Barbou, a family of French printers, distinguished for the perfection of their work. Beginning with Jean Barbou, who printed at Lyons in 1539, they succeeded each other as prominent printers in the principal cities of Europe till 1808. Hugues, the son of Jean, established himself at Limoges, where he printed in 1580 a beautiful edition of Cicero's epistles to Atticus. In 1699 the widow of Claude, who carried on her husband's business at Paris, purchased of Fenelon's valet-de-chambre, who had stolen it from his master, the MS. of Tele-maque, and printed it as far as the 208th page, when all the copies were seized by the government for political reasons and destroyed. Jean Joseph lived in Paris in 1704, and was a printer and bookseller. He was succeeded in 1746 by Joseph Gerard. In 1743 the abbe Lenglet-Dufresnoy commenced the publication of a new and elegant edition of the classics to fill the place of that of the Elzevirs, then becoming rare. This project was continued by Joseph Gerard Barbou, who was succeeded by his nephew Hugues; and 77 volumes of the classics were printed in this form, including the works of most of the prominent Latin authors.

On the death of Hugues the business passed out of the hands of the family.