On account of the worn state of these cuts it is impossible to say whether they are originals or copies. It is not impossible, however, that they were executed by Tory for the printer Nicole Paris, or rather for Jean Le Coq, whose mark he engraved also.[435]
VI. Not only at Paris and Troyes do we find woodcuts with the Lorraine cross; we find them also at Orléans, at Chartres, at Poitiers, and even at Lyon, although the last-named city had a most flourishing school of engraving of its own; witness the illustrations of the Bible after Holbein,[436] published by Jean Frellon, in 1547, and those of Salomon Bernard, published by the de Tournes after 1553. But the works executed by Tory for Simon de Colines, Robert Estienne, and the rest, had so spread his name abroad, that there was not a printer of taste in France who did not seek the honour of obtaining some work of our artist. In this way Jean de Tournes, first of the name, who was unquestionably one of the most famous printers of Lyon, had engraved by Tory, or by his widow, borders and pictures in considerable numbers; unfortunately we find very few of them signed, whether because Tory's mark was afterward removed from the others, or because he omitted to place it upon them, in accordance with the wish of Jean de Tournes; for in those days printers were very desirous to appropriate the engravings that they ordered, especially at Lyon, where, nominally at least, no other engraver was known than Salomon Bernard; moreover, it is well to note that that artist, none of whose work is signed, is known only because his name was afterward published by the printers, in the very interest of their publications.
However, I propose to give a list of the pieces signed with the Lorraine cross which I have seen in books published by the de Tournes, that is, by Jean I and Jean II, his son; for it is impossible, in default of any sort of a catalogue, for me to decide what ones are attributable to each of them. As a matter of fact, I should be justified in confining myself to the second, if he had not himself said that he used woodcuts belonging to his father. And, in truth, although we know of no books published by the latter with engravings, except his edition of Petrarch of 1545 (reprinted in 1547), and his book of Chiromancy and Physiognomy, also of 1545, octavo, everything seems to indicate that those marked with the Lorraine cross were made for Jean I, who died about 1550.