Claude, an ingenious letter-founder, was born at Paris, where he began, in the year 1510, to found printing types free from all the remains of the Gothic, or, as it is generally called, the black letter, and brought them to such perfection that he had the glory of surpassing all who went before him, and of being scarcely excelled by any of his successors in that useful art. His types were prodigiously multiplied, both by the great number of matrices he struck, and the types formed in resemblance of his in all parts of Europe. Thus in Italy, Germany, England, and Holland, the booksellers, by way of recommending their books, distinguished the type by his name; and, in particular, the small Roman was by way of excellence known amongst the printers of these nations by the name of Garamond's small Roman. By the special command of Francis I. he founded three sizes of Greek types for the use of Robert Stephens, who by means of them printed all his beautiful editions of the New Testament, and other Greek authors. He died at Paris in 1561.