which have ever since been regarded as models of correct and elegant typography. He con
ducted the business of his house more than 42 years, till his death in 1652, having had as part ner from 1626 Abraham Elzevir, his nephew, whom he survived one month. He was suc ceeded by his son Daniel and Abraham's son John; this partnership was soon dissolved, John carrying on the business in Leyden, Daniel migrating to Amsterdam in 1655 and entering into partnership there with another of his cous ins; both of these were dead 1680. The last of the Elzevirs to figure in the history of typog raphy was Abraham, son of Abraham, one of the five sons of Luciovicus; from 1681 to 1712 he was printer to the University of Leyden. The Elzevir editions of the ancient classics, especially Latin, while admirable in point of typography, are mostly reproductions of the texts adopted by previous printers and hence are inferior from the critical point of view. The number of works published by the different Elzevir houses nears the 2,000 mark.