the first illustration displays digital reissue of monotype’s recutting [english monotype 218] of an arabesque unit. d.l. vervliet attributes the original to robert granjon;¹ however, the unit was also recut by fournier: which served as exemplar for monotype 218 is difficult to say. however, to my eye the monotype recutting looks closer to the original.
vervliet found first display in the office of london printer henry bynneman in 1569 [2nd illustration²], & notes: granjon founts had arrived around this time in london; exiled antwerp punchcutter françois guyot was residing in london & «is known to have provided types to printer John Day».³ vervliet gets his dates from oastler,⁴ but oastler only mentions that john day was among the first london printers to use guyot types, & françois’ son, gabriel guyot, «may have been instrumental» in bringing to london the guyot double pica italic. oastler further gives evidence that guyot, his family, & servants resided in john day’s house in 1568 (françois returned to antwerp in 1570, where he died shortly thereafter). vervliet dismisses guyot as the ornament’s designer on aesthetic grounds.⁵
as evidenced by his italics guyot was an admirer of granjon; indeed, harry carter views guyot’s types as «revolutionary in effect, bringing an archaic regional typography almost into line with Paris». ⁶ the oldest know type specimen by a founder who was not also a printer⁷ is confirmed by carter to show the types of françois guyot (the sheet survived for having been bound in with a set of elizabethan proclamations). arguably, guyot prepared the sheet as advertisement of his types to london printers:⁸ on it appears a solitary ornament, a vine leaf [3rd illustration⁹]. granjon cut many vine leaves—no surprise to find a version by guyot. i must, however, disagree with vervliet on one point: bynneman’s ornament i do not find particularly granjonesque, & the engraving of guyot’s vine leaf seems consistent with the hand that cut bynneman’s ornament.
it is conceivable that day held strikes of guyot ornaments—his property or that of guyot—to cast sorts for use in his office or to sell to other london printers, such as bynneman.
¹ hendrik d.l. vervliet, Granjon’s Flowers, oak knoll press, new castle (de), 2016, p99.
² section from the border on the title-page of: st anselm, Epistolæ duæ ... ad Nicholaum Papam primum de cęlibatu cleri., henry bynneman, london, 1569. with thanks to the british library for permitting my examination of their copy [G.11998. 1360.a.16.].
³ ibid. p95.
⁴ c.l. oastler, John Day | the Elizabethan Printer, oxford bibliographical society, ocaasional publication no. 10, oxford, 1975, pp. 34–5. reprint of oastler’s 1965 oxford thesis [based upon archival records].
⁵ op. cit., p95.
⁶ harry carter, «The Types of Christopher Plantin», The Library, volume s5-XI, issue 3, 1956, p177.
⁷ specimen of 1565—only known copy, folger shakespeare library.
⁸ op. cit., carter. a tentative attribution was given by a.f. johnson in t.b. reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, ed. a.f. johnson, faber&faber, london, 1952, pp. 91–2.
⁹ section of no. 1 in john dreyfus, Type Specimen Facsimiles, bowes & bowes and putnam, london, 1963.