Imprimerie Protat Frères (Mâcon, printer/publisher, fl. c. 1850–1981)

Imprimerie Protat Frères was established in Mâcon around 1850 by Jules Marie Protat (1852–1906) and Georges Protat (1857–1923), who united the workshops of two older local printing houses, including the Bonard press active since the seventeenth century. The firm became renowned for the technical quality of its printing and for its exceptional range of specialized typefaces, including Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Sanskrit fonts, continuing the humanistic typographic traditions associated with Renaissance scholarship and learned publishing.

Under the direction of Émile Protat (1883–1961), son of Georges Protat, who assumed control of the business in 1906, the company achieved international recognition for complex scholarly and artistic printing undertaken for institutions such as the École des Chartes and the Bibliothèque nationale. Among its notable productions was the 1910s reprint of the Bibliotheca cluniacensis. The firm is also closely associated with the celebrated Bois Protat, considered the earliest surviving Western woodcut matrix, discovered in Burgundy in 1898 and acquired by Jules Protat, who recognized its historical importance and exhibited impressions from it at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. After more than 130 years of activity, Imprimerie Protat Frères ceased operations in 1981.