PETAU, Paul

Paul Petau (Paulus Petavius) was a French publisher and book collector. He was advisor of the Parliament of Paris from 1588 to 1614. He formed a valuable museum of Greek, Roman, and Gaulish antiquities, with a cabinetGLOSSARYA small, private room where works of art, valuables and curiosities were kept and contemplated at leisure; over time the term was used for the collections themselves. Renaissance cabinets played an important role in the development of museums and art galleries. of Frankish coins. His library was remarkable for ancient books and manuscripts..

His collection was sold by his son Alexandre (died 1672), and today it is conserved in the Biblioteca Vaticana and the Library of the University of Leiden. A thousand volumes on parchmentGLOSSARYWriting material made from the skins of sheep or calf, less frequently pig, goat,, and other animals; it has also been used for painting, and occasionally for printing and bookbinding. Pliny says that it ewas invented in the 2nd century BC in Pergamum; hence the name parchment from the Latin pergamena (of Pergamum). Skin had been used as a writng material before this, but the refined methods of cleaning and stretching involved in making parchment enabled booth sides of a leaf to be used, leading eventually to the supplanting of the manuscript roll by the bound book. Vellum is a fine kind of parchment made from delicate skins of young (sometimes stillborn) animals. Paper began to replace parchment from about the 14th century, but parchment is still used for certain kinds of documents, and the name is often applied to high-quality writng paper. were sold in his son's lifetime to Queen Christina of Sweden.