Guillaume Rouillé, Latin Rovillium (c.1518 — 1589), was one of the most prominent humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 bookseller-printers in 16th-century Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

. He invented the pocket book format called the sextodecimo, printed with sixteen leaves to the folio sheet, half the size of the octavo

Octavo

Octavo to is a technical term describing the format of a book.Octavo may also refer to:* Octavo is a grimoire in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett...

 format, and published many works of history and poetry as well as medicine, in addition to his useful compilations and handbooks.

Though he was a Frenchman, Rouillé served his apprenticeship in the Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 printing-house of Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari

Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari

Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari was a 16th century Italian printer active in Venice. He was one of the first major publishers of literature in the vernacular Italian language.-Early life and career:...

, and retained his connections with Venice as a source of texts after his arrival in Lyon around 1543.

Among his works was the French translation by Barthélemy Aneau of Andrea Alciato

Andrea Alciato

Andrea Alciato , commonly known as Alciati , was an Italian jurist and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists.-Biography:...

's pioneering emblem book

Emblem book

Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

, which formed part of a major publishing venture in Lyons by the team of Guillaume Rouillé and his printer Macé Bonhomme, 1549, which extended to translations in Italian and Spanish Rouillé also published books of imprese by Paolo Giovio

Paolo Giovio

thumb|Paolo Giovio.thumb|Monument to Paolo Giovo by [[Francesco da Sangallo]], in [[San Lorenzo di Firenze|San Lorenzo]] Basilica, [[Florence]].Paolo Giovio was an Italian physician, historian and biographer, and prelate.He is chiefly known as the author of a celebrated work of...

 and Gabriele Simeoni. Another work of iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 was the useful compilation of portrait types of Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, Promptuarii iconum insigniorum à seculo hominum, subiectis eorum vitis, per compendium ex probatissimis autoribus desumptis (First and second parts, 1553, etc.) in which each medal

Medal

A medal, or medallion, is generally a circular object that has been sculpted, molded, cast, struck, stamped, or some way rendered with an insignia, portrait, or other artistic rendering. A medal may be awarded to a person or organization as a form of recognition for athletic, military, scientific,...

-like portrait head was followed by a brief biography. French editions followed, Promptuaire des Medalles des plus renommées personnes..., 1581, etc. His Sententiae omnes undiquaque selectissimae, 1555, compiled moral maxims from the works of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

.

On his title pages his mark was prominently displayed: an eagle displayed atop a globe on a pedestal, flanked by serpents with enknotted tails. His heirs continued the press into the 17th century.