STEPH'ANUS, or ETIENNE, A famous French family of printers and scholars. HENracus (c.1460-1520), the founder of the es tablishment with which the family is identified, set up a press in Paris in 1501. His publications, about 120 in number, of which only one was in French, were mostly seientific.—His second son, 11011E1nus (1503-59), had a good classical train ing and on his father's death carried on the business. In 1531 his Thesaurus Linguw La time began to appear, and in 1539 he was appointed royal printer to Fran cis I. In 1551, after the King's death, he was forced to leave Paris for Geneva, where in the same year he published the Greek New Testa ment, with his verse divisions, which are still in use. His various editions of the Bible, in Ile brew, Greek, Latin, and French, several works of the Genevan reformers, a Dictionnaire fran eais-latin (1539-40 and 1549), French and Latin granunars, and a work on pedagov, the first book from his press (15261, are the more impor tant titles in a list of neary 400, all of which are marked by wonderful typographieal clearness and accuraey.—Bis son the younger (1528-98), after three years in his father's es tablishment in Geneva, in 1554 became independ ent. From his extensive travels he brought
back valuable collections of classical manu scripts. But his scholarly enthusiasm in launch ing the editions of Plato (1578), and the The saurus Lingille Grime (1572), which were so long the source of all Greek lexicons, out ran his business prudence. The great printing house was nearly ruined and his later works were printed by others. Thirty first editions of Greek authors constitute a claim to renown sec ond only to that won by the Thesourus.—His son PAULUS 1566-c.1627) succeeded him, edited Euripides (1602) and Sophocles (1603), and in 1602, implicated in the Escalade (see GENEVA ) , had to leave Geneva.—His eldest son, ANTO NI US ( 1592-1674), momentarily renewed the glories of the house of Paris, but event ually died in the ]lute] Dieu, old, blind, and poor. Consult: Renouard, Annoles do rim primerie des Etienne (2d ed., Paris, 1843) ; Feugere, Essai sur la vie et les ceuvres de Henri Etienne (ib., 1853). For Robert's work in connection with the Greek New Testament, Scrivener, In troduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (3d ed., London, 1883).