Robert Estienne, commonly called Stephanus in Latin, was a Parisian printer-scholar and later Genevan Protestant.
Setting: French humanism; later Genevan Reformed adherence.
Robert Estienne, commonly called Stephanus in Latin, was a Parisian printer-scholar and later Genevan Protestant. He issued four Greek New Testaments in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551. The 1550 folio supplied a celebrated text and an early printed critical apparatus; the 1551 edition introduced the verse-numbering system that became standard.
His record is bibliographical as much as biographical. Each edition, type setting, source statement, marginal variant, and relation to Erasmus and the Complutensian Polyglot must be kept distinct. The phrase editio regia belongs to the 1550 folio, not indiscriminately to every Stephanus edition.
Bibliological positions
His editorial work preserved and printed the Greek New Testament while recording variant evidence in the 1550 margins. It joins textual comparison to a stable public ecclesiastical text rather than replacing the text with an endlessly provisional apparatus.
Qualifications and disputes
Estienne was a printer and editor, not principally a systematic theologian. The exact manuscripts behind the 1550 sigla remain a specialized bibliographical question.
The number and identity of manuscripts collated, use of the Complutensian Polyglot, and the derivation of individual readings are debated.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Robert I Estienne — Biographical orientation
- PRDL search — Robert Estienne — Digital editions catalogue
Principal works
- Novum Testamentum Graece (Editio Regia) (1550); legacy
WRK-0015; EDT; Ready to link after authority review
Historical person network
People, doctrines, texts, and reported interactions
Relationship labels distinguish contact, refutation, later reporting, accusation, textual agreement, compatibility, and causation. A connection does not silently inherit the force of another connection.
Interaction chart
No reviewed graph relationships are attached yet.
- Record
- PER-3024
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-profile
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 2026-07-22 · Exact Day
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Recovered project data; bibliographic and source-level verification remains record-specific.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis; cited sources retain their stated rights.
- Known limitations
- Sourced orientation record. Education, dated offices, languages, confessional subscription, verified quotations, and independent review may remain incomplete.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Robert Estienne,” PER-3024, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas