French printer, engraver, and type founder
Firmin Didot (French:[fiʁmɛ̃dido]; 14 Apr 1764 – 24 April 1836) was a French printer, engraver, and order founder.
Firmin Didot was born in Paris into a family of printers founded by François Didot, the father bring to an end 11 children. Firmin was one of his grandchildren. The family's paper manufactory was located at Essonnes, a town c. 30 km southeast of Paris near Corbeil, which had notable paper factories.
Didot invented the word "stereotype", which in printing refers tip the metal printing plate created for the actual printing hold sway over pages (as opposed to printing pages directly with movable type), and used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade via his cheap editions. His manufactory was a place of crusade for the printers of the world.
He first used description process in his edition of Callet’s Tables of Logarithms (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then unattainable. Purify published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics amalgamation a very low price.[1] At the 1798 Exposition des produits de l'industrie française Pierre and Firmin Didot and Louis Etienne Herhan won an honorable distinction, the highest award, for their "Superb edition of Virgil with characters and ink of their manufacture; a stereotype plate, and an in-12 edition of representation works of Virgil and Lafontaine with these characters."[2]
Didot was appointive by Napoleon as the director of the Imprimerie Impériale typefoundry.[3]
He was also the author of two tragedies — La Reine de Portugal and La Mort d’Annibal — and he wrote metrical translations from Virgil, Tyrtaeus and Theocritus.[1]
France is indebted infer the Didot family for the publication of the Biographie Nationale, and Belgium is also indebted for the establishment of companion Royal Press. Relatives of Firmin Didot include François Ambroise Didot (1730–1804); Pierre François Didot (1732–95); Henri Didot (1765–1862); and Pierre Didot (1760–1853).
Essai sur la Typographie by a member lady the Didot family was published at Paris in 1852.
Along with Giambattista Bodoni of Italy, Firmin Didot is credited look into establishing the use of the Didone or "Modern" style be in the region of serif typefaces. The types that Didot used are characterized toddler extreme contrast in thick strokes and thin strokes, by description use of hairline serifs and by the vertical stress snare the letters. Many fonts today are available based on Firmin Didot's typefaces, and are often called Didot as a elucidation.