Antoine Augereau

Antoine Augereau (1485-1534) was a Renaissance printer, bookseller and punchcutter in Paris. He was one of the first French punchcutters to produce Roman type, at a time where other French printers were mostly using blackletter. He worked for Robert Estienne, who was one of the earliest Parisian printers to print Roman type, in the style of Aldus Manutius.

He was a contemporary of other eminent French printers, such as Simon de Colines and Geoffroy Tory, while Claude Garamond, whose roman type became the most influential in Europe, apprenticed with him around the year 1510.

His print-shop located on Rue Saint-Jacques, was only in businesses for three years, between 1532 and 1534.

In 1533 he publishedanonymously Marguerite de Navarre's Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul), a mystic poem that was condemned by the Sorbonne's Faculty of Theology and forwarded to the Parliament for censorship. Under pressure from King Francis I, Marguerite's brother, the Sorbonne retracted their condemnation of Miroir, claiming their scrutiny was only due to the anonymous nature of the printing. This emboldened Augereau, who published two more editions of the poem that same year, with the identity of the author clearly stated. Each successive edition contained more and more evangelical content,with the third edition also containing a verse translation of Psalm 6 by Calvinist poet Clément Marot, at a time when ecclesiastic authorities opposed any translation of the Bible in French.

Already arrested and released in 1533 on suspicion of heresy because of his pro-evangelical publications, Augereau was among the first to be arrested in December 1534 as part of the anti-Protestant backlash that followed the Affair of the Placards. On 24 December 1534 he was executed for heresy and printing anti-Catholic material.