Yú Shìnán 虞世南 (558–638), zì Bóshī 伯施, posthumously Wényì 文懿, native of Yúyáo 餘姚 in Yuèzhōu 越州 (modern Zhèjiāng). CBDB id 22793. Born into a Wújùn 吳郡 family that produced several leading literary officials of the Six Dynasties — his elder brother was Yú Shìjī 虞世基, a powerful and ultimately ill-fated Suí minister — he served first the Chén 陳, then the Suí 隋 (as Mìshū láng 秘書郎 in the Mìshū shěng in Chángān), and finally the Táng under Tàizōng. He was one of the eighteen learned advisers in Tàizōng’s Wénxué guǎn 文學館, rose to Hóngwén guǎn xuéshì 弘文館學士 and Yínqīng guānglù dàfū 銀青光祿大夫, and was numbered among the emperor’s most intimate counselors. Tàizōng famously called him his “xíng mìshū” 行祕書 — “travelling library” — and pointed to five Yú virtues (déxíng 德行, zhōngzhí 忠直, bóxué 博學, cízǎo 詞藻, shūhàn 書翰). He was given a place in the Língyān gé 凌煙閣 gallery of Tàizōng’s twenty-four founding ministers (no. 20).
His major catalog contribution is the Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔 (KR3k0004), the earliest extant lèishū of the Táng tradition, compiled while he was Mìshū láng under the Suí (so the textual nucleus belongs to ca. 605–618). He was also one of the four leading regular-script (kǎishū) calligraphers of the early Táng — alongside Ōuyáng Xún 歐陽詢, Chǔ Suìliáng 褚遂良 and Xuē Jì 薛稷 — known as “Yútǐ” 虞體. His chief surviving stele is the Kǒngzǐ miàotáng bēi 孔子廟堂碑 (628). His biographies are in Jiù Táng shū 72 and Xīn Táng shū 102.