Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography

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Title: Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography
Author: Roberts, W. (William), 1862-1940
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.

*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography" ***

[Transcriber’s Note:

This text uses utf-8 (unicode) file encoding. If the apostrophes and
quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your
text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode
(UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. As a last
resort, use the latin-1 version of the file instead.

Where possible, text contained within illustrations of printers’
marks has been transcribed. The text is shown on separate lines,
corresponding to the original layout; captions--usually the printer’s
name--will appear on the same line as the word “Illustration”. Note
that the spelling given in the body text is often different from that
of the Mark as pictured. Within illustrations, expanded abbreviations
are shown in [brackets].

Typographical errors are listed at the end of the e-text. Capitalization
of the word “mark” or “Mark” is arbitrary in the original and has not
been changed. Misspellings or misprints within Marks are also never
changed, but the most obvious errors are noted.]

* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *

PRINTERS’ MARKS.

[Illustration:

Cum Priuilegio
Venetiis Impressum Anno M D V

Petrus Liechtensteyn]

Printers’ Marks

A Chapter in the History of
Typography by W. Roberts

Editor of “The Bookworm”

[Illustration:

GEORGE BELL & SONS]

London: George Bell & Sons, York Street,
Covent Garden, & New York. Mdcccxciij.

Chiswick Press: C. Whittingham And Co.,
Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.

T. B. BOLITHO, ESQ., M.P.,

This Volume Is Respectfully
Dedicated.

[Decoration]

PREFACE.

There are few phases of typography open to the charge of being
neglected. An unquestionable exception occurs, however, in relation to
Printers’ Marks. This subject is in many respects one of the most
interesting in connection with the early printers, who, using devices at
first purely as trade marks for the protection of their books against
the pirate, soon began to discern their ornamental value, and,
consequently, employed the best available artists to design them. Many
of these examples are of the greatest bibliographical and general
interest, as well as of considerable value in supplementing an important
class of illustrations to the printed books, and showing the origin of
several typical classes of Book-plates (Ex-Libris). The present Handbook
has been written with a view to supplying a readable but accurate
account of this neglected chapter in the history of art and
bibliography; and it appeals with equal force to the artist or
collector. Only one book on the subject, Berjeau’s “Early Dutch, German,
and English Printers’ Marks,” has appeared in this country, and this,
besides being out of print and expensive, is destitute of descriptive
letterpress. The principle which determined the selection of the
illustrations is of a threefold character: first, the importance of the
printer; secondly, the artistic value or interest of the Mark itself;
and thirdly, the geographical importance of the city or town in which
the Mark first appeared.

Since the text of this book was printed, however, two additions have
been made to the literature of its subject: Dr. Paul Kristeller’s “Die
Italienischen Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen, bis 1525,” a very
handsome work, worthy to rank with the “Elsässische Büchermarken bis
Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts” of Herr Paul Heitz and Dr. Karl A. Barack
(to whom I am indebted for much valuable information as well as for
nearly thirty illustrations in the chapter on German Printers’ Marks);
and Mr. Alfred Pollard’s “Early Illustrated Books,” an admirable volume
which, however, only deals incidentally with the Printer’s Mark as a
side issue in the history of the decoration and illustration of books in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Mr. Pollard reproduces seven
blocks from Dr. Kristeller’s monograph on the Devices of the Italian
Printers. In reference to the statement on p. 116 of this volume that
the Mark of Bade “is the earliest picture of a printing press,” Mr.
Pollard refers to an unique copy of an edition of the “Danse Macabre”
printed anonymously at Lyons in February, 1499, eight years earlier,
which contains cuts of the shops of a printer and a bookseller.

That this volume has considerably exceeded its intended limit must be my
excuse for not including, with a very few exceptions, any modern
examples from the Continent. Nearly every French printer and publisher
of any note indulges in the luxury of a Mark of some sort, and an
interesting volume might be written concerning modern continental
examples. The practice of using a Printer’s Mark is an extremely
commendable one, not merely as a relic of antiquity, but from an
æsthetic point of view. Nearly every tradesman of importance in this
country has some sort of trade mark; but most printers agree in
regarding it as a wholly unnecessary superfluity. As the few exceptions
indicated in the last chapter prove that the fashion has an artistic as
well as a utilitarian side, I hope that it will again become more
general as time goes on.

As regards my authorities: I have freely availed myself of nearly all
the works named in the “Bibliography” at the end, besides such
invaluable works as Brunet’s “Manual,” Mr. Quaritch’s Catalogues, and
the monographs on the various printers, Plantin, Elzevir, Aldus, and the
rest. From Messrs. Dickson and Edmonds’ “Annals of Scottish Printing”
I have obtained not only some useful information regarding the Printer’s
Mark in Scotland, but, through the courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan and
Bowes of Cambridge, the loan of several blocks from the foregoing work,
as well as that of John Siberch, the first Cambridge printer. I have
also to thank M. Martinus Nijhoff, of the Hague, Herr Karl
W. Hiersemann, of Leipzig, Herr J. H. Ed. Heitz, Strassburg, Mr. Elliot
Stock, Mr. Robert Hilton, Editor of the “British Printer,” and the
Editor of the “American Bookmaker,” for the loan either of blocks or of
original examples of Printers’ Marks; and Mr. C. T. Jacobi for several
useful works on typography. Mr. G. P. Johnston, of Edinburgh, kindly
lent me the reduced facsimile on p. 252, which arrived too late to be
included in its proper place. The publishers whose Marks are included in
the chapter on “Modern Examples” are also thanked for the courtesy and
readiness with which they placed electros at my disposal.

The original idea of this book is due to my friend, Mr. Gleeson White,
the general editor of the series in which it appears; but my thanks are
especially due to Mr. G. R. Dennis for the great care with which he has
gone through the whole work.

W. R.

86, Grosvenor Road, S.W.,
_October_, 1893.

[Decoration]

CONTENTS.

Page

PREFACE vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
INTRODUCTION 1
SOME GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE PRINTER’S MARK 40
THE PRINTER’S MARK IN ENGLAND 52
SOME FRENCH PRINTERS’ MARKS 100
PRINTERS’ MARKS OF GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND 139
SOME DUTCH AND FLEMISH PRINTERS’ MARKS 178
PRINTERS’ MARKS IN ITALY AND SPAIN 209
SOME MODERN EXAMPLES 233
BIBLIOGRAPHY 253
INDEX 255

[Decoration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page

Liechtenstein, Petrus. _Frontispiece_
Bell, George, and Sons. _Title-page_
Andlau, G. U. Von 1
Couteau, Gillet 4
Du Pré, Galliot 5
Lecoq, Jehan 7
Petit and Kerver 9
Du Puys, Jacques 11
Pavier, T. 12
Janot, Denys 15
Faques, William 16
Steels, J. 19
Vérard, Antoine 21
Plate of thirty Marks
used chiefly by the Italian Printers 25
Chaudière, Guillaume 28
Roffet, Jacques 30
Tournes, Jean de 31
Breuille, Mathurin 33
Snellaert, C. 35
Rastell, John 37
Leeu, Gerard 39, 185
Fust and Schoeffer 40
Froben, J. 43
Cratander’s Mark (attributed to Holbein) 45
Cox, T. 46
Dulssecker, Johann Reinhold 47, 153, 154
Beck, Reinhard 50, 143, 144
Goltz, Hubert 51
Lynne, Walter 52
Caxton, William 55
St. Albans Printer, The 56
De Worde, Wynkyn 58
Pynson, R. 59, 60
Notary, Julian 61
Fawkes, R. 63
Treveris, Peter 64
Scott, John 65
Copland, Robert 66, 68
Wyer, Robert 69
Hester, Andrew 70
Berthelet, Thomas 71
Byddell, John 72
Vautrollier, Thomas 74
Grafton, Richard 75
Middleton, William 76
Wolfe, John 78
Day, John 79
Arbuthnot, A. 81
Singleton, Hugh 83
Wight, John 84
Hall, Rowland 85
Bynneman, Henry 86
Woodcock, Thomas 87
Jaggard, William 88
Kingston, Felix 89
Creede, Thomas 90
Walthoe, John 91
Ware, R. 92
Scolar, John 93
Siberch, John 95
Myllar, Andro 96
Chepman, Walter 97
Davidson, Thomas 98
Charteris, H. 99
Estienne, F. 100
Rembolt, B. 102
Vostre, Simon 103
Regnault, François 104
Regnault, Pierre 105
Marchant, Guy 106
De Marnef 107
Du Pré, J. 108
Le Rouge, Pierre 109
Le Noir, Philippe 110
Kerver, Thielman 111
Pigouchet, Philippe 113
Petit, Jehan 114
Bade, J. 115
Hardouyn, Gillet 116
Tory, Geoffrey 117
De Colines, Simon 119
Estienne, Robert 120, 121
Vidoue, P. 124
Cyaneus, Louis 125
Wéchel, André 126
Wéchel, Chrestien 127
Nivelle, Sébastien 128
Merlin, Desboys and Nivelle 130
Topie, M. 131
Treschel, J. 132
Dolet, E. 133
Hughes de la Porte and A. Vincent 134
Gryphe, Sébastien 135
Colomies, Jacques 136
Morin, M. 137
Le Chandelier, Pierre 138
Thanner, Jacobi 139
Grüninger, Johann 140
Schott, Martin 141
Knoblouch, Johann 142
Köpfel, Wolfgang 145, 146
Müller, Craft (Crato Mylius) 147, 149
Biener, Matthias (Apiarius) 148
Rihel, Theodosius;
Rihel, Josias (und Deren Erben) 150
Zetzner, Lazarus 151
Berger, Thiebold 151
Scher, Conrad 152
Hauth, David 152
Anshelm, Thomas 155
Kobian, Valentin 156
Hoernen, A. Ther 157
Bumgart, Herman 158
Koelhoff, Johann 160
Cæsar, Nicholas 161
Soter, J. 162
Birckmann, Arnold 163
Oglin, Erhard 164
Pfortzheim, Jacobus de 165
Henricpetri 166
Endter’s, Wilhelm Moritz, Daughter 167
Weissenburger, J. 168
Lotter, Melchior 169
Schumann, V. 170
Baumgarten, Conrad 171
Feyrabend, J. 172
Guerbin, L. 172
Stadelberger, Jacob 173
Girard, Jehan 174
Rivery, J. 174
Froschover, C. 175
Brylinger, N. 176
Le Preux, F. 177
Veldener, J. 178
Johann of Westphalia 179
Martens, Theodoric 180
Mansion, Colard 181
The Brothers of Common Life 182
Paffraej, Albertus 183
Van der Meer, Jacob Jacobzoon 186
Van der Goes, Mathias 187
Van den Dorp, R. 188
Back, Godefroy 188, 190
Cæsaris, A. 191
Hillenius, Michael 192
Bellaert, J. 193
Henrici, H. 194
Destresius, Jodocus 195
Van der Noot, Thomas 196
Grapheus, J. 197
Van den Keere, Henri 198
Waesberghe, J. 199
Hamont, Michel de 200
Velpius, Rutger 201
Hovii, J. M. 202
Plantin, C. 203, 204
Elzevir Sage, The 206
Elzevir Sphere, The 207
Janssens, Guislain 208
Fritag, A. 209
Riessinger, Sixtus 210
Besicken, J. 211
Martens, Thierry 211
Ratdolt, Erhardus 212
Scotto, Ottaviano 214
Sessa, Melchior 216
Meietos, P. and A. 217
Aldine Anchor, The First 218
Torresano, Andrea 219
Aldine Anchor, 1502-15 220
„ „ 1546-54 221
„ „ 1555-74 222
„ „ 1575-81 223
Giunta, P. 224
Giunta, L. 225
Giunta, F. de 225
Sabio, The Brothers 226
Legnano, Gian Giacomo di 227
Rizzardi, Giammaria 228
Rosembach, Juan 230
Fernandex, V. 231
Kalliergos, Zacharias 232
Legnano, J. A. de 232
Vingle, J. de, of Picardy 232
Hugunt, M. 232
Longman and Co. 233, 237
Stationers’ Company, The 233
„ „ „ 234
Rivingtons, The 235
Clarendon Press, The 238
Pickering, William 239
Pickering, Basil Montagu 239
Chiswick Press 240, 241
Chatto and Windus 243
Nutt, David 243
Cassell and Co. 243
Macmillan and Co. 243
Unwin, T. Fisher 243, 245
Lawrence and Bullen 243
Kegan Paul and Co. 243
Clark, R. and R. 244
Constable, T. and A. 246
Morris, William 247, 248
Appleton, D., and Co. 250
Cushing, J. S., and Co. 250
Harper Brothers 250
Lockwood, H., and Co. 250
Berwick and Smith 251
De Vinne, Theodore L., and Co. 251
Lippincott, J. B., Co. 251
Nijhoff, M. 251
Norton, William 252
Bell, George, and Sons 261

[Decoration]

PRINTERS’ MARKS.

INTRODUCTION.

Shorn of all the romance and glamour which seem inevitably to surround
every early phase of typographic art, a Printer’s Device may be
described as nothing more or less than a trade mark. It is usually a
sufficient proof that the book in which it occurs is the work of a
particular craftsman. Its origin is essentially unromantic, and its
employment, in the earlier stages of its history at all events, was
merely an attempt to prevent the inevitable pirate from reaping where he
had not sown. At one time a copy, or more correctly a forgery, of a
Printer’s Mark could be detected with comparative ease, even if the body
of the book had all the appearance of genuineness.

[Illustration: G. U. VON ANDLAU.]

This self-protection was necessary on many grounds. First of all, the
privileges of impression which were granted by kings, princes, and
supreme pontiffs, were usually obtained only by circuitous routes and
after the expenditure of much time and money. Moreover, the counterfeit
book was rarely either typographically or textually correct, and was
more often than not abridged and mutilated almost beyond recognition, to
the serious detriment of the printer whose name appeared on the
title-page. Places as well as individualities suffered, for very many
books were sold as printed in Venice, without having the least claim to
that distinction. The Lyons printers were most unblushing sinners in
this respect, and Renouard cites a Memorial drawn up by Aldus himself on
the subject, and published at Venice in 1503.

But apart from the foregoing reasons, it must be remembered that many of
the earliest monuments of typographic art appeared not only without the
name of the printer but also without that of the locality in which they
were printed. Although in such cases various extraneous circumstances
have enabled bibliographers to “place” these books, the Mark of the
printer has almost invariably been the chief aid in this direction. The
Psalter of 1457 is the first book which has the name of the place where
it was printed, besides that of the printers as well as the date of the
year in which it was executed. But for a long time after that date books
appeared without one or the other of these attributes, and sometimes
without either, so that the importance of the Printer’s Mark holds good.

A very natural question now suggests itself, “Who invented these Marks?”
Laire, “Index Librorum” (Sæc. xv.), ii. 146, in speaking of a Greek
Psalter says: “_Habet signaturas, registrum ac custodes, sed non
numerantur folia. Litteræ principales ligno incisæ sunt, sicut et in
principio cujuslibet psalmi viticulæ quæ gallicé _vignettes_
appellantur, quarum usum primus excogitavit Aldus._” The volume here
described was printed about 1495, and the invention therefore has been
very generally attributed to Aldus. That this is not so will be shown in
the next chapter. We shall confine ourselves for the present to some of
the various points which appear to be material to a proper understanding
of the subject.

One of the most important and interesting phases in connection with
Printers’ Marks is undoubtedly the _motif_ of the pictorial
embellishment. Both the precise origin and the object of many Marks are
now lost to us, and many others are only explained after a thorough
study of the life of the particular printer or the nature of the books
which he generally printed or published. The majority, however, carry
their own _prima facie_ explanations. The number of “punning” devices is
very large, and nearly every one has a character peculiarly its own.
Their antiquity is proved by the fact that before the beginning of the
fifteenth century, a picture of St. Anthony was boldly, not to say
irreverently, used by Antoine Caillaut, Paris. A long series of punning
devices occur in the books printed by or for the fifteenth century
publishers, one of the most striking and successful is that of Michel le
Noir, whose shield carries his initials, surmounted by the head of a
negress and sometimes supported by canting figures in full. This Mark,
with variations, was also employed by Philippe and Guillaume le Noir,
the work of the three men covering a period of nearly 100 years. The
device of Gilles or Gillet Couteau, Paris, 1492, is apparently a double
pun, first on his Christian name, the transition from which to _œillet_
being easy and explaining the presence of a pink in flower, and secondly
on his surname by the three open knives, in one of which the end of the
blade is broken. It was almost inevitable that both Denis Roce or Ross,
a Paris bookseller, 1490, and Germain Rose, of Lyons, 1538, should
employ a rose in their marks, and this they did, one of the latter’s
examples having a dolphin twining around the stem. Jacques and Estienne
Maillet, whose works at Lyons extended from the last eleven years of the
fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, give in the centre of
their shield a picture of a mallet.

[Illustration: GILLET COUTEAU.

Du grant aux petis
Gillet couteau]

[Illustration: GALLIOT DU PRÉ.

VOGVE LA GVALLEE
GALLIOT DV PRE]

One of the boldest of the early sixteenth century examples is that
employed by Galliot Du Pré, Paris, and in this we have a picture of a
galley propelled with the aid of sails and oars, and with the motto
“Vogue la gualee.” This device (with several variations) was used by
both father and son, and possesses an interest beyond the subject of
Printers’ Marks, for it gives us a very clear idea of the different
boats employed during the first three quarters of the sixteenth century.
Another striking Mark of about the same time and covering as nearly as
possible the same period, was that of the family De La Porte. The
earlier example used in Paris about 1508 was a simple doorway; but the
elder Hugues de la Porte, Lyons, and the successors of Aymon De La Porte
of the same place, used several exceedingly bold designs in which Samson
is represented carrying away the gates of Gaza, the motto on one door or
gate being “libertatem meam,” and on the other “mecum porto.” The two
printers of the same name, Jehan Lecoq, who were practising the art
continuously during nearly the whole of the sixteenth century at Troyes,
employed a Mark on the shield of which appears the figure of a cock;
whilst an equally appropriate if much more ugly design, was employed by
the eminent Lyons family of Sébastien Gryphe or Gryphius: he had at
least eight “griffin” Marks, which differed slightly from one another.
François Gryphe, who worked in Paris, had one Mark which was original to
the extent of the griffin being supported by a tortoise. J. Du Moulin,
Rouen, employed a little picture of a windmill on his Mark, as did
Scotland’s first printer, Andro Myllar; but Jehan Petit, a prolific
fifteenth century printer of Paris, confined his punning to the words
“Petit à Petit,” as is seen in the reduced facsimile title, given on
p. 9, of a book printed by him for T. Kerver. Mathias Apiarius,
Strassburg, used at least two Marks expressing the same idea, namely,
a bear discovering a bee’s nest in the hollow of a tree--an obvious pun
on his surname. The latter part of the sixteenth century is not nearly
so fruitful in really good or striking devices. Guillaume Bichon, Paris,
employed a realistic picture of a lap-dog (in allusion to his surname)
chasing a hare, with the motto “Nunc fugiens, olim pugnabo”; and equally
realistic in another way is the Mark of P. Chandelier, Caen, in which
effective use is made of a candle-stick with seven holders, the motto
being “Lucernis fideliter ministro.” Antoine Tardif, Lyons, employed the
Aldine anchor and dolphin, and also a motto, “Festina tarde,” which is
identical in meaning, if not in the exact words, of that of Aldus.
Guillaume De La Rivière, Arras, used a charmingly vivid little scene of
a winding river, with the motto “Madenta flumine valles”; and it is not
difficult to distinguish the appropriateness of the sprig of barley in
the Mark of Hugues Barbon, Limoges. The Mark of Jacques Du Puys, Paris,
was possibly suggested by the word _puits_ (or well), and of which Puys
is perhaps only a form: the picture at all events is a representation of
Christ at the well. In the case of Adam Du Mont, Orange, the christian
name, is “taken off” in a picture of Adam and Eve at the tree of
forbidden fruit; and exactly the same idea occurs with equal
appropriateness in the Mark of N. Eve, Paris, the sign of whose shop was
Adam and Eve. Michel Jove naturally went to profane history for the
subject of his Mark, and with a considerable amount of success.

[Illustration: JEHAN LECOQ.

Jehan Lecoq]

Among the numerous other examples with mottoes derived from sacred
history, special mention, as showing the connection between the sign of
the shop and its incorporation in the Mark, may be made to the following
printers of Paris: D. De La Noue, who not only had “Jesus” as the sign
of his shop, but also as his Mark; J. Gueffier had the “Amateur Divin”
as his sign, and an allegorical interpretation of the device, “Fert
tacitus, vivit, vincit divinus amator,” as a Mark; Guillaume Julian, or
Julien, had “Amitie” as his sign, and a personification of this (Typus
Amicitiæ) as his Mark, with the motto “Nil Deus hac nobis majus
concessit in usus”; Abel L’Angelier (and his widow after his death)
adopted the sacrifice of Abel as the subject of his Sign and Mark, with
the motto “Sacrum pinque dabo nec macrum sacrificabo”; and the motto of
both the first and the second Michel Sonnius was “Si Deus pro nobis,
quis contra nos?”

[Illustration: PETIT AND KERVER.

PETIT A PETIT

Le second Volu

me Des Cronicques & Annalles de France, augmentées
en la fin dudit volume daucuns faictz dignes de memoire
des feux roys Charles huytiesme. Loys douziesme & fra[n]-
cois premier du nom Iusques en Lan Mil cinq cens vingt
Nouuellement imprime a Paris.

PETIT PETIT
T K
THIELMAN KERVER
I P
PETIT]

A few punning devices occur among the early English printers, but they
are not always clever or pictorially successful. The earliest example is
that of Richard Grafton, whose pretty device represents a tun with a
grafted tree growing through it, the motto, “Suscipite insertum verbum,”
being taken from the Epistle to St. James (i., verse 21). John Day’s
device, with the motto “Arise! for it is day,” is generally supposed to
be an allusion to the Reformation as well as a pun on his name;
tradition has it, however, that Day was accustomed to awake his
apprentices, when they had prolonged their slumbers beyond the usual
hour, by the wholesome application of a scourge and the summons “Arise!
for it is day.” We may also mention the devices of Hugh Singleton,
a single tun; and of W. Middleton, a tun with the letter W at bottom and
M in the centre of the tun; of T. Pavier, in which, appropriately
enough, we have a pavior paving the streets of a town, and surrounded by
the motto “Thou shalt labour till thou return to dust.” Thomas Woodcock
employed a device of a cock on a stake, piled as for a Roman funeral,
with the motto “Cantabo Iehovæ quia benefecit”; Andrew Lawrence, a St.
Andrew cross.

[Illustration: JACQUES DU PUYS.]

Although not in any sense of a “punning” nature, the employment of a
printing press as a Mark may conveniently be here referred to. It was
first used in this manner, and in more than one form, by Josse Bade, or
Badius, an eminent printer of the first thirty-five years of the
sixteenth century, and to whom full reference will be found in the
chapter on French Marks. A Flemish printer, Pierre César, Ghent, 1516,
was apparently the next to employ this device; then came Jehan Baudouyn,
Rennes, 1524; Eloy Gibier, Orleans, 1556; Jean Le Preux, Paris and
Switzerland, 1561; Enguilbert (II.) De Marnef and the Bouchets brothers,
Poitiers, 1567; and, later than all, L. Cloquemin, Lyons, 1579.

[Illustration: T. PAVIER.

THOU SHALT LABOUR TILL THOU RETURN TO DUST]

Next to the section of “punning” devices, perhaps the most entertaining
is that which deals with the question of mottoes. These are derived from
an infinite variety of sources, not infrequently from the fertile brains
of the printers themselves. Their application is not always clear, but
they are nearly always indicative of the virility which characterized
the old printers. It is neither desirable nor possible to exhaust this
somewhat intricate phase of the subject, but it will be necessary to
quote a few representative examples. Occasionally we get a snatch of
verse, as in the case of Michel Le Noir, whose motto runs thus:

“C’est mon désir
De Dieu servir
Pour acquérir
Son doux plaisir.”

Also in the instance of another early printer, Gilles De Gourmont, who
chants--

“Tost ou tard
Pres ou loing
A le Fort
Du feble besoing.”

Perhaps the greatest number of all are those in which the printer
proclaims his faith to God and his loyalty to his king. One of the early
Paris printers enjoins us--in verse--not only to honour the king and the
court, but claims our salutations for the University; and almost
precisely the same sentiment finds expression in the Mark of
J. Alexandre, another early printer of Paris. Robinet or Robert Macé,
Rouen, proclaims “Ung dieu, ung roy, ung foy, ung loy,” and the same
idea expressed in identical words is not uncommonly met with in
Printers’ Marks. Of a more definitely religious nature are those, for
example, of P. de Sartières, Bourges, “Tout se passe fors dieu”; of
J. Lambert, “A espoir en dieu”; of Prigent Calvarin, “Deum time,
pauperes sustine, finem respice”; and several from the Psalms, such as
that of C. Nourry, called Le Prince, “Cor contritum et humiliatum deus
non despicies”; of P. De Saincte-Lucie, also called Le Prince, “Oculi
mei semper ad dominum”; and of J. Temporal (all three Lyons printers),
“Tangit montes et fumigant,” in which the design is quite in keeping
with the motto; in one case at least, S. Nivelle, one of the
commandments is made use of, “Honora patrem tuum, et matrem tuam, ut sis
longævus super terram.” Here, too, we may include the mottoes of
B. Rigaud, “A foy entiere cœur volant”; S. De Colines, “Eripiam et
glorificabo eum”; and of Benoist Bounyn, Lyons, “Labores manum tuarum
quia manducabis beatus es et bene tibi erit.” Whilst as a few
illustrations of a general character we may quote Geoffrey Tory’s
exceedingly brief “Non plus,” which was contemporaneously used also by
Olivier Mallard; J. Longis, “Nihil in charitate violentia”; Denys Janot,
“Tout par amour, amour par tout, par tout amour, en tout bien”; the
French rendering of a very old proverb in the mottoes of B. Aubri and
D. Roce, “A l’aventure tout vient a point qui peut attendre”; J. Bignon,
“Repos sans fin, sans fin repos”; the motto used conjointly by
M. Fézandat and R. Granjon, “Ne la mort, ne le venin”; and the motto of
Etienne Dolet, “Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo, atque perfolio.”
Among the mottoes of early English printers, the most notable, partly
for its dual source, and as one of our earliest examples, is that of
William Faques; one sentence, “Melius est modicum justo super divitias
peccatorum multas,” is taken from Psalm xxxvii. verse 16; and the
second, “Melior est patiens viro forti, et qui dominat,” comes from
Proverbs xvi., verse 32. The motto of Richard Grafton has already been
quoted; that of John Reynes was “Redemptoris mundi arma”; and John
Wolfe, “Vbique floret.”

[Illustration: DENYS JANOT.

PARTOVT AMOVR
AMOR DEI OMNIA VINCIT
AMOVR PARTOVT
TOVT PAR AMOVR.
DENIS IANOT.
EN TOVT BIEN.]

[Illustration: WILLIAM FAQUES.

Melius est modicum iusto super divitias p[ecca]torum multas.
MELIOR EST PATIENS VIRO FORTI ET QVI DOMINAT
Guillam.]

The employment of mottoes in Greek and Hebrew characters is a not
unimportant feature in the earlier examples of Printers’ Marks, but it
must suffice us here to indicate a few of the leading printers who used
either one or the other, and sometimes both. B. Rembolt was one of the
earliest to incorporate a Greek phrase; De Salenson, Ghent, had a
Greco-Latin motto on an open bible, which is the _pièce de resistance_
of a pretty Mark, a similar idea occurring in the totally different
Marks of the brothers Treschel, Lyons; another Lyons firm of printers,
the brothers Huguetan, employed a Greek motto, and a phrase, also in
Greek characters, occurs in one of the Marks of Peter Vidoue. The more
notable Marks which contain Hebrew characters, which generally signify
Jehovah, are those of Joannes Knoblouchus, or Knoblouch, Strassburg, in
which we have not only Hebrew, but upper and lower case Greek, and a
Latin quotation--“Verum, quum latebris delituit diu, emergit”; and of
Wolfius Cæphalæus, also of Strassburg; and here again we have the Mark
environed by quotations in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. In a few instances
we have the unlucky letter of the Greek alphabet--_theta_--forming a
Mark with considerable originality, as in that of Guillaume Morel, where
this symbol of death is surrounded by two dragon serpents representing
immortality. The _theta_ was also employed by Etienne Prevosteau.

The subject of the sphere in Printers’ Marks might profitably occupy a
good deal of space in discussing. It is generally considered to be not
only the peculiar property of the Elzevirs, but that books possessing it
without having one or other of the real or assumed imprints of this
celebrated family of printers are impudent frauds. But as a matter of
fact, it was used by at least half-a-dozen printers many years before
the Elzevirs started printing. For example, it was employed during the
last decade of the fifteenth century by Gilles Hardouyn, and early in
the sixteenth by Huguetan brothers at Lyons, by P. Sergent and
L. Grandin at Paris, by J. Steels, or Steelsius of Antwerp, and
P. Lichtenstein of Venice. In these instances, however, it is endowed,
so to speak, with accessories. In the earliest Mark it plays only an
incidental part, but in the Huguetan example it forms the device itself:
it is held by a hand and is encircled by a ring on which the owner of
the hand is evidently trying to balance a ball; there is a Greek motto.
In a later and slightly different design of the same family, the motto
is altered in position, and is in Latin: “Vniversitas rerum, vt Pvlis,
in manv Iehovae.” Each of the two Paris examples is remarkable in its
peculiar way. In Grandin’s two Marks the same allegorical idea prevails,
viz., one person seizing a complete sphere from an angel out of the
clouds, apparently to exchange it for the broken one held by a second
person: in the cruder of the two examples of these there is a quotation
from the 117th Psalm. In Sergent’s bold and vigorous Mark, the sphere,
which incloses a figure of the crucified Christ, is fixed into the top
of a dead trunk of a tree. It may also be mentioned that this device was
frequently used by printers during the middle and latter part of the
seventeenth century in this country--it appears, for example, on several
books printed by R. Bentley, London, during that period. The sphere as
an Elzevir Mark will be referred to in the chapter dealing with Dutch
examples.

[Illustration: J. STEELS.

IO. STEELSIVS
Concordia res paruę crescunt.]

An element which may be generically termed religious plays no
unimportant part in this subject. It will not be necessary to enter
deeply into the motives which induced so many of the old printers and
booksellers to select either their devices or the illustrations of their
Marks from biblical sources; and it must suffice to say that, if the
object is frequently hidden to us to-day, the fact of the extent of
their employment cannot be controverted. The incident of the Brazen
Serpent (Numbers xxi.) was a very popular subject. One of the earliest
to use it was Conrad Neobar, Paris, 1538; it was adopted by Reginald
Wolfe, who commenced printing in this country about 1543, and its
possession was considered of sufficient importance to merit special
mention among the goods bequeathed by his widow to her son Robert. It
was also the Mark of Wolfe’s contemporaries, Martin Le Jeune, Paris,
Jean Bien-Né, of the same city, and of Jean Crespin, Geneva, the
last-named using it in several sizes, in which the foot of the cross is
“continued” into an anchor. Apart from crosses in an infinite variety of
forms, and to which reference will presently be made, by far the most
popular form of religious devices consisted of what may, for convenience
sake, be termed angelic. Pictorially they are nearly always failures,
and often ludicrously so. The same indeed might be said of the work of
most artists who have essayed the impossible in this direction. An
extraordinary solemnity of countenance, a painful sameness and extreme
ugliness, are the three dominant features of the angels of the Printers’
Mark. The subject offers but little scope for an artist’s ingenuity it
is true, and it is only in a very few exceptions that a tolerable
example presents itself. Their most frequent occurrence is in supporting
a shield with the national emblem of France, and in at least one
instance--that of André Bocard, Paris,--with the emblems of the city and
the University of Paris. This idea, without the two latter emblems,
occurs in the devices of Jehan Trepperel, Anthoine Denidel, and
J. Bouyer and G. Bouchet (who adopted it conjointly), who were printing
or selling books in Paris during the last decade of the fifteenth
century; whilst in the provinces in that period it was employed by
Jacques Le Forestier, at Rouen; and by Jehan De Gourmont, Paris,
J. Besson, Lyons, and J. Bouchet at Poitiers, early in the following
century. The angels nearly always occur in couples, as in the case of
Antoine Vérard, one of the earliest printers to adopt this form; but a
few exceptions may be mentioned where only one appears, namely, in the
Mark of Estienne Baland, Lyons (1515), in which an angel is represented
as confounding Balaam’s ass; and in that of Vincent Portunaris, of the
same place and of about the same time, in which an angel figures holding
an open book; in the four employed by G. Silvius, an Antwerp printer
(1562), in three of which the figure is also holding a book; in the
elaborate Mark of Philip Du Pré, Paris, 1595, and in the exceeding rough
Mark of Jannot de Campis, of Lyons, 1505. Curiously enough, the subject
of Christ on the cross was very rarely employed, an exception occurring
in the case of Schäffeler, of Constance, or Bodensee, Bavaria, 1505. The
same centre-piece, without the cross, was employed by Jehan Frellon,
Paris, 1508, and evidently copied by Jehan Burges, the younger, at
Rouen, 1521, whilst that of Guillaume Du Puy, Paris, 1504, has already
been referred to. The Virgin Mary occurs occasionally, the more notable
examples being the Marks of Guillaume Anabat, Paris, 1505-10, really a
careful piece of work; and the elder G. Ryverd, Paris, 1516, and in each
case with the infant Jesus. St. Christopher is a subject one sometimes
meets with in Printers’ Marks: in that of Gervais Chevallon, Paris,
1538, it however plays a comparatively subordinate part, and its merits
were only fully recognized by the Grosii, of Leipzig, who nearly always
used it for about two centuries, 1525-1732; the example bearing the last
date is by far one of the most absurd of its kind--the cowled monk with
a modern lantern lighting St. Christopher on his way through the river
is a choice piece of incongruity. Another phase of the religious element
capable of considerable expansion is that in relation to the part played
in Marks by saints and priests generally. Sometimes these are found
together with an effect not at all happy, notably the two Marks of Jehan
Olivier, Paris, 1518, which, with Jesus Christ on one side, a Pope on
the other, and an olive tree, are sufficiently crude to present an
appearance which seems to-day almost blasphemous. The last of the
several religious phases of Printers’ Marks to which we shall allude is
at the same time the most elaborate and complicated. We refer to that of
the Cross. The subject is sufficiently wide to occupy of itself a small
volume, but even after the most careful investigation, there are many
points which will for ever remain in the region of doubt and obscurity.
Tradition is proverbially difficult to eradicate; and all the glamour
which surrounds the history of the Cross, and which found expression in,
among other popular books, the “Legenda Aurea,” maintained all its
pristine force and attractiveness down to the end of the sixteenth
century. The invention of printing and the gradual enlightenment of
mankind did much in reducing these legends into their proper place; but
the process was gradual, and whatever may have been their private
opinions, the old printers found it discreet to fall into line with the
established order of things. Indeed, the religious sentiment was perhaps
never so alive as at the time of the invention of printing, in proof of
which some of the earliest and most magnificent typographical monuments
may be cited,--the Gutenberg Bible, the Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer,
for example. The accompanying plate will give the reader a faint idea of
the extraordinary variety of crosses to be found on Printers’ Marks used
chiefly by the Italian printers.

[Illustration: ANTOINE VÉRARD.

IHS

PO[UR] PROVOCQVER TA GRĀT MISERI
CORDE DE TOVS PECHEVRS FAIRE GRACE ET PARDON
ANTHOINE VER[A]D HVMBLEMĒT
TE RECORDE CE QVIL A IL TIENT DE TOI PAR·DON

AR]

M. Paul Delalain has touched upon this exceedingly abstract phase of
Printers’ Marks in the third _fascicule_ of his “Inventaire des Marques
d’Imprimeurs,” without, as he himself admits, arriving at any very
definite conclusion. The cross, whether in its simplest form or with a
complication of additional ornaments, has, as he points out, been at all
times popular in connection with this subject. It appeared on the shield
of Arnold Ther Hoernen, Cologne, 1477, at Stockholm in 1483, at Cracovia
in 1510. That it did not fall entirely into desuetude until the end of
the eighteenth century is a very striking proof of what M. Delalain
calls “la persistance de la croix.” It has appeared in all forms and in
almost every conceivable shape. Its presence may be taken as indicating
a deference and a submission to, as well as a respect for, the Christian
religion, and M. Delalain is of the opinion that the sign “eu pour
origine l’affiliation à une confrérie religieuse.” Finally, in his
introduction to Roth-Scholtz’s “Thesaurus Symbolarum ac Emblematum,”
Spoerl asks, “Why are the initials of a printer or bookseller so often
placed in a circle or in a heart-shaped border, and then surmounted by a
cross? Why at the extreme top of the cross is the lateral line formed
into a sort of triangular four? Why, without this inexplicable sign, has
the cross a number of cyphers, two, or even three, cross-bars? Why
should the tail of the cypher 4 itself be traversed by one or sometimes
two perpendicular bars which themselves would appear to form another
cross of another kind? Why, among the ornamental accessories, do certain
species of stars form several crosses, entangled or isolated? Why, at
the base of the cross is the V duplicated?” All these are problems which
it would be exceedingly difficult to solve with satisfaction. We do not
propose offering any kind of explanation for these singular marks; but
it will not be without interest to point out that among the more
interesting examples are those used by Berthold Rembolt, André Bocard or
Boucard, Georges Mittelhus, Jehan Alexandre, Jehan Lambert, Nicole De La
Barre, and the brothers De Marnef, all printers or booksellers of Paris;
of Guillaume Le Talleur, Richard Auzolt, of Rouen; of Jaques Huguetan,
Mathieu Husz, François Fradin, Jacques Sacon or Sachon, and Jehan Du
Pré, all of Lyons; of Jehan Grüninger, of Strassburg; of Lawrence
Andrewe, and Andrew Hester, of London; the unknown printer of St.
Albans; of Leeu, of Antwerp; of Jacob Abiegnus, of Leipzig; of Pedro
Miguel, Barcelona; of Juan de Rosembach of Barcelona and other places;
of the four “alemanes” of Seville, and hundreds of others that might be
mentioned.

[Illustration:

1. Benedetto d’Effore.
2. Bonino de Boninis.
3. Bernardino de Misintis.
4. Bernardino Ricci.
5. Bernardino Stagnino.
6. Baptista de Tortis.
7. Bernardinus de Vitalibus.
8. Bartholomeus de Zanis.
9. } Dionysius Bertochus.
10. }
11. Dominicus Roccociola or Richizolo.
12. William Schomberg.
13. Christopher de Canibus.
14. Hercules Nani.
15. Giovanni Antonio de Benedetti.
16. Samuel de Tournes (Geneva).
17. The Somaschi.
18. Justinian de Ruberia.
19. J. Treschel (Lyons).
20. L. de Gerla, Gerlis or Gerula.
21. Laurentius Rubeus de Valentia.
22. Lazaro Suardo or da Suardis.
23. Matthew de Codeca or Capsaca.
24. Nicholas de Francfordia.
25. Dionysio Berrichelli.
26. Octavianus Scottus.
27. Peregrino de Pasqualibus.
28. Philip Pinzi or Pincius.
29. Caligula de Bacileriis.
30. J. Sacer.]

It is curious to note that, in spite of its great mediæval popularity,
the subject of St. George and the Dragon rarely enters into the subject
of Printers’ Marks, and of the few examples which call for reference,
those of Thomas Périer and Guillaume Bourgeat, of Paris and Tours
respectively, are among the best both in design and execution. The idea
was also adopted by Guillaume Auvray, of Paris; and by M. de Hamont,
Brussels.

The personification of Time and Peace were both popular; and each has
its successful examples. One of the earliest instances of the former is
a pretty little mark, executed with a considerable amount of vigour, of
Robert De Gourmont, Paris; a large and vigorous Mark--one of
several--employed by Simon De Colines, Paris, in which it is interesting
to note that the scythe is not invariably denticulated; two very crude
but very distinct examples employed by Michel Hillenius or Hooghstrate,
Antwerp, 1514; and two, one large and the other small, of Guillaume
Chaudière, Paris, 1564; whilst Jean Temporal, of Lyons, 1550, used it as
an evident play on his name. The emblem of Peace does not appear to have
been much employed until well on into the sixteenth century; N. Boucher,
1544, used as his motto, “pacem victis;” Guillaume Julien, to whom
reference has already been made; as likewise Michel Clopejau, of a few
years later, who used the words “Typus amicitiæ” on his mark, with the
further legend of “Quam sperata victoria pax certa melior;” these three
lived in Paris, whilst by far the best decorative Mark in this
connection was that adopted by Julien Angelier, a bookseller and printer
of Blois, 1555, the centre of whose device, besides the words “Signum
pacis,” includes a dove bearing two olive branches. The fraternal device
of two hands clasped may also be here alluded to: it is of special
interest from the fact that it was employed by one of the earliest to
practice printing in Paris--Guy or Guyot Marchant, 1483, one of whose
Marks gives us a view of two shoemakers working with musical notes
representing So La (Sola), and “fides ficit” in gothic type. Thomas
Richard, sixty years afterwards, elaborated on a portion of this idea,
and his Mark shows two hands holding a crowned sceptre with two serpents
entwined around it. Designs much superior to these were employed by
Bertramus of Strassburg, at the latter part of the sixteenth century.
Following the example of Marchant, musical notes have occasionally been
employed by later printers. The rebus of this printer evidently
suggested that of Jehan and Anthoine Lagache, father and son, Arras, in
1517, the first syllable of whose name, La, is indicated by a musical
note, and is immediately followed by “gache.” Pierre Jacobi,
Saint-Nicholas-de-la-Port, and Toulouse, 1503, adopted Marchant’s idea
by giving “Sola fides ficit” with a musical start, so to speak; and a
distinctly novel phase of the subject is employed by Jacobus Jucundus,
Strassburg, 1531, in which a goose is represented as playing on a
violin.

[Illustration: GUILLAUME CHAUDIÈRE.

HANC ACIEM SOLA RETVNDIT VIRTVS TEMPVS.]

Printers’ marks in which the pictorial embellishments partake of a
rustic nature, such as bits of landscape, seed-sowing, harvesting, and
horns of plenty, are numerous, and in many cases exceedingly pretty.
J. Roffet, Paris, 1549, employed the design of the seed-sower in several
of his Marks; and of about a dozen different Marks used at one time or
another by Jean De Tournes the first, Lyons, 1542, one of the most
successful is a clever one having for its central figure a sower; the
same idea, in a very crude form, was contemporaneously employed also by
De Laet, Antwerp. The Cornucopia, or horn of plenty, was a very
favourite emblem, and it appears in a manifold variety of designs,
sometimes with a Caduceus (the symbol of Mercury) which is held by two
clasped hands, as in the case of T. Orwin, London, 1596, in a cartouche
with the motto: “By wisdom peace, by peace plenty;” four of the eight
marks used by Chrestien Wéchel, Paris, 1522, differ from Orwin’s in
being surmounted by a winged Pegasus; and André Wéchel, of the same
city, 1535, employed one of the smaller devices of Chrestien, with
variations and enlargements of the same; in the Mark of J. Chouet,
Geneva, 1579, the caduceus is replaced by a serpent, the body of which
is formed into a figure 8; in that of Gislain Manilius, Ghent, the horns
appear above two seated figures. In each of the foregoing examples two
horns appear. Georg Ulricher von Andlau, Strassburg, 1529, used the
cornucopia, and in one of his Marks the figure is surrounded by an
elaborate array of fruit and vegetables; single horns appear also in the
clever and elaborate marks of R. Fouet, Paris, 1597, whose design was a
very slight deviation from that of J. De Bordeaux, Paris, 1567. The
oak-tree, sheltering a reaper and with the motto “Satis Quercus,” was
employed by George Cleray, Vannes, 1545; and the fruit of this tree--the
acorn--by E. Schultis, Lyons, 1491. The thistle appears on the marks of
Estienne Groulleau, Paris, 1547; the Rose on the more or less elaborate
designs of Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1538; a rose-tree in full flower
occupies the centre of the beautiful mark of the first Mathieu
Guillemot, Paris, 1585; a solitary Rose-flower was the simple and
effective mark of Jean Dallier, Paris, 1545; and a flowering branch of
the same tree is one of the items on the charming little Mark on the
opposite page of Mathurin Breuille, Paris.

[Illustration: JACQUES ROFFET.

IAQVES ROFFET]

[Illustration: JEAN DE TOURNES.

SON ART EN DIEV]

In the category of what may be termed extinct animals, the Unicorn as a
subject for illustrating Printers’ Marks enjoyed a long and extensive
popularity. The most remarkable thing in connection with these designs
of the Unicorn is perhaps their striking dissimilarity, and as nearly
every one of the many artists who employed, for no obvious reasons, this
animal in their Printer’s Marks had his own idea of what a Unicorn ought
to have been like, the result, viewed as a whole, is not by any means a
happy one. Still, several of the examples possess a considerable amount
of vigour and have a distinct decorative effectiveness. But apart from
this its appearance in the Marks of the old printers is a very striking
proof of the fact that the mediæval legends died hard. Curiously enough,
the proverbial “lion and unicorn” do not often occur together. The
family of printers with whose name the unicorn is almost as closely
associated as the compass is with Plantin, is that of Kerver, for it has
been employed in over a dozen different forms by one or other members
from the end of the fifteenth century to the latter part of the
sixteenth. Sometimes there is only one Unicorn on the mark, at others
there is a pair. Le Petit Laurens, Paris, was using it contemporaneously
with the first Thielman Kerver, and possibly the one copied the other.
Sénant, Vivian, Kées, and Pierre Gadoul, Chapelet, and Chavercher, were
other Paris printers who used the same idea in their marks before the
middle of the sixteenth century. It was long a favourite subject with
the Rouen printers, one of the earliest in that city to use it being
J. Richard, whose design is particularly original, inasmuch as the
shield is supported on one side by a Unicorn, and on the other by a
female, possibly intended to represent a saint, an idea which was
apparently copied by Symon Vincent, Lyons; the Unicorn was also used in
the marks of L. Martin and G. Boulle, both of Lyons; and also in the
very rough but original design employed by H. Hesker, Antwerp, 1496;
whilst for its quaint originality a special reference may be made to the
Mark of François Huby, Paris, of the latter part of the sixteenth
century, for in this a Unicorn is represented as chasing an old man. The
origin of the Unicorn Mark is essentially Dutch. The editions of the
Printer, “à la licorne,” Deft, 1488-94, are well known to students of
early printing. The earliest book in which this mark is found is the
“Dȳalogus der Creaturen” (“Dialogus Creaturarum”) issued at that city in
November, 1488. Henri Eckert de Hombergh and Chr. Snellaert, both of
Delf, used a Unicorn in their Marks during the latter years of the
fifteenth century.

[Illustration: MATHURIN BREUILLE.

DOMINE ADAVGE NOBIS FIDEM QVIA CHRISTI BONVS ODOR SVMVS]

[Illustration: C. SNELLAERT.]

Among other possible and impossible monsters and subjects of profane
history, the Griffin, the Mermaid, the Phœnix, Arion and Hermes has each
had its Mark or Marks. In the case of the first named, which, according
to Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Vulgar Errors,” is emblematical of
watchfulness, courage, perseverance, and rapidity of execution, it is
not surprising that the Gryphius family, from the evident pun on their
surname, should have considered it as in their particular preserves. As
may be imagined, it does not make a pretty device, although under the
circumstances its employment is perhaps permissible. Sebastien Gryphius,
Lyons, and his brother François, Paris, who were of German parentage,
employed the Griffin in about a dozen variations during the first half
of the sixteenth century. The Griffin, however, was utilized by Poncet
Le Preux, Paris, some years before the Gryphius family came into
notoriety, and it was employed contemporaneously with this by B. Aubri,
Paris. The Mermaid makes a prettier picture than the Griffin, but its
appearance on Printers’ Marks is an equally fantastic vagary of the
imagination. In one of the earliest Marks on which it occurs, that of
C. Fradin, Lyons, 1505, the shield is supported on one side by a
Mermaid, and on the other by a fully-armed knight; half a century after,
B. Macé, Caen, had a very clever little Mark in which the Mermaid is not
only in her proper element, but holding an anchor in one hand, and
combing her hair with the other. During the second quarter of the
sixteenth century, the idea was, with variations, used by G. Le Bret,
Paris, and J. De Junte, Lyons, as well as by John Rastell, London, 1528,
whose shop was at the sign of the Mermaid.

To summarize a few of the less popular designs, it will suffice to give
a short list of the vignettes or marks used by the old printers of Paris
(except where otherwise stated), alphabetically arranged according to
subjects: _Abraham_, Pacard; an _anchor_, Christopher Rapheleng, Leyden,
Chouet and Pierre Aubert, Geneva; two _anchors_ crosswise, Thierry
Martens, Antwerp, and Nicholas le Rich; one or more _angels_, Legnano,
Milan; Henaud and Abel L’Angelier, and Dominic Farri, Venice; _Arion_,
Oporinus or Herlist, Brylinger, Louis le Roi, and Pernet, Basle, and
Chouet, Geneva; a _Basilisk_ and the four elements, Rogny;
_Bellerophon_, the brothers Arnoul and Charles Angeliers; Guillaume
Eustace, and Perier, and Bonel, Venice; a _Bull_ with the sign Taurus
and the Zodiac, Nicholas Bevilacqua, Turin; a _Cat_ with a mouse in her
mouth, Melchior Sessa and Pietro Nicolini, de Sabio, Venice; two
_Doves_, Jacques Quesnel; an _Eagle_, Balthazar Bellers, Antwerp,
Bladius, Rome, G. Rouille or Roville, Lyons, and the same design--with
the motto “Renovabitur ut aquilæ juventus mea”--occurs in the books
published in the early years of the seventeenth century by Nicolini,
Rabani, Renneri and Co., Venice; the personification of _Fortune_,
Bertier, J. Denis (an elaborate and clever design in which a youth is
represented climbing the tree of Fortune), and Adrian le Roy and Robert
Ballard, Berde and Rigaud, Lyons, and Giovanni and Andrea Zennaro,
Venice; a _Fountain_, M. Vascosan, the second Frederic Morel (with a
Greek motto importing that the fountain of wisdom flows in books), and
Cratander, Basle; a _Heart_, Sebastian Huré and his son-in-law Corbon;
_Hercules_, with the motto, “Virtus non territa monstris,” Vitré, Le
Maire, Leyden; a _Lion_ rampant, Arry; a lion rampant crowned on a red
ground, Gunther Zainer; a lion led by the hand, Jacques Creigher; a lion
supporting a column, Mylius, Strassburg, and a lion with a hour glass,
Henric Petri, Basle; a _Magpie_, Jean Benat or Bienne; this bird also
occurs among Robert Estienne’s Marks, and the same subject, with a
serpent twining round a branch was used (according to Horne), by
Frederic Morel; _Mercury_, alone or with other classic deities, David
Douceur, Biaggio, Lyons; Jean Rossy, Bologne; Verdust, Antwerp, and
Hervagius, Basle; a _Pelican_, N. De Guinguant, S. Nivelle, Girault and
De Marnef, C. and F. Franceschini, Venice; Mamarelli, Ferrara; F. Heger,
Leyden; E. Barricat, Lyons; and Martin Nuyts and his successor who
carried on business under the same name, Antwerp; a _Phœnix_, Michael
Joli, Wyon, Douay; Leffen, Leyden; Martinelli, Rome; and Giolito,
Venice; a _Salamander_, Zenaro, Venice; St. Crespin and Senneton, Lyons;
Duversin and Rossi, Rome; a _Stork_, Nivelle and Cramoisy; _St. George
and the Dragon_, Michel de Hamont, Brussels; a _Swan_, Blanchet; whilst
a swan and a soldier formed the Mark of Peter de Cæsaris and John Stoll,
two German printers who were among the earliest to practise the art in
Paris.

[Illustration: JOHN RASTELL.

Fuit Iohannes Rastell]

[Illustration: GERARD LEEU.]

[Decoration]

SOME GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE PRINTER’S MARK.

[Illustration: FUST AND SCHOEFFER.]

From what has already been stated, it will be seen that the Printer’s
Mark plays a by no means unimportant part in the early history of
illustration,--whether the phase be serious or grotesque, sublime or
ridiculous, we find here manifold examples, crude as well as clever.
Although it cannot be said with truth that the Mark as an institution
reached, like typography itself, its highest degree of perfection at its
inception, some of the earlier examples, nevertheless, are also some of
the most perfect. The evolution from the small monogram, generally in
white on a black ground, to an elaborate picture occupying from a
quarter to a whole page, was much less gradual than is generally
supposed. The unambitious marks of the first printers were clearly
adopted in consonance with the traders’ or merchants’ marks which began
to be so generally employed during the latter part of the fifteenth
century.

The very natural question, Which was the first Printer’s Mark? admits of
an easy answer. It was employed for the first time in the form of the
coupled shield of Fust and Schoeffer, in the colophon of the famous
Psalter printed by these two men at Mainz in 1457. This book is
remarkable as being the costliest ever sold (a perfect copy is valued at
5,000 guineas by Mr. Quaritch): it is the third book printed, and the
first having a date, and probably only a dozen copies were struck off
for the use of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James at Mainz. It is,
however, quite as remarkable for the extraordinary beauty of its initial
letters, printed in red and blue ink, the letters being of one colour
and the ornamental portion of the other. The Mark of Fust and Schoeffer,
it may be mentioned, consists of two printer’s rules in saltaire, on two
shields, hanging from a stump, the two rules on the right shield forming
an angle of 45°: the adoption of a compositor’s setting-rule was very
appropriate. It was nearly twenty years before the introduction of
woodcuts into books became general, Gunther Zainer beginning it at
Augsburg in 1471-1475. The inception of this movement was naturally
followed by a general improvement, or at all events elaboration, of the
Printer’s Mark, which, moreover, now began to be printed in colours, as
is seen in the Fust and Schoeffer mark in red which appears beneath the
colophon of Turrecremata’s Commentary on the Psalms printed by Schoeffer
in 1474. Reverting for a moment to the Psalter which has been very
properly described as “the grandest book ever produced by Typography,”
a very curious fact not at all generally known may be here pointed out.
Although the few existing examples with two dates are of the same
edition, there are several very curious variations which are well worthy
of notice. It will be only necessary, however, in this place to refer to
the fact that the beautiful example in the Imperial Library at
Vienna--which, from its spotless purity, Heineken calls the “exemplaire
vierge”--differs from the others in being without the shield of Fust and
Schoeffer, a fact which points to the probability of this copy having
been the first struck off.

By the end of the fifteenth century the Printer’s Mark had assumed or
was rapidly assuming an importance of which its original introducers had
very little conception. Indeed, as early as 1539, a law, according to
Dupont, in his “Histoire de l’Imprimerie,” was passed by which these
marks or arms of printers and booksellers were protected. Unfortunately
the designs were very rarely signed, and it is now impossible to name
with any degree of certainty either the artist or engraver, both offices
probably in the majority of cases being performed by one man. There is
no doubt whatever that Hans Holbein designed some of the very graceful
borders and title-pages of Froben, at Basle, during the first quarter of
the sixteenth century, and in doing this he included the graceful
Caduceus which this famous printer employed. It does not necessarily
follow that he was the original designer, although he was in intimate
association with Froben when the latter first used this device. The
distinctive Mark of Cratander, or Cartander, which appears in the
edition of Plutarch’s “Opuscula,” Basel, 1530, has also been confidently
attributed to the same artist: if there is any foundation for this
statement Holbein was guilty of plagiarism, for this Mark is a very
slight modification on one used by the same printer in 1519, and not
only so dated but having the artist’s initials, I. F. Those who have the
opportunity of examining the “Noctes Atticæ” of Aulus Gellius, printed
by Cratander in 1519, will come upon several highly interesting features
in connection with this Mark, which is emblematical of Fortune: the
elaborately engraved title-page contains an almost exact miniature of
the same idea on either side, and it is repeated in a larger form in the
border which surrounds the first chapter. The Mark occurs in its full
size on the last page of all. The title-page, borders and Mark are all
by the same artist, I. F. In the earlier example the woman’s hair
completely hides her face, whilst in that of eleven years later it is as
seen on the opposite page, and the whole design is more carefully
finished. Dürer had dealt with the same subject. In reference to Froben,
however, it should be pointed out that his Marks, of which there were
several, show considerable variation in their attendant accessories, and
that Holbein could not possibly have had anything to do with the
majority of them.

[Illustration: J. FROBEN.

γίνεσθε φρόνιμοι ὥς ὁι ὄφεις,
Prudens simplicitas amor[que] recti.]

To attempt to identify the designers of even a selection of the best
Printers’ Marks would be but to embark on a wild sea of conjecture. The
initials of the engravers, which occur much more frequently than those
of the artists, are of very little assistance to the identification of
the latter. Many of them possess a vigour and an originality which would
at once stamp their designers as men of more than ordinary ability. For
picturesqueness, and for the care and attention paid to the minutest
details, it may be doubted if either B. Picart in France, or J. Pine in
this country, has ever been excelled. The examples of the former come
perhaps more in the category of vignettes than of Printers’ Marks,
although the charming little pictures on the title-pages of Stosch’s
“Pierres Antiques Gravées,” 1724, the “Impostures Innocentes,” 1734, and
the edition of Cicero’s “Epistolæ,” printed at the Hague by Isaac
Vaillant, 1725,--to mention only three of many--may be conveniently
regarded as Printers’ Marks. So far as we know, Pine only executed one
example,--representing a Lamb within a cleverly designed cartouche--and
this appears on the title-page of Dale’s Translation of Freind’s
“Emmenologia,” printed for T. Cox, “at the Lamb under the Royal
Exchange,” 1729: in its way it is unquestionably the most perfect Mark
that has ever been employed in this country. Any rule differentiating
the Printer’s Mark proper from a vignette is not likely to give general
satisfaction; for a writer on the subject of vignettes will unfailingly
appropriate many that are Marks, and _vice versa_. The present writer
has found it a fairly safe rule, to accept as a Mark a pictorial
embellishment (on a title-page) to which is appended a motto or
quotation. The temptation to persuade oneself that several of these
vignettes are Printers’ Marks needs a good deal of resisting, especially
when such an exquisite example as that of Daniel Bartholomæus and Son,
of Ulm, is in question. The same holds good with several of the dozen
used by J. Reinhold Dulssecker, Strassburg, about the latter part of the
seventeenth and earlier part of the eighteenth century; and very many
others that might be named.

[Illustration: CRATANDER’S MARK. (Attributed to Holbein.)]

[Illustration: T. COX.

I Pine Sculpt]

[Illustration: J. R. DULSSECKER.

DOMINUS PROVIDEBIT.]

It is interesting to note that the Printer’s Mark preceded the
introduction of the title-page by nearly twenty years, and that the
first ornamental title known appeared in the “Calendar” of
Regiomontanus, printed at Venice by Pictor, Loeslein and Ratdolt in
1476, in folio. Neither the simple nor the ornate title-page secured an
immediate or general popularity, and not for many years was it regarded
as an essential feature of a printed volume. Its history is intimately
associated with that of the Printer’s Mark, and the progress of the one
synchronizes up to a certain point with that of the other. In beauty of
design and engraving, the Printer’s Mark, like the Title-page, attained
its highest point of artistic excellence in the early part of the
sixteenth century. This perhaps is not altogether surprising when it is
remembered that during the first twenty years of that period we have
title-pages from the hands of Dürer, Holbein, Wechtlin, Urse Graff,
Schauffelein and Cranach. In his excellent work entitled “Last Words on
the History of the Title-Page,” Mr. A. W. Pollard observes “From 1550
onwards we find beauty in nooks and corners. Here and there over some
special book an artist will have laboured, and not in vain; but save for
such stray miracles, as decade succeeds decade, good work becomes rarer
and rarer, and at last we learn to look only for carelessness,
ill-taste, and caricature, and of these are seldom disappointed.” These
remarks apply with equal force to the Printer’s Mark, although some
exceptionally beautiful examples appeared after that period.

The position allotted to the Printer’s Mark may not be of very great
importance, but it offers some points of interest. It appeared first in
the colophon, in which the printer usually seized the opportunity not
only of thanking God that he had finished his task, but of indulging in
a little puff either of his own part of the transaction or of the work
itself. The appearance of the Mark in the colophon therefore was a
natural corollary of the printer’s vanity. It soon outgrew its place of
confinement; and when a pictorial effect was attempted it became
promoted, as it were, to the title-page. In this position it was nearly
always of a primary character, so to speak, but sometimes, as in the
case of Reinhard Beck, it was almost lost in the maze of decorative
borders. But it is found in various parts of the printed book: in some
cases, among which are the Arabic works issued by Erpenius of Leyden, we
find the Mark at what we regard as the beginning of the book, but which
in reality is its end. Sometimes the Mark occupies the first and last
leaves of a book, as was often the case with the more important works
issued by Froben, by the brothers Huguetan and others. These two Marks
at the extreme portions of a book either differed from one another or
not, according to the fancy or convenience of the printer. The Mark also
appeared sometimes at the end of the index, or at the end of the
preliminary matter, such as list of contents or address of the author,
and its position was generally determined by several circumstances.

[Illustration: REINHARD BECK.]

Now and then we have what may be described as a double Mark; that is, of
printer and bookseller, the one keeping a sharp look out to see that the
other did not have more than his fair share of credit. This is the case
with several books printed by Jehan Petit for Thielman Kerver, Paris, of
which an example is given in the previous chapter; Wynkyn de Worde used
Caxton’s initials for a time on his Mark, but the only motive which
could have prompted this was an affectionate regard for his master. Some
of the books which Jannot De Campis printed at Lyons for Symon Vincent
contained not only the printer’s, but two examples of the bookseller’s
Mark.

[Illustration: HUBERT GOLTZ.

HVBERTAS AVREA SAECLI]

[Decoration]

THE PRINTER’S MARK IN ENGLAND.

[Illustration: WALTER LYNNE.]

The consideration of the Printer’s Mark as an institution in this
country is characterized by extreme simplicity, both as to its origin
and to its design. From an entry in one of the Bagford volumes (Harleian
MSS. 5910) in the British Museum, we learn that “rebuses or name devices
were brought into England after Edward III. had conquered France: they
were used by those who had no arms, and if their names ended in Ton, as
Hatton, Boulton, Luton, Grafton, Middleton, Seton, Norton, their signs
or devices would be a Hat and a tun, a Boult and a tun, a Lute and a
tun, etc., which had no reference to their names, for all names ending
in Ton signifieth town, from whence they took their names.” Even in
England, therefore, the merchant’s trade device was the direct source of
the Printer’s Mark, which it antedated by over a century. It will be
convenient, first of all, to explain that the first printing-press in
England was that of William Caxton at Westminster, whose first book was
issued from this place November 18, 1477; the second was that of
Theodoricus de Rood, at Oxford, the first book dated December 17, 1478;
the third was that of the unknown printer at St. Albans, 1480, and the
fourth was that of John Lettou, in the city of London, 1480, the
last-named being soon joined by William de Machlinia, who afterwards
carried on the business alone. The earliest phases of wood-engraving
employed at one or other of these four distinct houses were either
initial letters or borders around the page. At Caxton’s press, as the
late Henry Bradshaw has pointed out in a paper read before the Cambridge
Antiquarian Society, February 25, 1867, simple initials are found in the
Indulgences of 1480 and 1481; at the Oxford press an elaborate border of
four pieces, representing birds and flowers, is found in some copies of
the two books printed there in October, 1481, and July, 1482. Of
illustrations in the text, we find a series of diagrams and a series of
eleven cuts illustrating the text of the first edition of “The Mirror of
the World,” 1481; a series of sixteen cuts to the second edition of “The
Game of Chesse Moralised,” 1483; and two works of the following year,
“The Fables of Esop” and the first edition of “The Golden Legend,” each
contains not only a large cut for the frontispiece, but in the case of
the former, a series of 185 cuts, and, in the latter, two series of
eighteen large and fifty-two small cuts. At the Oxford press only two
books are known with woodcut illustrations, in neither case cut for the
work; at the St. Albans press the only known illustrations in the text
are the coats-of-arms found in the “Book of Hawking, Hunting and
Coat-Armours,” 1486; at the press of Lettou and W. de Machlinia there is
no trace of illustrations.

These few introductory facts, condensed from Mr. Bradshaw’s paper above
mentioned, have a distinct interest to us as leading up to the
employment of the Printer’s Mark. It is certainly curious that at
Caxton’s press the very familiar device was only first used about
Christmas, 1489, in the second folio edition of the Sarum “Ordinale.” At
first this bold and effective mark was used, as in the “Ordinale,” the
“Dictes of the Philosophers,” and in the “History of Reynaud the Fox,”
at or close to the beginning of the volume. In Caxton’s subsequent books
it is always found at the end. At the St. Albans press the device with
“Sanctus Albanus” is found in two of the eight books printed there, “The
English Chronicle,” 1483, where it is printed in red, and in “The Book
of Hawking,” etc., 1486; it is formed of a globe and double cross, there
being in the centre a shield with a St. Andrew’s cross.

So far as regards Caxton’s device, it is easier to name the books in
which it appeared than to explain its exact meaning. The late William
Blades accepts the common interpretation of “W. C. 74.” Some
bibliographers argue that the date refers to the introduction of
printing in England, and quote the colophon of the first edition of the
“Chess” book in support of this theory. But the date of this work refers
to the translation and not to the printing, which was executed at
Bruges, probably in 1476. Caxton did not settle at Westminster until
late in that year, and possibly not until 1477. In all probability the
date, supposing it to be such, and assuming that it is an abbreviation
of 1474, refers to some landmark in our printer’s career. Professor
J. P. A. Madden, in his “Lettres d’un Bibliophile,” expresses it as his
opinion that the two small letters outside the “W. 74 C” are an
abbreviation of the words “Sancta Colonia,” an indication that a notable
event in the life of Caxton occurred in 1474 at Cologne. Ames, Herbert,
and others have copied a device which Caxton never used: it is much
smaller than the genuine one (which, in other respects, it closely
resembles) which we reproduce from Berjeau. The opinion that the
interlacement is a trade mark is, Mr. Blades points out in his
exhaustive “Life,” much strengthened by the discovery of its original
use. In 1487, Caxton, wishing to print a Sarum Missal, and not having
the types proper for the purpose, sent to Paris, where the book was
printed for him by G. Maynyal, who in the colophon states distinctly
that he printed it at the expense of William Caxton of London. When the
printed sheets reached Westminster, Caxton, wishing to make it quite
plain that he was the publisher, engraved his design and printed it on
the last page, which happened to be blank. Mr. Blades gives 1487 as the
year in which this Missal (of which only one copy is known) was printed,
but Mr. Bradshaw puts it at 1489. The former enumerates twelve books
printed by Caxton in which his device occurs--all ranging from the
aforesaid Missal to the year 1491, the date of his death.

[Illustration: WILLIAM CAXTON.]

[Illustration: THE ST. ALBANS PRINTER.]

Wynkyn de Worde, a native of Lorraine, who was with Caxton at Bruges or
Cologne, carried on the business of his master at Westminster until
1499, when he removed to the sign of the Golden Sun, Fleet Street,
London. He had nine Marks, the earliest of which is often described as
one of Caxton’s, from the genuine example of which, as we have already
stated, it differs in being smaller, with a different border, and in
having a flourish inserted above and below the letters. The second is an
elongated variation of No. 1, with the name Wynkyn de Worde on a narrow
white space beneath the device. The next four devices are more or less
elaborations upon that of which we give a reproduction; the seventh is
the Sagittarius device in black with white characters: between the
sagittarii is seen the sun and flaming stars, and below the initials
“W C” in Roman letters, with the name Wynkyn de Worde at the foot; the
eighth is a picturesque Mark copied from one belonging to Froben, with
the omission of part of the background; it consists of a semicircular
arch, supported by short-wreathed pillars, with foliated capitals,
plinths and bases: on the top of each is a boy habited like a soldier,
with a spear and shield bending forwards; a large cartouche German
shield is supported by three boys. The ninth Mark of this printer was a
large and handsome one, being a royal and heraldic device which Wynkyn
de Worde used as a frontispiece to the Acts of Parliament, in the form
of an upright parallelogram which encloses a species of arched panel or
doorway, formed of three lines, imitating clustered columns and Gothic
mouldings, and two large square shields, that on the left charged with
three fleurs-de-lys for France, and the other bearing France and England
quarterly, each of which is surmounted by a crown. For a very minute
description of these Marks, and their variations, the reader is referred
to Johnson’s “Typographia,” and Bigmore and Wyman’s “Bibliography of
Printing,” the former of whom enumerates 410 books which issued from
this press.

[Illustration: WYNKYN DE WORDE.

wynkyn de worde
W C]

[Illustration: R. PYNSON.

Rychard Pynson]

[Illustration: R. PYNSON.

R
Richard Pynson]

Among the 200 odd books which Richard Pynson printed between 1493 and
1527, we find six Marks (besides variants), of which five are very
similar, and of these we give two examples, the smaller being one of the
earliest, in which it will be noticed that the drawing is much inferior
to the larger example; the sixth Mark is a singular one, consisting of a
large upright parallelogram surrounded by a single stout line, within
which are the scroll, supporters, shield and cypher, crest, helmet and
mantling, and the Virgin and St. Catherine, and in many other
particulars differing from the other five examples. Robert Redman, who,
after quarrelling with Richard Pynson, and apparently succeeding him in
business, employed a device almost identical with that which Pynson most
frequently used, and to which therefore we need not further refer. In
chronological sequence the next English printer who employed a device is
Julian Notary, who was printing books for about twenty years subsequent
to 1498, first at Westminster, then near Temple Bar, and finally in St.
Paul’s Churchyard. He had two devices (of which there are a very few
variations), of which we give the more important. The other has only one
stout black line, and not two, and it has also the Latinized form of the
name--Julianus Notarius. About two dozen different works of this printer
are known to bibliographers. In connection with Notary, we may here
conveniently refer to an interesting, but admittedly inconclusive
article which appears in _The Library_, i., pp. 102-5, by Mr. E. Gordon
Duff, in which that able bibliographer publishes the discovery of two
books which would point to the existence of an unrecorded English
printer of the fifteenth century. One of these has the title of
“Questiones Alberti de modis significandi,” and the other, of which only
a fragment is known to exist, is a Sarum “Horæ,” which is dated 1497. In
the colophons of neither does the name of the printer transpire, but his
Mark is given in both--in the former book in black, and in the latter in
red. This mark is identical with Notary’s, with this important
exception, that, whereas in Notary’s device his name occurs in the lower
half of the device, in these the lower half is occupied by the initials
I. H., and the upper half by the initials I N B, the I N being in the
form of a monogram, and not distinct. In 1498 this same block was used
on the title-page of the Sarum “Missal,” printed by Notary, who altered
it to suit his own requirements. We cannot follow Mr. Gordon Duff in his
conjectures as to the probability of who this unknown printer may have
been, but the matter is one of great bibliographical interest. William
Faques, who was the King’s Printer, and who is known to have issued
seven books between 1499 and 1508, had only one Mark, which is totally
different from those of any of his predecessors, as may be seen from the
example given on page 16, where will also be found references to the
sources of the scriptural quotations on the white and black triangles.

[Illustration: JULIAN NOTARY.

I N
Iulyan Notary]

The extreme rarity of this printer’s books will be best understood when
it is stated that there are only two examples in the British Museum; one
of these is a “Psalter,” 1504. With W. Faques we exhaust the fifteenth
century printers who employed marks to distinguish the productions of
their presses.

[Illustration: R. FAWKES.

R F
Richard Fakes]

Notwithstanding the similarity in their surnames it is not at all
certain that Richard Fawkes (1509-1530), who also appears as Faukes,
Fakes, and Faques, was related to the last-mentioned printer. His books
are now of excessive rarity. The unicorn (regardant on either side of
the device) appears for the first time in an English mark. Henry Pepwell
(1505-1539), of the Holy Trinity in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was a
bookseller rather than a printer, and all his earlier books were printed
in Paris; his Mark, in which occurs the heraldic device representing the
Trinity, was suggested by the sign of his shop. The most important
example of the thirty books which issued from the little-known press of
Peter Treveris, who was apparently putting forth books from 1514 to
1535, is “The Grete herball whiche geveth parfyt knowlege and
und[er]standing of all maner of herbes,” etc., 1526, a finely printed
folio (“at the signe of the Wodows”), of which a second edition appeared
in 1529. The earlier edition contains, on the recto of the sixth leaf,
a full-page woodcut of the human skeleton, with anatomical explanations,
whilst the last leaf contains a full-page woodcut of the printer’s Mark,
with the imprint at the foot. Herbert supposes that the sign of the
“Wodows,” mentioned by Treveris in the colophon, might possibly be put
for wode hommes or wild men, and alludes to the supporters used in the
device. Treveris printed for several booksellers, notably John Reyves,
of St. Paul’s Churchyard, and for Lawrence Andrewe, of Fleet Street. In
this printer’s Mark, and in fact nearly every other sixteenth century
example, there is a very evident French influence, whilst many of the
examples are the most transparent imitations of Marks used by foreign
printers. Of the three used by John Scott or Skot, who was printing
books from about 1521 to 1537, two were mere copies of the Marks used by
Denis Roce of Paris. We give an illustration of one example; the second
is of the same design, but with a very rich stellated background, and
the motto, “A l’aventure, tout vient a point qui peut attendre.” His own
device was an exceedingly simple long strip, with the letters Iohn Skot
in antique Roman characters. An example of the last mark will be found
in “The Golden Letanye in Englysshe,” printed by Skot in “Fauster Land,
in Saynt Leonardes parysshe”; but examples of this press are excessively
rare, only one, “Thystory of Jacob and his XII Sones,” fourteen leaves,
in verse, and printed about 1525, being in the British Museum, and
another tract, “The Rosary,” 1537, being in the Althorp Library now
transferred to Manchester.

[Illustration: PETER TREVERIS.

P T
PETRVS TREVERIS]

[Illustration: JOHN SCOTT.

I S
IOHN SCOTT]

[Illustration: ROBERT COPLAND.

¶ Melius est nomen bonum q[uam] diuitie mnlte. Prou. xxu.
R
ROBERT COPLAND]

Robert Copland, who was a beneficiaire and pupil of Wynkyn de Worde, was
a translator as well as a printer and stationer, and his shop was at the
sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street. Although he carried on
business from 1515 to about 1548, only a few of his books are now known,
none of which appear to be in the British Museum. The majority were
purely ephemeral. The most interesting phase of this printer’s career
occurs in connection with one or two books printed by Wynkyn de Worde,
notably “The Assembly of Foules,” 1530, at the end of which is “Lenvoy
of Robert Copland boke prynter,” one of the three verses running thus:

“Layde upon shelfe, in leues all torne
With Letters, dymme, almost defaced cleane
Thy hyllynge rote, with wormes all to worne
Thou lay, that pyte it was to sene
Bounde with olde quayres, for ages all hoorse and grene
Thy mater endormed, for lacke of thy presence
But nowe arte losed, go shewe forth thy sentence.”

The three Marks of Copland make allusion to the roses which appeared as
a sign to his shop. The most elaborate design is an upright
parallelogram within which appears a flourishing tree springing out of
the earth, and supporting a shield suspended from its branches by a belt
and surrounded by a wreath of roses; on the left-hand side is a hind
regardant collared with a ducal coronet standing as a supporter, and on
the right is a hart in a similar position and with the same decorations;
there are four scrolls surrounding the centre-piece, on the top one is
“Melius est,” on the right-hand one “nomen bonum,” on the bottom one
“q diuitie,” and on the left-hand one “multe. Prou. xxii,” _i.e._
“A good name is better than much riches.” The second device, of which we
also give an example, is self-explanatory, and is perhaps the more
original. It has also an additional interest from the fact that it was
used by William Copland, 1549-1561, who was probably a son of Robert,
and who simply altered the mark to the extent of substituting his own
Christian name for that of Robert in the scroll at the bottom of the
device. Over sixty books by this printer are described by
bibliographers, and many of them are in the British Museum. Robert Wyer,
whose shop was at the sign of St. John the Evangelist, in St. Martin’s
parish, in the rents of the Bishop of Norwich, near Charing Cross, was
another printer whose works were more remarkable for their number than
for their typographic excellence. His earliest dated work is the
“Expositiones Terminarum Legum Anglorum,” 1527, and his latest
“A Dyalogue Defensyue for Women,” 1542, but as to nearly sixty others of
his works no date is attached, he may have commenced earlier than the
first date and continued after the second. The marks of Wyer consisted
of two or three representations of St. John the Divine writing, attended
by an eagle holding the inkhorn; he is seated on a rock in the middle of
the sea intended to represent the Isle of Patmos. Laurens, or Lawrence,
Andrewe, by Ames stated to be a native of Calais, printed a few books
during the third decade of the sixteenth century, and resided near the
eastern end of Fleet Street at the sign of the Golden Cross. His Mark
consisted of a shield which is contained within a very rudely cut
parallelogram; the escutcheon is supported by a wreath beneath an
ornamental arch, and between two curved pillars designed in the early
Italian style, with a background formed of coarse horizontal lines.
Three of his books are in the British Museum. The Museum possesses only
one book with the imprint of Andrew Hester, who was a bookseller of the
“White Horse,” St. Paul’s Church Yard, and this is an edition of
Coverdale’s Bible, “newly oversene and correcte,” which appears to have
been printed for him by Froschover, of Zurich, 1550. Among English Marks
of the period, Hester’s possesses the merit of being original.

[Illustration: ROBERT COPLAND.

R C
Robert Coplande.]

[Illustration: ROBERT WYER.

ROBERT WYER]

[Illustration: ANDREW HESTER.

S
E AH R]

[Illustration: THOMAS BERTHELET.

LVCRECIA ROMANA
THOMAS BERTHELETVS]

One of the most prolific of the printers of the first half of the
sixteenth century was Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded Pynson in the
office of King’s Printer, at a salary of £4 yearly, and who (or his
immediate successors, for he died at the end of 1555) issued books from
1528 to 1568, of which nearly 150 are known to bibliographers, sixty
being in the British Museum. His shop was at the sign of the “Lucretia
Romana,” a charming engraving--the most carefully executed of its kind
used in this country up to that time--of which, with his own name on a
scroll, he used as a Mark. Several of his books were printed in Paris.
He issued a large number of works in classical literature, and among the
more notable of his publications were Chaloner’s translation of
Erasmus’s “Praise of Folly,” 1549, Gower’s “De Confessione Amantis,” and
the “Institution of a Christen Man,” with a woodcut border to the title
by Holbein. John Byddell, otherwise Salisbury, 1533-44, was another
printer whose Mark was derived from the sign of the shop in which he
carried on business, namely, “Our Lady of Pity,” next Fleet Bridge, but
he afterwards removed to the Sun near the Conduit, which was probably
the old residence of Wynkyn de Worde, for whom he was an executor. The
Lady of Pity is personified as an angel with outstretched wings, holding
two elegant horns or torches, the left of which is pouring out a kind of
stream terminating in drops, and is marked on the side with the word
“Gratia”; that on the right contains fire and is lettered “Charitas”:
the lower ends of these horns are rested by the angel upon two rude
heater shields, on the left of which is inscribed “Johan Byddell,
Printer,” and on the other is a mark which includes the printer’s
initials; round the head of the figure are the words, “Virtus beatos
efficit.” This is merely a copy of one of the Marks used by J. Sacon,
a Lyonese printer, 1498-1522. Byddell’s books were distinctly in keeping
with the seriousness of his sign, and among others we find such titles
as “News out of Hell,” 1536, “Olde God and the Newe,” 1534, “Common
Places of Scripture,” 1538, etc., besides two “Primers.” Thomas
Vautrollier, who printed books at Edinburgh and London from about 1566
to 1605, had four Marks, in all of which an anchor is suspended from the
clouds, and two leafy boughs twined, with the motto “Anchora Spei,” and
with a framework which is identical with that of Guarinus, of Basle.
Vautrollier was a native of France; nearly all his books were in Latin.
In 1584 he printed an edition of Giordano Bruno’s “Spaccio de la Bestia
Trionfante,” with a dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, and for which he
had to flee the country, for the imprint, “Stampato in Parigi,” was an
obvious and unsuccessful attempt to hoodwink the authorities. In the
following year he printed at Edinburgh “A Declaration of the Kings
Majesties intention and meaning toward the lait Actis of Parliament.”
J. Norton, 1593-1610, also used the same Mark.

[Illustration: JOHN BYDDELL.

I B
¶ IOHAN BYDDELL.]

[Illustration: THOMAS VAUTROLLIER.

ANCHORA SPEI.]

Richard Grafton, 1537-72, who was a scholar and an author, is one of the
best known of the sixteenth century printers, and, although he issued a
large number of books, confined himself to a single Mark, which was a
rebus or pun upon his name. Grafton was for several years in partnership
with Edward Whitchurche, and also with John Butler. The most important
works accomplished by the two first named were the first issue of the
Great or Cromwell’s Bible, 1539, and Coverdale’s version of the New
Testament, 1538-9, in Latin and English; the latter being partly printed
in Paris by Regnault, and completed in London: as nearly the entire
impression was burnt by order of the Inquisition, it is of great rarity
and value. Grafton, who was printer to Edward VI. both before and after
his accession to the throne, issued a magnificent edition of Halle’s
“Chronicle,” 1548, and an “Abridgement of the Chronicles” by himself in
1562, which in ten years reached a fourth edition. Grafton found
printing a much more hazardous calling than the grocery business to
which he had been brought up, for he was constantly in difficulties,
which on one occasion nearly cost him his life. The idea which found
expression in Grafton’s Mark naturally suggested itself to William
Middleton, or Myddleton, 1525-47, who succeeded to the business of
Robert Redman, and issued books from the sign of the “George next to St.
Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street.” He had two devices, of which we give
the larger and more important: in the smaller the shield is supported on
either side by an angel. About forty of William Middleton’s books have
been described, one of the most notable being John Heywood’s “Four P’s,
a very merry Enterlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a
Pedler.” Reginald or Reynold Wolfe, 1542-73, was the King’s Printer and
a learned antiquary. Wolfe was probably of foreign extraction, for there
were several early sixteenth century printers of the same surname in
France, Germany, and Switzerland. His printing-office was in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, which emblem he used as a
device, a subject which, as we have already seen, was frequently
employed for a similar purpose abroad. Wolfe’s other device, of which
there are two sizes, consisted of an elegant cartouche German shield, on
which is represented a fruit-tree and two boys, one of whom is drawing
down the fruit with a stick, whilst the other is taking it up off the
ground. Over sixty books have been catalogued as the work of Reginald
Wolfe. John Wolfe, originally a fishmonger, started printing about 1560,
and from that year until 1601 we have an almost continuous stream of his
books, on a very great variety of subjects. Like several others of the
early printers, he was in constant warfare with the authorities, whose
rules and restrictions of the press were a source of ever-recurring
annoyances. He appears to have had as much difficulty in managing his
“authors” as with the Stationers’ Company, for he is referred to more
than once in very uncomplimentary terms in the Martin Marprelate tracts
of the period. The Mark here reproduced from Berjeau represents a
fleur-de-lys seedling supported by two savages, with the motto “Ubique
Floret.” John Day, 1546-84, is undoubtedly one of the best known and
most prolific of the sixteenth century printers, nearly 300 books having
him as their foster-father. He appears to have started in business at
the sign of the Resurrection, a little above Holborn Conduit, but
removed in or about 1549 to Aldersgate Street; he had several shops in
various parts of the town, where his literary wares might be disposed
of, and he is remarkable in being the first English printer who used
Saxon characters, whilst he brought those of the Greek and Italic to
perfection. It is not possible to give in this place even a brief
summary of Day’s career, and it must suffice us to mention that
Archbishop Parker was among his patrons, and that the more important
books which appeared from his press included Fox’s “Acts and Monuments,”
1563, and the “Psalmes in Metre with Music,” 1571 (for the printing of
which he received a patent dated June 2, 1568). His best known device,
of which we give an example, has a double meaning; first it is a pun on
his name, and secondly an allusion to the dawn of the Protestant
religion. He used another Mark, which is a large upright parallelogram,
within the lines of which is a very elegant Greek sarcophagus bearing a
skeleton lying on a mat. At the head of the corpse are two figures
standing and looking down at it, of which the outer one is in the dress
of a rich citizen, having his left hand on his sword, and the other, who
is pointing to the body, is dressed like a doctor or a schoolmaster:
from his mouth issues a scroll rising upwards in eight folds, on four of
which are engraven in small Roman capitals, “Etsi Mors in dies
accelerat,” and the remainder of the sentence, “Post Fvnera virtus vivet
tamen,” appears in similar letters on another scroll, which is elegantly
twined round the branches of a holly placed behind the sepulchre, to
indicate by a tree that blooms at Christmas the evergreen nature of
virtue; the sarcophagus, figures, and tree stand by the side of a river,
with some distant vessels, on the left hand of which are rocky shores,
with cities, etc., and in the upper corner of the left is the sun
breaking out of the clouds; the initials I D appear on the lower left
hand. This Mark is exceedingly rare; it occurs on the last leaf of
J. Norton’s translation of the Latin “Catechism,” 1570, and also at the
end of Churton’s “Cosmographical Glass.” There are several variations of
the Mark which we reproduce on p. 79. William Seres, who was for some
time anterior to 1550 in partnership with Day (and at other times with
Anthony Scoloker, Richard Kele, and William Hill), printed over 100
books, in many of which his monogram serves the purpose of a Mark.

[Illustration: RICHARD GRAFTON.

SVSCIPITE INSITVM VERBVM IACO I
RG]

[Illustration: WILLIAM MIDDLETON.

W
WYLLYAM MYDDYLTON]

[Illustration: JOHN WOLFE.

VBIQVE FLORET]

[Illustration: JOHN DAY.

ARISE FOR IT IS DAY]

Like so many other of the early printers, Richard Jugge, 1548-77, whose
shop was at the sign of the Bible at the north door of St. Paul’s, was a
University man, having studied at King’s College, Cambridge. “He had a
license from Government to print the New Testament in English, dated
January, 1550; and no printer ever equalled him in the richness of the
initial letters and general disposition of the text which are displayed
therein.” On the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, he printed the
proclamation, November 17, 1558. About seventy books are catalogued as
coming from his press. His elegant Mark consists of a massive
architectural panel, adorned with wreaths of fruit, and bearing in the
centre an oval within which is a pelican feeding her young, surrounded
by the mottoes, “Love kepyth the Lawe, obeyeth the Kynge, and is good to
the commen welthe,” and “Pro Rege Lege et Grege.” On the left of the
oval stands a female figure having a serpent twined round her right arm,
with the word “Prudentia” underneath, whilst the second female figure,
with a balance and a sword, is called “Justicia”; in the bottom centre
in a small cartouche panel is the name R. Jugge in the form of a
monogram. This Mark was also used by J. Windet and by Alexander
Arbuthnot, of Edinburgh, of which we give the example of the last named.
Hugh Singleton, 1548-82, appears to have earned as much notoriety among
his contemporaries for his “rather loose” principles as for the books
which he printed. He was often in conflict with the authorities, and
very narrowly escaped severe punishment for printing one of Stubbs’
outbursts, for which the author and Page the publisher had their right
hands cut off with a butcher’s knife and a mallet in 1581; Singleton was
pardoned. His Mark, of which there are variations, is sufficiently
self-explanatory, although it may be mentioned that for a time he dwelt
at the Golden Tun in Creed Lane. Walter Lynne, 1547-50, who was a
scholar and an author, had a shop at “Sommer’s Key near Billingsgate”
and printed about twenty sermons and other religious tracts in octavo,
employed the device given as an initial to the present chapter. John
Wyghte, or Wight, resembled Singleton somewhat in his facility for
running his head against established customs, and was on one occasion
fined for keeping his shop open on St. Luke’s Day, and on another for
selling pirated books. His shop was at the sign of the Rose, St. Paul’s
Churchyard, and his books--beginning with an edition of the Bible--range
from the year 1551 to 1596. His device was a portrait of himself, which
varies considerably both in size and in other respects. Perhaps the most
curious and interesting work which he published was “A Booke of the arte
and manner how to plant and graffe all sortes of trees,” 1586,
translated from the French by Leonard Mascall, and dedicated to Sir John
Paulet.

[Illustration: A. ARBUTHNOT.

ALEXANDER ARBVTHNET
LOVE KEPYTH THE LAWE OBEYETH THE KYNGE
AND IS GOOD TO THE COMMEN WELTHE
PRO LEGE REGE, ET GREGE
PRVDENCIA IVSTICIA]

[Illustration: HUGH SINGLETON.

H S]

[Illustration: JOHN WIGHT.

I W
WELCOM THE WIGHT: THAT BRINGETH SVCH LIGHT]

The employment of the Geneva arms as a Printer’s Mark is confined, in
this country, to Rowland Hall, who, at the death of Edward VI.,
accompanied several refugees to Geneva, where he printed the Psalms,
Bible, and other works of a more or less religious character; his books
range from 1559 to 1563, and about two dozen are known to
bibliographers, and half of this number are in the British Museum. His
Mark has a double interest; first, from his residence in Geneva, and
secondly from the fact that the sign of his shop, “The Half Eagle and
Key,” was a still further acknowledgment of the protection which he
enjoyed in Geneva. This was not his only Mark, but it is the only one to
which we need refer. The name of Richard Tottell, 1553-97, is much
better remembered in connection with the epoch-making little book,
“Songes and Sonettes,” 1557, the first miscellany of English verse, than
either of the other seventy or eighty publications which bear his
imprint. His shop was in Fleet Street at the sign of the Hand and Star,
the same idea serving him as a Mark: the hand and star in a circle, with
a scroll on either side having the words “cum privilegio,” the whole
being placed under an arch supported by columns ornamented in the
Etruscan style. One of the most curious of the large number of books
which came from the press of Henry Bynneman, 1567-87, is “The Mariners
boke, containing godly and necessary orders and prayers, to be observed
in every ship, both for mariners and all other whatsoever they be that
shall travaile on the sea, for their voyage,” 1575; a still more curious
production of his press has the following title, “Of ghostes and
spirites walkyng by night, and strange noyes, crackes and sundry fore
warnynges, which commonly happen before the death of men, great
slaughters, and alterations of kyngdomes,” 1572. Bynneman had served
with Reynold Wolfe, and when he started in business on his own account
met with much encouragement from Archbishop Parker, who allowed him to
have a shop or shed at the north-west door of St. Paul’s. He appears to
have had two Marks, one of which was derived from the sign of his shop,
“The Mermaid,” with the motto, “Omnia tempus habent,” and the other
(here reproduced) of a doe passant, and the motto, “Cerva charissima et
gratissimus hinnulus pro.” Thomas Woodcock, 1576-94, who dwelt at the
sign of the Black Bear, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was a bookseller
rather than a printer; his Mark is an evident double pun on his surname.

[Illustration: ROWLAND HALL.

POST TENEBRAS LVX]

[Illustration: HENRY BYNNEMAN.

CERVA CHARISSIMA ET GRATISSIMVS HINNVLVS PRO]

[Illustration: THOMAS WOODCOCK.

CANTABO IEHOVÆ QVIA BENEFECIT]

During the last years of the sixteenth century, and the first three
decades of the seventeenth, there were two Jaggards among the London
printers; by far the better known is Isaac, who, with Edward Blount,
issued the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays; he seems to have
had no Mark, but William, 1595-1624, used the rather striking device
(page 88), which is thus described: Serpent biting his tail, coiled
twice round the wrist of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a
wand from which springs two laurel branches, and which is surmounted by
a portcullis (the Westminster Arms); in the last coil of the serpent the
word “Prudentia.” Equally distinct is the mark of Felix Kingston, or
Kyngston, who printed a very large number of books from 1597 to 1640; in
this device we have the sun shining on the Parnassus, and a laurel tree
between the two conical hills, with a sunflower and a pansy on either
side.

[Illustration: WILLIAM JAGGARD.

PRVDENTIA]

The Mark of William Norton, 1570-93, whose shop was at the King’s Arms,
St. Paul’s Churchyard, was in a double sense a pun on his name,
consisting as it did of a representation of a Sweet-William growing
through a tun inscribed with the letters “NOR”; and something of the
same kind may be said of that employed by Richard Harrison, 1552-62,
whose Mark is described by Camden as “an Hare by a sheafe of Rye in the
Sun, for Harrison.” In this connection we may also here refer to the
Mark employed by Gerard (or Gerald) Dewes, 1562-87, whose shop was at
the sign of the Swan in St. Paul’s Churchyard; this is described by
Camden thus: “and if you require more [_i.e._ in reference to the
prevailing taste for picture-writing such as the designs of Norton and
Dewes] I refer you to the witty inventions of some Londoners; but that
for Garret Dewes is most remarkable, two in a garret casting Dewes at
dice.” In the same category also may be included the Mark of Christopher
and Robert Barker, the Queen’s Printers, who used a design of a man
barking timber, with the couplet

“A Barker if you will,
In name but not in skill.”

From these and many other instances which might be cited, it will be
seen that by the end of the sixteenth century the Printer’s Mark in
England had declined into a very childish and feeble play upon the names
of the printers, and the subject therefore need not be further pursued.

[Illustration: FELIX KINGSTON.

PARNASSO ET APOLLINE DIGNA]

[Illustration: THOMAS CREEDE.

T C
VIRESSIT VVLNERE VERITAS]

The natural result, moreover, of this decline was, in the following
century, followed by what practically amounts to extinction; and the few
exceptions to which we shall refer, and which are to some extent
selected at random, prove the truth of that theory. Thomas Creede,
1588-1618, whose shop was at the sign of the Catherine Wheel, near the
Old Swan in Thames Street, was one of the prolific printers of the
period, and his most common Mark is a personification of Truth, with a
hand issuing from the clouds striking on her back with a rod, and
encircled with the motto, “Veritas virescit vulnere.” Among the numerous
books which he printed was Henry Butte’s “Digets Dry Dinner,” 1599, for
William Wood, a bookseller whose shop was at the sign of Time, St.
Paul’s Churchyard, and whose Mark was an almost exact copy of one
employed by Conrad Bade, a sixteenth century printer of Paris and Geneva
(who had apparently adopted his from that of Knoblouch of Strassburg,
which we give on another page): it represents a winged figure of Time
helping a naked woman out of what appears to be a cave, with the motto,
“Tempore patet occulata veritas”; this Mark follows the introductory
matter in the above-named work. Making a leap of over half a century, we
come across another ambitious Mark, which in the present instance served
the additional purpose of a frontispiece; it was employed by John Allen
of the Rising Sun, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and is dated 1656; it is
rather a fine device of the sun rising behind the hills, with a
cathedral on the left-hand side, and the inscription “Ipswiche” and a
coat-of-arms, apparently of that city. Although not exactly a printer’s
or publisher’s Mark, the charming little plate, engraved by Clark, which
John Walthoe, Jr., inserted on the title-page of “The Hive: a collection
of the most celebrated Songs,” 1724, is sufficiently near it to be worth
reproducing here. T. Cox, a bookseller of “The Lamb,” under the Royal
Exchange, Cornhill, was fortunate enough to have a Mark (see page 46),
in which John Pine is seen at his best: Cox was not only an eminent
bookseller, but was also an exchange-broker. Of much less delicate
workmanship, but appropriate nevertheless, is the Mark which we find on
the title-pages of the books printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun
in Warwick Lane, one of whose books, Dr. Warren’s “Impartial Churchman,”
1728, contains at the end of the first chapter another Mark, an
exceedingly rough sketch of a printing-office, with the motto, “vitam
mortuis reddo.” On books intended more or less for particular schools,
the Printer’s Mark usually takes the shape of the arms of the schools
themselves, as in the case of Westminster and Eton; and the same may be
said of books printed at Oxford and Cambridge, in the former case a very
fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre usually appearing on the title-page
of books printed there. John Scolar is an interesting figure among the
very early printers of Oxford, and from 1518 he was the official printer
of the University; in one of the books he issued there is cited an edict
of the Chancellor, under his official seal, enjoining that for a period
of seven years to come, no person should venture to print that work, or
even to sell copies of it elsewhere printed within Oxford and its
precincts, under pain of forfeiting the copies, and paying a fine of
five pounds sterling, and other penalties. Scolar’s Mark is one of the
very few in which a book appears. John Siberch, the first Cambridge
printer, apparently had two Marks, one of which--the Royal Arms, which
was the sign of the house he occupied--appears on four of the eight
books printed by him at Cambridge in or about 1521; of the second we
give a facsimile from his first book, Galen, “De Temperamentis.” The
Mark of the majority of eighteenth century booksellers and printers
consisted of a monogram formed either with their initials or names.
During a portion of his career Jacob Tonson used a bust of what
purported to be Shakespeare, partly from the fact that for many years
the copyright of the great dramatist’s works belonged to him and partly
because one of his shops had for its sign, “The Shakespeare’s Head.”

[Illustration: JOHN WALTHOE.

SPARSA COEGI.]

[Illustration: R. WARE.]

[Illustration: JOHN SCOLAR.

veritas Liberavit Bonitas Regnauit]

[Illustration: JOHN SIBERCH.

I S]

The earliest Printers’ Marks of Scottish printers are not of the first
importance, but they are sufficiently interesting to merit notice.
Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar were granted a patent for the erection
of a printing-press at Edinburgh on September 15, 1507, the former
finding the money and the latter the knowledge. Each had his distinctive
Mark, both of which are of French origin--a theory which is easily
proved so far as Myllar’s is concerned from the fact that it displays
two small shields at the top corners, each charged with the
_fleur-de-lys_. Myllar’s device, in which we see a windmill with a
miller ascending the outside ladder, carrying a sack of grain on his
back, is an obvious pun on his name, and was, perhaps, suggested by the
Mark of Jehan Moulin, Paris. Chepman’s is a very close copy of that of
Pigouchet, Paris, the male and female figures being carefully copied
even to the small crosses on their knees; the initials W C are elegantly
interlaced. Thomas Davidson is a very interesting figure in the early
history of Scottish typography; he appears to have been the first king’s
printer of his country, and one of his earliest works is “Ad
Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Jacobum Quintum de suscepto Regni Regimine a
diis feliciter ominato Strena,” _circa_ 1525; about ten years later came
a translation of the “Chronicles of Scotland,” compiled by Boece, and
“translatit be maister Johne Bellenden;” Davidson’s Mark is of the same
character as Chepman’s, but is, if possible, even more roughly drawn and
engraved; whilst Bassandyne copied the device of Crespin of Geneva, with
the initials T. B. instead I. C. Arbuthnot’s device of the Pelican,
which he used in two sizes, and the Marks of Thomas Vautrollier, have
been already referred to. Coming down to the last twenty years of the
sixteenth century, we find the few books of Henry Charteris of
considerable and varied interest, and his Mark, if by no means carefully
drawn and engraved, has at all events the merit of being fairly
original.

[Illustration: ANDRO MYLLAR.

Androv myllar]

[Illustration: WALTER CHEPMAN.

W C
Walterus chepman]

[Illustration: THOMAS DAVIDSON.

T D
THOMAS DA.]

[Illustration: H. CHARTERIS.

IVSTITIA. RELIGIO.
SVVM CVIQVE DEVM COLE
HIS SVFFVLTA DVRANT.
H C]

[Decoration]

SOME FRENCH PRINTERS’ MARKS.

[Illustration: F. ESTIENNE.

Πλίον ἐλαίου ἤ βίνου
Plus olei quàm vini.]

It is rather a curious fact, all things considered, that the
introduction of the printing-press into Paris should have only antedated
its appearance in this country by four years; such however is the case.
It was at the commencement of the year 1470, the tenth of the reign of
Louis XI., that Ulrich Gering, Martin Krantz, and Michel Friburger
commenced printing in one of the rooms of the College Sorbonne. They had
learnt their art at Mayence, and at the dispersal of the office of Fust
and Schoeffer had settled down at Basel. They were induced to take up
their residence at the Sorbonne by Jean Heinlin and Guillaume Fichet,
two distinguished professors of that place. The first book printed at
Paris was the “Letters” of Gasparin of Bergamo, 1470, which contains the
following quatrain at the end of the work:

“Primos ecce libros quos hæc industria finxit
Francorum in terris ædibus atque tuis;
Michael, Udalrichus, Martinusque magister
Hos impresserunt, ac facient alios.”

By the end of 1472 the three companions had issued thirty works,
apparently without indulging in the luxury of a Mark, but their patrons
separating they had to leave the Sorbonne. Their new quarters were at
the sign of the “Soleil d’Or” in the Rue St. Jacques--the Paternoster
Row of Paris. Here they remained until 1477, when Gering was the sole
proprietor. He was joined in 1480 by George Mainyal, and in 1494 by
Bertholt Rembolt, and died in August, 1510. Within thirty years of the
introduction of printing into Paris, there were nearly ninety printers,
who issued nearly 800 works between 1470 and 1500. Rembolt, who
succeeded Gering and preserved the sign of his office, was one of the
earliest, if not the first to adopt a Mark, of which indeed he used four
more or less distinct examples. We reproduce one of the rarest; his best
known is a highly decorative picture, and has a shield (carrying a cross
with the initials B. R. in the lower half of the circle which envelopes
the foot of the cross) suspended from a vine tree and supported by two
lions. Of this Mark there are at least two sizes; another of his Marks
consisted of an enlarged form of the cross to which we have referred.

[Illustration: B. REMBOLT.

BERCHTOLDVS R]

After Rembolt, the interest of the Printer’s Mark in France diverges
into a number of directions. The most prolific printer was, perhaps,
Antoine Vérard, who, dying in 1530, issued books continuously for about
forty-five years: he was also a calligrapher, an illuminator, and a
bookseller; his Books of Hours led the way for the beautiful productions
of Simon Vostre, whilst his chief “line” consisted of romances, of which
there are over a hundred printed on vellum and ornamented with beautiful
miniatures. He had two Marks, one of which, consisting simply of the two
letters A. V., is accompanied by the lines:

“Pour proquer la grand’ miséricorde,
A tous pescheurs faire grâce et pardon,
Antoine Vérard humblement te recorde.”

Of the second we give an example on p. 21. Among his publications may
be mentioned “L’Art de bien Mourir,” 1492, which Gilles Couteau and
J. Menard printed for him, whilst the punning Mark of the former is
reproduced in our first chapter (p. 4). François Regnault, who printed
a large number of books during the first half of the sixteenth century,
had six Marks, chiefly variations on the one here given. He usually
placed at the bottom of his books: “Parissis, ex officinâ honesti viri
Francissi Regnault”; the accompanying reduced facsimile of one of his
title-pages indicates the prominent position allotted at this early
period to the printer’s Mark. A very remarkable and elaborate Mark
of this family of printers was that of Pierre Regnault, who was putting
forth books during nearly the whole of the first half of the sixteenth
century. The Marchant family existed in Paris as printers for over 300
years (1481-1789). The first of the line, Guy, or Guyot, who printed
books for Jehan Petit, Geoffrey De Marnef, and others, had as Mark four
variations of the _chant gaillard_ represented by two notes, sol, la,
with one faith represented by two hands joined, in allusion to the
words, “Sola fides sufficit,” taken from the hymn, “Pange lingua.”
Beneath his Mark he placed the figures of Saints Crispin and Crispinian,
patrons of the leather-dressers who prepared the leather for the binder,
in which capacity Marchant acted on several occasions for Francis I. As
was the case with his contemporaries, Marchant’s earliest books
possessed no mark, and one of the first of the publications in which it
appeared was the “Compost et Calendrier des Bergiers,” 1496. The De
Marnef family also make a big show in the annals of French typography,
particularly in the way of Marks, the various members using, between
1481 and 1554, nearly thirty examples, including duplicates, several of
which were designed by Geoffrey Tory. Nearly all these Marks had the
subject of the Pelican feeding her young as a centre piece. Jerome,
however, used a Griffin among his several other examples, of which the
two finest of the whole series are those numbered 746 and 812 in
Silvestre, and are the work of Jean Cousin at his best. The founder of
the family, Geoffrey, used the accompanying device in two sizes. The
Janot family, of which the founder, Denys, was the most celebrated, were
issuing books in Paris from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
the eighteenth century, and the more noticeable of their Marks contained
the device: “Amor Dei omnia vincit--amour partout, tout par amour,
partout amour, en tout bien” (see p. 15). The Macé family, which makes a
good show with eleven Marks, was also a long-lived one of over 200
years, many of the members residing at Caen, Rennes, and Rouen, besides
Paris. The same may be said to some extent of the Dupré or Du Pré
family, 1486-1775; the two first, Jean or Jehan and Galliot, were the
most celebrated. Of the dozen Marks employed by this family, the most
original, it being the evident pun on his name, has a _Galiote_, at the
head of the mast of which is the motto, “Vogue la Guallee,” or sometimes
“Vogue la Gualee” (see p. 5). Jehan Du Pré the Lyons printer, used the
accompanying Mark formed of his initials. The first as well as the most
noted member of the Le Rouge family of printers was Pierre, who resided
at Chablis, Troyes, and Paris, and who was the first to take the title
of “Libraire-Imprimeur du Roi,” ceded to him by Charles VIII., and used
in “La Mer des Histoires,” 1488. Appropriately enough, Michel Le Noir,
whose motto we have already quoted, may be here referred to. He issued a
large number of books, the most notable, perhaps, being “Le Roman de la
Rose,” 1513. He was succeeded by his son Philippe in 1514, one of whose
most noticeable publications was “Le Blazon des Hérétiques” (a satirical
piece attributed to Pierre Gringoire), the figure or effigy at the head
is signed with the monogram of G. Tory. The five Marks of father and son
differed only in minor details, and the above example of Philippe will
sufficiently indicate the character of the others. Philippe Pigouchet,
who was an engraver as well as a bookseller and printer, contented
himself apparently with one Mark. He is distinguished for the extreme
care with which he turned out his books, particularly the Books of Hours
which he undertook to produce in partnership with Simon Vostre; some of
his works are freely copied by the publishers of to-day, and might with
advantage be even more generally utilized than they are, for they
possess all the attributes of beautiful books. Thielman Kerver,
a German, was another printer who worked for Simon Vostre, one of his
most important productions being a “Breviarium ad usum Ecclesiæ
Parisiensis,” 1500, in red and black. His shop was on the Pont St.
Michel, at the sign of the Unicorn, which, as will be seen, he adopted
as his Mark, and of which there are two, which differ from one another
only in minor details. Of Simon Vostre himself, a whole book might be
compiled. From about 1488 to 1528 he devoted himself exclusively to the
publishing of books, and employed all the best printers: it was by his
energy combined with Pigouchet’s technical skill that the two produced,
in April, 1488, the “Heures à l’Usaige de Rome,” an octavo finely
decorated with ornaments and figures; the experiment was a complete
success. It is generally assumed that the engraving was done in relief
on metal, as the line in it is very fine, the background stippled, and
the borders without scratches: wood could not have resisted the force of
the impression, the reliefs would have been crushed, the borders rubbed
and badly adjusted. The artistic connection of Pigouchet and Vostre
lasted for eighteen years, and with them book production in France may
be said to have attained its highest point. By the year 1520 Vostre had
published more than 300 editions of the “Hours” for the use of different
cities; he had two Marks, of which we give the larger example on p. 103.

[Illustration: SIMON VOSTRE.

S V
SIMON VOSTRE]

[Illustration: FRANÇOIS REGNAULT.

Le premier volume
de la toison dor.

Compose par reuerend pere en dieu guillaume par
la permission diuine iadis euesque de Tournay/ ab-
be de sainct Bertin et chancellier de lordre de la Thoi
son dor du bon duc Philippe de bourgongne Auquel
soubz les vertus de magnanimite et iustice apparte-
nans a lestat de noblesse sont contenus les haulx ver-
tueux et magnanimes faictz tant des tres chrestiennes
maisons de france/ bourgongne et flandres que dau-
tres roys et princes de lancien et nouueau testament
nouuellement imprime a Paris.

Cum p[ri]uilegio

F R
FRANCOYS REGNAVLT

¶ Ilz se vendent a Paris en la rue sainct
Iaques a lenseigne sainct Claude.]

[Illustration: PIERRE REGNAULT.

P R
CONCORDIA PARVE RES CRESCVNT
DISCORDIA MAGNE DILABVNTVR
PETRVS REGNAVLT]

[Illustration: GUY MARCHANT.

Fides Ficit]

[Illustration: DE MARNEF.

Le pellicā
E I G
De marnef]

[Illustration: J. DU PRÉ.

I P]

[Illustration: PIERRE LE ROUGE.

.P. le Rouge]

[Illustration: PHILIPPE LE NOIR.

P N
PHILIPPE LE NOIR]

[Illustration: THIELMAN KERVER.

T K
THIELMAN KERVER]

In many respects Jean or Jehan Petit is one of the most remarkable of
the early French printers, whilst from the time he started to the final
extinction of his descendants as printers covers a space of 336
years--a record which is probably unrivalled in the history of
typography. Jehan Petit kept fifteen presses fully employed, and found a
great deal of work for fifteen others. The family as a whole makes a
good show with their marks, in which the founder is more extravagant
than any of the others, having used, at one time or another, at least
half-a-dozen more or less different examples. In addition to reproducing
one of the finest, we give, on p. 9, also a reduced facsimile of a
title-page of a book, the joint venture of Petit and Kerver; the
combination of the two names on one title-page is distinctly novel and
curious. He was on several occasions associated with others in producing
a book, his connection with Josse Bade extending from 1501 to 1536. Of
Bade or Badius it will be necessary to give a few particulars. He was
born at Asche, near Brussels, and was a scholar and a poet as well as a
printer. About 1495-7 he was engaged as a corrector of the press for
Treschel and De Vingle at Lyons. He left about 1500 for Paris, where he
started a press in 1502, which he called “Prelum Ascensianum.” In
reference to this term, “the Ascension Press,” the word “prelum” was
applied to the ancient wine presses, after which, in fact, the earliest
printing presses were modelled. His Mark, which he first used in 1507,
is the earliest picture of a printing-press. Thirteen years after, he
adopted another device with the same subject, but differing in many
important particulars. In the second, the composing-stick used by the
figure in the act of setting type is changed from the right to the left
hand; the press shows improved mechanical construction, indicating
greater solidity and strength. In the latter example also the figure
sitting at the case on the right side of the engraving is intended to
represent a woman, instead of a man as in the earlier illustration.
Contemporary with both Petit and Bade, Gilles or Gillet Hardouyn,
1491-1521, was both a printer and a bookseller, and used two Marks, of
which we give the more striking. Germain Hardouyn, possibly a son of the
preceding, confined himself more particularly to selling books during
the first forty years of the sixteenth century.

[Illustration: PHILIPPE PIGOUCHET.

pp.
PHILIPPE PIGOVCHET]

[Illustration: JEHAN PETIT.

I P
IEHAN PETIT]

[Illustration: J. BADE.

Prelũ Ascẽsianũ
I B]

[Illustration: GILLET HARDOUYN.]

[Illustration: GEOFFREY TORY.

NON PLVS]

Geoffrey Tory resembled many others of the early printers in being also
a scholar; but he was also an artist and an engraver, taking up and
carrying on the great work inaugurated by Vostre and Vérard. He was born
at Bourges in 1480, and one of his earliest works, which was published
by Petit and printed by Gilles De Gourmont, was an edition of the
“Geography” of Pomponius Mela, 1507, and between this time and his death
he produced a number of Books of Hours, the decoration of which can only
be described as marvellous. One of the most beautiful is undoubtedly the
“Heures de la Vierge,” executed for Simon De Colines. What interests us
most, however, is the Mark which he adopted when he entered into
business as a printer and bookseller; it is perhaps the most elegant
that had been up to that time designed. This Mark of the broken pitcher,
with the motto “Non plus,” first appeared at the end of a Latin poem
issued in 1524, is regarded as a _memento_ of the death of his little
daughter in 1522, and is thus explained: the broken pitcher symbolizes
her career cut short; the book with clasps her literary studies; the
little winged figure her soul; and the motto “Non plus,” “Je ne tiens
plus à rien.” He gives his own interpretation of this Mark, however, in
that curious medley of poetry and philosophy which he called
“Champfleury,” 1529. It may be mentioned that on some of the bindings of
his quarto volumes the broken pitcher is transversed by the wimble or
_toret_--an obvious pun on his name.

The Estienne or Etienne family is probably the most important and
interesting of the sixteenth century printers of Paris. Silvestre
reproduces twenty Marks which one or other of the Estiennes employed,
and a description of these might very well form a distinct chapter. But
a condensed review of the family as a whole must suffice. Henry, the
first of the name and chief of the family, was born at Paris about 1470;
he started in 1502 a printing and bookselling business in the Rue du
Clos-Bruneau, near the _Ecoles de Droit_; he adopted the device, “Plus
olei quam vini”; and twenty-eight works are catalogued as having been
printed by him. He died in 1521, leaving a widow and three
children--François, Robert, and Charles. François I. continued the
profession in company with Simon De Colines, who had been associated
with his father, and who married the widow of Henry: his Mark is given
as an initial to this chapter. Robert I., the second son of Henry, was
born in 1503, and is probably more generally known as a Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew scholar than as a printer. For several years he, like his
brother, was associated with De Colines; he married Pétronille, daughter
of Badius “Ascensius,” and was a Protestant; in 1526 he established a
printing-press in the Rue St. Jean-de-Beauvois at the sign of the Olive.
His editions of the Greek and Latin classics were enriched with useful
notes, and promises of reward were offered to those who pointed out
mistakes. He used the types of his father and De Colines until about
1532, when he obtained a more elegant fount with which he printed his
beautiful Latin Bible. In 1552 he retired to Geneva, when he printed,
with his brother-in-law, the New Testament in French. He established
here another printing-press, and issued a number of good books, which
usually carried the motto: “Oliva Roberti Stephani.” His Marks are at
least ten in number, of which seven are variations of the Olive device,
and three (in as many sizes) of the serpent on a rod intertwined with a
branch of a climbing plant. With the exception of François the other
members of the family used the Olive mark, sometimes however altering
the motto, and adding in some instances an overhead decoration of a hand
issuing from the clouds and holding a sickle or reaping hook. He died in
1559. The third son of the founder, Charles, after receiving his
diplomas as a doctor of medicine, travelled in Germany and Italy,
returning to Paris in 1553, and started in business as a printer. Among
the ninety-two works which he printed, special mention may be made of
the “Dictionarium historicum ac poeticum, omnia gentium, hominum,
locorum,” etc., Paris, 1553, reprinted at Geneva in 1556, at Oxford in
1671, and London, 1686. He possessed the opposite attributes of being
the best printer and of having the worst temper of the family, and he
alienated himself from all his friends and relations; he was confined in
the Chatelet in Paris, and died there after two years in 1564. Henry
II., son of Robert I., was born in Paris in 1528; after leaving college
he travelled on the continent and visited England. He returned to Paris
in 1552, when his father was leaving for Geneva. In 1554 he started a
printing-press; in 1566 he published a translation of Herodotus by
Valla, revised and corrected, defending, in the preface, the Father of
History against the reproach of credulity. Charles, brother of Robert
I., established a printing-press in 1551, and died crippled with debts
in 1564. Robert II., second son of Robert I., was born in 1530, and,
refusing to adopt the new religion, was disinherited by his father; he
started a printing-press on his own account when his father retired to
Geneva, and issued forty-eight books, some of which possessed the mark
of the Olive; he was the royal printer in 1561, and died in 1575.
François II., third son of Robert I., printed in Geneva from about 1562
to 1582. Robert III., elder son of Robert II., died in 1629. Paul, son
of Henry II., was born in 1566, and, after a brilliant scholastic
career, travelled on the continent, and started a printing-press at
Geneva in 1599, where he issued twenty-six editions of the classics
which were particularly notable for their correctness and notes. He died
in 1627, and his son Antoine, born 1594, established himself at
twenty-six years of age as a printer in Paris, reverted to Roman
Catholicism, was appointed printer to the king and to the clergy, dying
at the Hotel Dieu in 1674. The number of editions which this celebrated
family, starting in 1502 and finishing in 1673, issued, reaches the very
large number of 1590, thus classified: theology, 239; jurisprudence, 79;
science and arts, 152; belles lettres, 823; and history, 297. Of the
eleven members of this family, one died in exile, five in misery, one in
a debtor’s prison, and two in the hospital--“Lecteur, que vous faut-il
de plus?”

[Illustration: SIMON DE COLINES.

S D C
S DECOLINES]

[Illustration: R. ESTIENNE.

NOLI ALTVM SAPERE.]

[Illustration: ROBERT ESTIENNE.]

Although in France, as elsewhere, we have to look to the printers of the
fifteenth century for originality and decorative beauty, some
exceedingly interesting Marks occur in the sixteenth, and are well worth
studying. We have only space for the enumeration of a few of the more
important. Of these, Pierre Vidoue comes well in the first rank. He was
one of the most distinguished of the early Parisian Greek typographers,
besides being a person of learning and eminence, and was issuing books
up to the year 1544; his edition of Aristophanes, 1582, published by
Gilles De Gourmont, is described as “a singularly curious impression,”
whilst ten years later he printed Guillaume Postel’s “Linguarum XII.
characteribus differentium Alphabetum,” which is described by La Caille
as the “first book printed in oriental character,” a statement, however,
which is incorrect so far as relates to the Hebrew. He had at least
three Marks, all more or less similar, in one of which, however, the
motto “ardentes juvo,” is supplemented by “par sit fortuna labori.” Of
the six Roffets who were printing or publishing books in Paris during
the sixteenth century, the most notable is perhaps Pierre, whose name
frequently occurs in the bookbinding accounts of Francis I.; of their
seven Marks, nearly all more or less of the same “rustic” character, the
most decorative is that of Jacques (see p. 30). In their separate ways,
the Marks of Mathurin Breuille, 1562-83 (p. 33), and Louis Cyaneus,
1529-46, each possesses a pleasing originality, the latter of which is
inscribed with the motto “Tecum Habita.” The two Wéchels, André and
Chrestien, were among the most eminent of the sixteenth century Parisian
printers, and between them employed over a dozen marks. All those of
André were variations of one type, namely, two hands holding a caduceus
between two horns of plenty surmounted by Pegasus. This had also been
used by Chrestien, of whose other Mark a reproduction is here given, and
of which there were several variations. Regnault Chaudière’s shop was in
the Rue St. Jacques, at the sign of “L’homme Sauvage,” which he adopted
for his Mark: this he appears to have changed for one emblematical of
Time when he took his son into partnership, and which, Maittaire thinks,
he may have borrowed of Simon De Colines, whose daughter (and only
child) he married. We give the largest of the examples used by Guillaume
Chaudière, 1564-98 on p. 28. Sébastien Nivelle, who was working during
the latter half of the sixteenth century until the third year of the
seventeenth century, is a very interesting figure in the typographical
annals of Paris. He was, at the time of his death at the age of eighty
years, the _doyen_ of the trade. His books were, for the most part,
beautifully printed. His shop was in the Rue St. Jacques at the sign of
the Two Storks, which he adopted for his exceedingly beautiful Mark, the
four medallions representing scenes of filial piety. His daughter was
the mother of Sébastien Cramoisy, “typographus regius,” who inherited
the establishment of his grandfather. Of the somewhat crudely drawn
Mark--an evident pun on his surname--used in or about 1504, by Guillaume
Du Puys, the sign of the shop being the Samaritan, a much more
decorative example was used, in various sizes, by Jacques Du Puys
(p. 10), who was a bookseller, 1549-91, rather than a printer. Equally
fine in another way is the tripartite example, given on page 130, used
by Guillaume Merlin in partnership with Guillaume Desboys and Sébastien
Nivelle, in 1559, and also with the latter in 1571. The Mark is the
interpretation of the four lines:

“Veniet tempus meissionis.
Non oderis laboriosa opera.
Homo nascitur ad laborem,
Vade, piger, ad formicam.”

[Illustration: P. VIDOUE.

AVDENTES IVVO
P. VIDOVÆ]

[Illustration: LOUIS CYANEUS.]

[Illustration: ANDRÉ WÉCHEL.]

[Illustration: CHRESTIEN WÉCHEL.

VNICVM ARBVSTV NON ALIT DVOS ERITHAGOS]

[Illustration: SÉBASTIEN NIVELLE.

S N
HONORA PATREM TVVM, ET MATREM TVAM.
VT SIS LONGÆVVS SVPER TERRAM. EXOD. 20.]

On the opposite page we reproduce the Mark Nivelle used for the books
which he produced alone.

After Paris, the next most important town in France, so far as printers
and their Marks are concerned, is Lyons. The first book printed in this
city is presumed to be “Cardinalis Lotharii Tractatus quinque,”
“Lugduni, Bartholomæus Buyerius,” 1473 (in quarto). The same printer
also published the first French translation of the Bible, by Julian
Macho and Pierre Ferget, which was executed between 1473 and 1474, from
which date the art of printing in Lyons increased by leaps and bounds.
Panzer notices over 250 works executed (by nearly forty printers) here
during the quarter of a century which followed. The most notable among
these is perhaps Josse Bade, to whom we have already referred. The
former of the two “honestes homes Michelet topie de pymont: & Iaques
heremberck dalemaigne,” possessed a Mark which may be regarded as one of
the earliest, if not actually the first, employed at Lyons. Topie and
Heremberk printed the first edition of the “Chronique Scandaleuse,”
about 1488, and Breydenbach’s “Voyage à Jerusalem,” of about the same
period--the latter of which contains the first examples of copper-plate
engraving in France, the panorama of Venice alone being sixty-four
inches in length. Contemporary with these, Johannes or Jehan Treschel
deserves notice not only as an eminent printer, but also as the
father-in-law of one still more eminent--Bade. Treschel’s illustrated
edition of Terence, 1493, is described as forming “the most striking and
artistic work of illustration produced by the early French school.” The
most generally known of all the Lyonese printers is Etienne Dolet, who,
born at Orleans in 1509, distinguished himself not only as a printer,
but as a Latin scholar, a poet, and an orator; he was burnt as an
atheist in August, 1546. Dolet, as Mr. Chancellor Christie tells us in
his exhaustive monograph, adopted a Mark and motto which are to be found
in all or nearly all the productions of his press. The Mark and the
motto are equally allusive: the former is an axe of the kind known as
_doloire_, held in a hand which is issuing out of a cloud. Below is a
portion of a trunk of a tree; it is usually surrounded by the motto,
“Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo atque perfolia”; it is often also
surrounded by an ornamental woodcut border, as in the accompanying
illustration; and in some cases the words “scabra dolo” are printed on
the axe.

[Illustration: MERLIN, DESBOYS AND NIVELLE.

HOMO NASCITVR AD LABOREM
VADE PIGER AD FORMICAM
PROVENIET TEMPVS MESSIONIS
NON ODERIS LABORIOSA OPERA]

[Illustration: M. TOPIE.]

[Illustration: J. TRESCHEL.

I T]

[Illustration: E. DOLET.]

Two contemporary Lyonese firms of printers, the De Tournes and De la
Portes, appear to have rivalled one another in the number of their
Marks. Jean De Tournes, 1542-50, himself had no less than eleven Marks,
several of which are exceedingly graceful, one of the largest and best
of which represents a sower, and serves as an excellent pendant to the
reaper of Jacques Roffet, both of which appear in our first chapter. The
seven or eight members of the De la Porte family used at least half a
score Marks between them. The family, beginning with Aymé De la Porte in
the last decade of the fifteenth century, and ending with Sibylle De la
Porte, were in business first as printers, then as booksellers, for just
a century; and the punning device apparently originated, not with the
first member of the family, but with Jehan, who started a business in
Paris about 1508, and in his Mark the shield bears a castellated
doorway; the picture of the biblical Samson carrying off the gates was
apparently first used by Hugues De la Porte, who was a bookseller at
Lyons from 1530; this was superseded for the more pictorial and
considerably smaller example, here given, when he entered into
partnership with Antoine Vincent about 1559. Although the Du Prés were
Parisian printers, Jehan of that family issued several books at Lyons
during the last few years of the fifteenth century, and one of his three
Marks is given on p. 108. Sébastien Gryphe, or Gryphius, who printed and
published a large number of works during the second quarter of the
sixteenth century, was also extravagant in the way of Marks, of which
there are at least eight, all, however, of one common type--the Griffin,
sometimes quite without any sort of decorative attributes or motto, and
sometimes as in the example here given.

[Illustration: HUGUES DE LA PORTE AND A. VINCENT.

LIBERTATEM MEAM MECVM PORTO
VINCENTI]

[Illustration: SÉBASTIEN GRYPHE.]

[Illustration: JACQUES COLOMIES.

I C
IACQVES COLOMIES]

So far as regards the French cities and towns, we have only space to
refer briefly to a few of the more important. After Paris and Lyons,
Toulouse was one of the earliest places in France in which
a printing-press was set up. Although not the first, Jacques Colomies
was one of the first, as he was one of the most prolific of the early
printers of Toulouse, working from 1530 to 1572. Printing was
established at Caen in 1480; but Pierre Chandelier, whose punning Mark
we give, did not start work until eighty years after its first
introduction. A punning device (p. 7), also is that of Jehan Lecoq, who
was printing at Troyes from about 1509 to 1530. The only Rouen printer
to whom we shall refer is Martin Morin, who appears to have been at work
here as a printer from about 1484 to 1518, and of his Marks we give one
example; another is formed of a large initial M, decorated with a
variety of grotesque heads, with the surname Morin on the two central
strokes of the letter.

[Illustration: M. MORIN.

M M
IMPRIME A ROVEN DEVANT SAINCT LO]

[Illustration: PIERRE LE CHANDELIER.

LVCERNIS ACCENSIS FIDELITER MINISTRO.]

[Decoration]

PRINTERS’ MARKS OF GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND.

[Illustration: JACOBI THANNER.

i t]

Although the early history of the Printer’s Mark in Germany is neither
extensive in variety nor startling in surprises, there are still very
many features of general interest. And if the Printer’s Mark, as we have
already seen, had its origin in Mainz, its development is certainly due
to the Strassburg craftsmen. As no other city in Germany can show such a
varied collection of beautiful Marks, examples of the Strasburg printers
will preponderate in this chapter. It is now generally accepted that the
art of printing was carried on in Strassburg (Argentina, Argent-oratum),
either in 1459 or 1460, by Johan Mentelin, who appears to have continued
in the business until 1476; and about six years after he had started,
Heinrich Eggestein commenced, and continued until about 1478. Accepting
the arrangement of Herr Paul Heitz and Dr. Karl August Barack in their
very elaborate “Elsässische Büchermarken bis Anfang des 18.
Jahrhunderts,” the first Strasburg printer to use a Mark was Johann
Grüninger, who, after working at Basel for a year or two, took up his
residence in Strassburg at the end of 1482. One of his first Marks
appeared in Brant’s “Narrenschiff,” 1494, and of this our example is an
elaboration. By the year 1525 he employed no less than five distinct
examples, the last of which, in Ptolemæus, “Geographicæ Enarrationes,”
1525, differs completely from all the others, the single letter G
occupying the centre of the masonic compass and rule. Grüninger, it may
be noted, was the printer of “Cosmographie Introductio,” 1509; the
second edition of the famous book in which the name America was proposed
and used for the first time. He is further noted for the number of
misprints which occur in the books issued by him. The last book which
bears his imprint is apparently “Geberi philosophi ac alchimistæ maximi,
de Alchimia, libri tres,” March, 1529. Martin Schott’s distinct device
is found in at least three books of the date 1498, including Matheolus’
“Ars memorativa,” and was used by him until 1517. It was also used by
his son, Johann Schott, about 1541, the same printer using seven or
eight other Marks, all more or less distinct, at different periods. The
first book bearing Martin Schott’s name is dated 1491, and he continued
printing until 1499; while his son was in business from 1500 to 1545.
Equally distinct is the accompanying example--one of several--used by
Johann Knoblouch, which is found in the majority of the books printed by
him from about 1521 to 1526, notably several works by Erasmus (_e.g._
“Moriæ Encomium,” 1522, and the “Novum Testamentum,” 1523). The father
started in 1497, and was succeeded by his son, who continued the
business until 1558. The Mark, it may be mentioned, is a somewhat
atrocious pun on the owner’s name, which is the German for “garlic,”
with the seed pods of which the figure emblematically representing
Ignorance ascending from darkness into light is encircled; this Mark is
generally surrounded by mottoes in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.

[Illustration: JOHANN GRÜNINGER.

IOHANNES. SANTVS]

[Illustration: MARTIN SCHOTT.

M S]

[Illustration: JOHANN KNOBLOUCH.]

[Illustration: REINHARD BECK.]

[Illustration: REINHARD BECK.

RB]

Although Reinhard, or Renatus, Beck was only in business for about
eleven years, 1511-1522, he had several Marks, which differed chiefly in
their extraneous ornament, as will be seen from the accompanying
examples. Two books, _sine nota_, which Mr. Quaritch assigns to Beck’s
press, of the date 1490, are remarkable for the large number of woodcuts
which they contain, relating principally to plants, animals, gardening
operations, rural architecture, so that the Mark of “ein wilder Mann” is
so far in keeping with the nature of his publications. Fourteen or
fifteen Marks, several of which are only variations of one type, have
been identified as having been used by Wolfgang Köpfel (whose surname
sometimes appears in its Greek translation of Cephalæus) between 1522
and 1554: the most remarkable, of which we give a reproduction, appears
to have been used very rarely, notably in “Zehn Sermones” of Luther,
1523; a much commoner type is the smaller example, which appeared in
various books issued between 1526-1554. Georg Ullricher von Andlau,
1529-36, confined himself to one type (see p. 1), that of the Cornucopia
or Horn of Plenty, of which there are seven variants. The more elaborate
of the two Marks of Matthias Biener, or Apiarius, 1533-36, appears in
Oecolampadius’ “Commentarius” on the Prophet Ezekiel, 1534, and is an
evident pun on the printer’s surname. Several of the dozen Marks used by
Craft Müller, or Crato Mylius, 1536-62, are exceedingly bold and
picturesque, although, with the exception of the Ceres, they are all
variants of the leonine type: the Ceres was apparently used only in his
first book, “Auslegung oder Postilla des heil. Zmaragdi,” 1536.

[Illustration: WOLFGANG KÖPFEL.

ESTAS HYEMS
PROPE LONGE
MORS ET VITA]

[Illustration: WOLFGANG KÖPFEL.]

[Illustration: CRAFT MÜLLER (CRATO MYLIUS).

Hostibus haud tergo, sed forti pectore notus.]

[Illustration: MATTHIAS BIENER (APIARIUS).

Ερευνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς, οτι ἐμ ἀυταῖς
ζωὴμ ἀιώνιομ ἔχετε. Ioan. 5.

Vrsus insidians & esuriens, princeps impius super
populum pauperem. Thre. 3. Prouerb. 28.

Quam dulcia faucibus meis eloquia tua,
super mel ori meo. Psal. 118.

Omnia probate, quod bonum
fuerit tenete. 1. Thess. 5.]

[Illustration: CRAFT MÜLLER.

Alma Spicifera Flaua
CERES.
Ni purges & molas non comedes.]

[Illustration: THEODOSIUS RIHEL, JOSIAS RIHEL (UND DEREN ERBEN).]

Wendelin Rihel was the founder of one of the longest-lived dynasties of
Strassburg printers, who were issuing books from 1535 to 1639; their
eighteen Marks have all the same subject, a winged figure of Sophrosyne,
holding in one hand a rule, and in the other a bridle and halter. Of
Thiebold Berger, who appears to have been in business from 1551-1584,
very little is known, either of his books or his personality; his Mark
is, however, pretty, and unique, so far as Strassburg is concerned.
Lazarus Zetzner and his successors, whose works date from 1586 to 1648,
and whose Marks number nearly thirty, all variants of the example here
given: it is a bust of Minerva supported on a short square pedestal, on
which is inscribed the words “Scientia immutabilis.” This family printed
a large number of works, from a Lutheran Bible to Aretini’s “Historiæ
Florentinæ.” As an example of a rare and distinct Mark we give one of
two employed by Conrad Scher, 1603-31, which was subsequently used by
Johannes Reppius, also of Strassburg. Curiosity is the only feature of
the solitary example of David Hauth, 1635.

[Illustration: LAZARUS ZETZNER.

SCIENTIA IMMUTABILIS]

[Illustration: THIEBOLD BERGER.

TIMETE DOMINVM OMNES SANCTI EIVS QVONIAM NON EST INOPIA
TIMENTIBVS EVM. PS:34]

[Illustration: CONRAD SCHER.

Prudentia Firma Et Simplex Spes]

[Illustration: DAVID HAUTH.]

[Illustration: J. R. DULSSECKER.

DOMINUS PROVIDEBIT]

But of all the Strassburg printers, there can be no doubt that, from a
strictly pictorial point of view, the Marks of Johann Reinhold
Dulssecker, 1696-1737, are by far the most beautiful. Indeed, in many
respects they are the most charming examples to be found among the
devices of any time or country. In some instances they partake much more
of the character of a vignette than a tradesman’s mark. His earliest
device is composed of his monogram; and his first decorative Mark is the
very beautiful little picture of an English garden, in the central
pathway of which occurs his initials. This Mark appears to have been
used in only one book, “M. Fabii Quinctiliani Declamationes ... ex
recensione Ulrici Obrechti,” 1698. A type of Mark very frequently used
by him occurs in Schilter’s “Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum,” 1702, with
his motto of “Dominus providebit,” and of this Mark we give an
excessively rare variant on p. 47. He had eleven Marks, his list
includes books of all kinds, in Latin, German, and French.

[Illustration: JOHANN REINHOLD DULSSECKER.

FOECUNDANTE DEO IN VARIOS PRODUCIMUR USUS]

Of the other Alsatian printers we have only room to refer to two
examples. Thomas Anshelm (or Anshelmi Badensis) is perhaps the most
eminent of the early Hagenau printers, his books dating from 1488 to
1522, the earliest of which, however, were not printed at this place.
His Marks all carry the initials T A B, the Hebrew letters in the
accompanying example representing the name Jehovah; in his most elegant
Mark the same word is supported on a scroll by a cherub, whilst another
cherub is supporting a second scroll on which is inscribed the word
Jesus in Greek characters. The style and workmanship of this woodcut
suggest the hand of Hans Schaufelein, and it is worth noting that in
1516 Anshelm produced “Doctrina Vita et Passio Jesu Christi,” some of
the illustrations of which were by Schaufelein. Anshelm issued a large
number of books, including the works of Pliny, Melancthon, Erasmus,
Cicero, etc. Valentin Kobian, 1532-42, inserted an exceedingly original
and striking Mark in the edition of Erasmus’ “Heroicum Carmen,” 1536,
the Peacock with one foot on a Cock and the other on a crouching Lion
being highly effective.

[Illustration: THOMAS ANSHELM.

[[Hebrew]] יהוה ש
T A B]

[Transcriber’s Note:
The superfluous word “Hebrew” was included to keep the text
display from misbehaving.]

[Illustration: VALENTIN KOBIAN.

Anno M.D. XXXVI.
mens: Septem:

Non Aquilæ grandi sociatum turgide Pauum
’ Galle premes tecum mox Leo uictus erit]

[Illustration: A. THER HOERNEN.

¶ Explicit presens vocabulorum
materia. a perdocto eloquentissimo
[que] viro. dño Gherardo de schueren
Cãcellario Illustrissimi ducis Cli
uensis ex diuersorum terministar[um]
voluminibus contexta. propriis[que]
eiusdem manibus labore ingenti cõ
scripta ac correcta Colonie per me
Arnoldũ ther hoenẽ diligentissime
impressa. finita sub annis domini.
M.cccc.lxxvij. die vltimo mensis
maij. De quo cristo marie filio sit
laus et gloria per seculorum secula
Amen.]

Printing had not established itself at Cologne until four years later
than at Strassburg. Ulric Zell, at the dispersal of the Mainz printers,
settled himself in this city, where he was printing from about 1463 to
nearly the end of the fifteenth century. He was clearly not an
innovator, for he never printed a book in German, and did not adopt any
of the improvements of his _confrères_ who had settled themselves in
Italy; he “rigidly adhered to the severe style of Schoeffer, printing
all his books from three sizes of a rude face of a round gothic type.”
It is not to him therefore that we can look for anything in the way of
Printers’ Marks, the earliest Cologne printer to adopt which was
apparently Arnold Ther Hoernen, whose colophons, of which we give an
example, were often printed in red. His Mark is a triangle of which the
two upright sides are prolonged with a crosslet; in the centre a star,
and on either side the gothic letters T H, the whole being on a very
small shield hanging from a broken stump. Herman Bumgart, one of whose
books bears the subscription “Gedruckt in Coelne up den Alden Mart tzo
dem wilden manne,” and who was in Cologne at the latter end of the
fifteenth century, has a special interest to us from the probability
that he was in some way connected with the early Scottish printers.

[Illustration: HERMAN BUMGART.

Impressu[m] Colonie sup[er] antiquũ for[um] in Siluestri viro.]

Once started, the idea of the Mark was quickly taken up. Johann
Koelhoff, 1470-1500, the first printer to use printed signatures (in his
edition of Nyder, “Preceptorium divinæ legis,” 1472), came out with a
large but roughly drawn example, the arms of Cologne, consisting of a
knight’s helmet, with peacock feathers, crest, and elaborate mantles,
surmounting a shield with the three crowns in chief, the rest of the
escutcheon blank, and rabbits in the foreground. Koelhoff (who describes
himself “de Lubeck”) was the printer of the “Cologne Chronicle,” 1499,
and of an edition of “Bartholomæus de Proprietatibus Rerum,” 1481.
Several interesting Cologne Marks of the first years of the sixteenth
century may be noted. For instance, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1517-36, used
a caduceus on an ornamented shield, and printed among other books what
is believed to be the earliest edition of Maximilianus Transylvanus’ “De
Moluccis Insulis,” 1523, in which the discoveries of Ferdinand Magellan
and the earliest circumnavigation of the globe were announced. Like
Koelhoff, Nicolas Cæsar, or Kaiser, who was established as a printer at
Cologne in 1518, used the Cologne arms as a Mark, which is sufficiently
distinct from the earlier example to be quoted here. Johann Soter,
1518-36, is another exceedingly interesting personality in the early
history of Cologne printing. We give the more elaborate of the two marks
used by him and reproduced by Berjeau: the shield contains the
Rosicrucian triple triangle on the threshold of a Renaissance door.
During the latter end of his career at Cologne, Soter had also an
establishment at Solingen, where he printed “several works of a
description which rendered too hazardous their publication in the former
city.” Arnold Birckmann and his successors, 1562-92, used the
accompanying Mark of a hen under a tree. After Günther Zainer, 1468-77,
who introduced printing into Augsburg, the most notable typographer of
this city is perhaps Erhart Ratdolt, to whom reference is made in the
chapter on Italian Marks. We give the rather striking Mark--a white
_fleur-de-lis_ on black ground springing from a globe--of Erhart Oglin,
Augsburg, 1505-16, one of whose productions, by Conrad Reitter, 1508, is
remarkable as having a series of Death-Dance pictures; Hans Holbein was
eight years of age when it appeared, and was then living in his native
town of Augsburg.

[Illustration: JOHANN KOELHOFF.

i k]

[Illustration: NICHOLAS CÆSAR.]

[Illustration: J. SOTER.

Του Σωτῆρος]

[Illustration: ARNOLD BIRCKMANN.

VTILIA SEMPER NOVA SAEPIVS PROFERO]

For typographical purposes Switzerland may be regarded as an integral
portion of Germany, and it was to Basle that Berthold Rodt of Hanau, one
of Fust’s workmen, is assumed to have brought the art about the year
1467. One of the first Basle printers to adopt a Mark was Jacobus De
Pfortzheim, 1488-1518, who used two very distinct examples, of which we
give the more spirited, the left shield carrying the arms of the city in
which he was working. It appears for the first time in “Grammatica
P. Francisci nigri A. Veneti sacerdoti oratoris,” etc., 1500. The second
Mark is emblematical of the Swiss warrior. The most eminent of the Basle
printers was however Johann Froben, 1490-1527, who numbered among his
“readers” such men as Wolfgang Lachner, Heiland, Musculus,
Oecolampadius, and Erasmus. Very few, if any, German works were printed
by him; the first edition of the New Testament in Greek was printed by
him in 1516, Erasmus being the editor. Froben’s device (to which lengthy
reference has already been made, and into a discussion of the extremely
numerous variants of which we need not enter here) led Erasmus to think
that his learned friend did indeed unite the wisdom of the serpent to
the simplicity of the dove (see p. 43). Two other early Basle printers,
Michael Furter, 1490-1517, and Nicholas Lamparter, 1505-19, used Marks
one shield of each of which carried the arms of Basle. Henricpetri was a
celebrated printer of Basle, 1523-78, and had a Mark of quite a unique
character, representing Thor’s hammer, held by a hand issuing from the
clouds, striking fire on the rock, while a head, symbolizing wind, blows
upon it. To yet another distinguished Basle printer, Cratander,
reference is made, and his Mark given, in the second chapter.

[Illustration: ERHARD OGLIN.

E O]

[Illustration: JACOBUS DE PFORTZHEIM.]

[Illustration: HENRICPETRI.]

[Illustration: WILHELM MORITZ ENDTER’S DAUGHTER.

OMNIA LVSTRAT]

The most famous, as he was one of the earliest, if not actually the
first, printers of Nuremberg, or Nürnberg, Anthony Koberger, does not
appear to have used a Mark. Indeed, the Printers’ Marks of Nürnberg
generally do not make anything like so good a show as those of Cologne
and other large German cities. The earliest Mark of all is probably that
of Wilhelm Moritz Endter’s daughter, which represents a rocky landscape,
with a town in the background lighted by the sun. Endter’s books, it may
be mentioned, are excessively rare. A much better known printer of this
place is Johann Weissenburger, who started here in 1503, and continued
until 1513, when he removed to Landshut, and remained there until 1531.
He used the accompanying Mark at both places,--the precise signification
of the letters H H on one side of the globe is not known. Mr. Quaritch
describes a book of Jacobus Locher, published by this printer in 1506,
which is remarkable as containing a number of woodcuts “which, in their
style and spirit, draw the book into close connexion with the ‘Ship of
Fools.’”

[Illustration: J. WEISSENBURGER.]

[Illustration: MELCHIOR LOTTER.

M L]

[Illustration: V. SCHUMANN.

V S
L D]

Several of the Marks of the early printers of Leipzig, into which
printing was introduced in 1480, are of great interest and possess quite
a character of their own. One of the earliest, for example, is that of
Melchior Lotter, who issued a large number of books from 1491 to 1536.
The word “Lotter” is equivalent to “vagabond” in English, and the Mark
herewith consists of an emblem of a mendicant in a half-suppliant
posture. Melchior Lotter junior was printing at Wittenberg from 1520 to
1524, where he printed anonymously the first edition of Luther’s Bible,
with illustrations by Lucas Cranach, 1522, which an enthusiastic
bibliopole has described as “one of the great works of the world.”
Valentin Schumann, 1502-34 (and probably much later), is another eminent
Leipzig printer, being the first to attempt printing in Hebrew
characters in a Hebrew grammar, 1520. The initials L D on his Mark are
taken to signify “Lipsiensis Demander” or Damander, a rude Latinization
of Schumann which he sometimes used. Sufficiently quaint also is the
Mark of Jacobus Thanner, 1501-21, which forms the initial to the present
chapter. By 1500 printing had reached to Olmütz, where Conrad Baumgarten
was issuing until 1502 works chiefly levelled against the Church of
Rome; from 1503 to 1505 the same printer had established himself in
Breslau, which he again changed for Frankfort-am-Oder, 1507-14, removing
again in the latter year to Leipzig. The W on one of the shields of his
Mark is the initial of Wratislau, the Polish name of Breslau, and the
female saint on the other shows the arms of the town. It appears to be
uncertain whether printing was introduced into Frankfort-am-Main in 1511
or 1530; but the only Mark which we need quote is that of Johann
Feyrabendt, whose chief interest to posterity lies in the fact that he
printed Jost Ammon’s “Künstliche wohlgerissene neu Figuren von allerley
Jagtkunst,” 1592: his Mark is emblematical of Fame, winged, blowing a
German horn, and enclosed in a cartouche. Andreas Wechel was printing at
Frankfort from 1573 to 1581, his Mark being the well-known one of the
Pegasus. Although Jacob Stadelberger, Heidelberg, was not by any means
an eminent printer, his Mark is well worthy of note: it consists of
three shields, the right of which bears the arms of Bavaria, the left a
lion rampant, the arms of Heidelberg, and that of the middle is supposed
to represent the arms of Zurich.

[Illustration: CONRAD BAUMGARTEN.

[Illustration: J. FEYRABEND.]

[Illustration: L. GUERBIN.

L C]

[Illustration: JACOB STADELBERGER.]

Adam Steinschawer is said to be the printer of the first book issued at
Geneva, in 1479; soon after him came Guerbin, 1482, whose Mark we give
after Bouchot. From about 1537 to 1554 Jehan Girard, or Gerard, was busy
printing books here; the Mark herewith comes from one of Calvin’s books,
1545, the Latin motto being anglicized thus: “I came not to send peace,
but a sword,” a very proper motto indeed for such an author. Girard used
three other Marks of this type. The position of Geneva in literature is
French rather than German, and this also holds good with regard to its
typographical annals. The accompanying Mark of Jean Rivery, Geneva,
1556-64, is distinct of its kind, and is the smaller of the two examples
used by this printer; in the larger one, the same motto appears, but in
roman type, not italic; there are also only two trees, both nearly
leafless; the hand holding an axe occurs in both examples. Many French
printers, for various reasons, and at different times, “retired” to
Geneva, as, for example, the Estiennes; the Marks of several
Franco-Genevan printers therefore will be found dealt with in the
previous chapter. Although printing appears to have been introduced into
Zurich in 1508, books executed at this place prior to 1523 are
excessively rare. Christopherus Froschover, 1523-48, was by far the most
eminent and prolific of the early Zurich printers; to him has been
attributed the production of the first English Bible. His Mark is a
punning one, _Frosch_ being German for “frog;” it is emblematical of a
gigantic frog ridden by a child under a tree, the “larger growth” being
surrounded by several of the normal size. Of other Swiss printers whose
Marks we reproduce, but to whom we can make no further reference, are
Nicolas Brylinger, Basle, 1536-65 (the accompanying example is taken
from the title-page of “Pantalonis Henrici, Prosopographiæ Heroum atque
illustrium Virorum totius Germaniæ,” 1565, a folio of three volumes,
full of fancifully drawn portraits, the same portrait being often used
for several men), and F. Le Preux, of Lausanne, Morges, and Berne.

[Illustration: JEHAN GIRARD.

NON VENI PACEM MITTERE SED GLADIVM.]

[Illustration: J. RIVERY.

La coignée est ia mise à la racine des arbres:
parquoy tout arbre qui ne fait pas bon
fruit, sera couppé & ietté au feu, Mat. III.

LA COIGNEE EST MISE A LA RACINE DES ARBRES PARQVOV LARBRE
QUI NE PORTE CERA COPE]

[Illustration: C. FROSCHOVER.

CRISTOF FROSCHOWER ZV ZVRIC]

[Illustration: N. BRYLINGER.]

[Illustration: F. LE PREUX.]

[Decoration]

SOME DUTCH AND FLEMISH PRINTERS’ MARKS.

[Illustration: J. VELDENER.

velde]

The introduction of the art of printing into the Low Countries, and the
rival claim of Coster and Gutenberg, have proved a highly fruitful
source of literary quarrels and disputations. It is not worth our while
to enter, even briefly, into the merits of the arguments either for or
against; and it will suffice for our present purpose to regard Johann
Veldener, 1473-7, as the first printer. He was probably a pupil of Ulric
Zell, and, like many others of the early Netherland printers, he does
not appear to have remained long at one place. For example, he was at
Louvain from 1473-7, at Utrecht 1478-81, and at Culemberg, 1482-4. His
only Mark appears to be that given herewith, in which his name in an
abbreviated form occurs between the two shields, on the right one of
which appears the arms of Louvain. His most notable publications were
two quarto editions of the “Speculum” in the Dutch language, one of
which contained 116 and the other 128 illustrations, “printed from the
woodcuts that had been previously used in the four notable editions; to
make these broad woodcuts, which had been designed for pages in folio,
Veldener cut away the architectural framework surrounding each
illustration and then sawed each block in two pieces.” He received from
the University the honorary title of Master of Printing, an honour which
was also conferred on his more distinguished contemporary, Johann of
Westphalia, 1474-96, for whom in fact is claimed the priority of the
introduction of printing into Louvain. The first of the large number of
books produced by the latter is by Petrus de Crescentiis, “Incipit liber
ruraliũ cõmodorũ,” 1474, its colophon being printed in red. The
accompanying exceedingly curious “souscription,” with portrait of the
printer, is given from Lambinet’s “Recherches.” Thierry Martens, or
Mertens, or Martin d’Alost (Theodoricus Martinus), may be regarded
either as an early printer of Louvain, Antwerp, or Alost, for it is
stated that he had presses working simultaneously at the three places;
but Alost has the first claims, and it is said that he was printing here
in 1473, although as a matter of fact he was only twenty years of age at
this period. He was a distinguished scholar, and the friend of Barland
and Erasmus, the latter making the following reference to the
accompanying Mark, “l’ancre sacrée,” in the epitaph he wrote as a
memorial of his friend:

“Hic Theodoricus jaceo, prognatus Alosto:
Ars erat impressis scripta referre typis.
Fratribus, uxori, soboli, notisque superstes,
Octavam vegetus præterii decadem.
Anchora sacra manet, gratæ notissima pubi:
Christe! precor nunc sis anchora sacra mihi.”

[Illustration: JOHANN OF WESTPHALIA.

Et ego Johannes prenotatus alma in
universitate Lova- niesi residens dig-
num duxi opus hoc insigne immensis
ferme tam labori- bus quam impensis
ad finem usque perductum meo so-
lito signo consig- nando huius in ca-
pite libri palam fieri.]

[Illustration: THEODORIC MARTENS.

THEODO. MARTIN. EXCVDEBAT.]

[Illustration: COLARD MANSION.

Fait et jmprime
a bruges par colard
mansion lan et jour
dessusdis]

Colard Mansion, 1474-84, the first printer who worked at Bruges, for an
exhaustive account of whose connection with William Caxton the reader is
referred to Mr. Blades’s monograph, used several Marks, printed in red
and black, and similar to the example here given.

In many respects the “Clercs ou Frères de la vie Commune” (Fratres vitæ
communis), who were printing at Brussels from 1476 to 1487, form one of
the most interesting features in the early history of printing in the
Low Countries. The types which they used resemble very much those of
Arnold Ther Hoernen, Cologne; and the only book, “diligentia impresse in
famosa civitate Bruxellen,” to which they put their name, is entitled
“Legendæ Sanctorum Henrici Imperatoris et Kunegundis Imperatricis,”
etc., 1484, and this is their only illustrated book. “Their productions
illustrate the stage of transition between the ancient scribe and
printer by showing how naturally one succeeded to the other.” A full
bibliographical account of the Brothers will be found in M. Madden’s
“Lettres d’un Bibliophile.” The Mark here given is reproduced from the
above-named work: it consists of an Eagle crowned and displayed,
supporting a shield with the arms of Brabant quarterly, with river in
bend, and star. The first Deventer printer was Richard Paffroed (the
surname has about thirty variations) in 1477, who was either a pupil of
Ulric Zell or Ther Hoernen, and who continued there until the first year
of the sixteenth century, and was apparently succeeded by his youngest
son Albertus, who was printing there up to about 1530, and whose Mark we
give.

[Illustration: THE BROTHERS OF COMMON LIFE.

D vlieghende Eler zeer hoeghelike
Metter wapene me ghi hier tuent
Van linte hewpe keyserlike
Daer ghi uv met sijt ghenvent]

[Illustration: ALBERTUS PAFFRAEJ.

A P
ALBERTVS PAFFRAEJ]

So far as Gouda is concerned, Gheraert or Gerard Leeu and early printing
are synonymous. He was a native of this place, and established himself
here as a printer in 1477 and continued up to 1484, when he removed his
presses to Antwerp, where he was printing until the year of his death,
1493. His “Dialogus Creaturarum,” the first edition of which appeared in
1480, had run into over a dozen editions, in Latin or Dutch, by the
first year of the sixteenth century. Whilst at Gouda Leeu used several
marks, of which the smaller, given on p. 39, was printed in red and
black; at Antwerp he used a much more ambitious example, consisting of
the arms of the Castle of Antwerp: a battlement and a turreted gate,
with two smaller ones on either side; the two large flags bear the arms
of the German Empire and of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Nicolas
Leeu, who was printing at Antwerp in 1487-8, was possibly the brother of
the more famous typographer, and his Mark consists of the lion (a pun on
his surname, which is equivalent to lion) in a Gothic window holding two
shields, with the arms of Antwerp on the left and the monogram of
Gheraert Leeu on the right. Like Leeu and so many of the other early
Dutch printers, the first Delft typographer, Jacob Jacobzoon Van der
Meer, 1477-87, employed the arms of the town in which he printed on his
Mark, the right shield in the present instance carrying three water-lily
leaves. In 1477 he issued an edition of the Dutch Bible, and three years
later the first edition of the Psalter, “Die Duytsche Souter,” which had
been omitted from the Bible. The only other Delft printer to whom we
need refer is Christian Snellaert, 1495-7, the only book to which he has
placed both his name and his Mark being “Theobaldus Physiologus de
naturis duodecim animalium,” 1495. His most remarkable production,
however, is a “Missale secundum Ordinarium Trajactense,” issued about
1497; this Mark, given on p. 35, was also used by Henri Eckert van
Hombergh, who was printing at Antwerp from 1500 to 1519: the shield
carries the arms of Antwerp; in the arms of Snellaert this shield is
blank, and this constitutes the only difference between the two Marks.

[Illustration: GERARD LEEU.]

[Illustration: JACOB JACOBZOON VAN DER MEER.

delf in hollant]

[Illustration: MATHIAS VAN DER GOES.]

[Illustration: R. VAN DEN DORP.]

[Illustration: G. BACK.

G B]

If it could be proved that “Het boeck van Tondalus visioen” was, as has
been stated, printed at Antwerp in 1472, by Mathias Van der Goes, the
claim of Antwerp to be regarded as the first place in the Low Countries
in which printing was introduced would be irrefutable. Unfortunately
there is very little doubt but that the date is an error, although Goes
is still rightly regarded as having introduced printing into Antwerp,
where he was issuing books from 1482 to about 1494 in Dutch and Latin.
He had two large Marks, one of which was a ship, apparently emblematical
of Progress or commercial enterprise, and the other, a savage
brandishing a club and bearing arms of Brabant,--the latter, from
“Sermones Quatuor Novissimorum,” 1487, is here given. Rolant Van den
Dorp, 1494-1500, whose chief claim to fame is that he printed the
“Cronyke van Brabant,” folio, Antwerp, 1497, had as his most ambitious
Mark a charming picture of Roland blowing his horn; on one of the
shields (suspended from the branch of a tree) is the arms of Antwerp,
which he sometimes used separately as his device. Contemporaneously with
Van den Dorp, 1493-1500, we have Godefroy Back, a binder who, on
November 19, 1492, married the widow of Van der Goes, and continued the
printing-office of his predecessor. His house was called the Vogehuis,
and had for its sign the Birdcage, which he adopted as his Mark; this he
modified several times, notably in 1496, when the monogram of Van der
Goes was replaced by his own. In the accompanying example (apparently
broken during the printing) the letter M is surmounted by the Burgundy
device--a wand upholding a St. Andrew’s cross. We give also a small
example of the two other Marks used by this printer. Arnoldus Cæsaris,
l’Empereur, or De Keysere, according as his name happened to be spelt in
Latin, French, or Flemish, is another of the early Antwerp printers
whose mark is sufficiently distinct to merit insertion here. His first
book is dated 1480, “Hermanni de Petra Sermones super orationem
dominicam.” Michael Hellenius, 1514-36, is a printer of this city who
has a special interest to Englishmen from the fact that “in 1531 he
printed at Antwerp an anti-Protestant work for Henry Pepwell, who could
find no printer in London with sufficient courage to undertake it.”
Hellenius’ Mark is emblematical of Time, in which the figure is standing
on clouds, with a sickle in one hand and a serpent coiled in a circle on
the left. The Mark of Jan Steels, Antwerp (p. 19), 1533-75, is regarded
by some bibliographers as the emblem of an altar, but “from the entire
absence of any ritual accessories, and the introduction of incongruous
figures (which no mediæval artist would have thought of representing),
it would appear to be merely a stone table.” Jacobus Bellaert, 1483-86,
was the first Haarlem printer, one of his earliest works being “Dat
liden ende die passie ons Heeren Jesu Christi,” which is dated December
10, 1483. Bellaert’s name does not appear in it, but his Mark at the end
permits of an easy identification, it being the same as that which
appears in his Dutch edition of “Glanvilla de Proprietatibus Rerum,”
1485: the arms above the Griffin are those of the city of Haarlem. One
of the most famous printing localities of the Low Countries was Leyden
(Lugdunum Batavorum), where the art was practised so early as 1483,
Heynricus Henrici, 1483-4, being one of the earliest, his Mark carrying
two shields, one of which bears the cross keys of Leyden. The Pelican is
an exceedingly rare element in Dutch and Flemish Printers’ Marks, one of
the very few exceptions being that of J. Destresius, Ypres, 1553, the
motto on the border reading “Sine sanguinis effusione non fit remissio.”

[Illustration: GODEFROY BACK.]

[Illustration: A. CÆSARIS.]

[Illustration: MICHAEL HILLENIUS.

TEMPVS.]

[Illustration: J. BELLAERT.]

[Illustration: H. HENRICI.

hollan leiden]

It will be convenient to group together in this place a few of the more
representative examples of the Marks of the Dutch and Flemish printers
of the sixteenth century. Of Thomas Van der Noot, who was printing at
Brussels from about 1508 to 1517, there is very little of general
interest to state, but his large Mark is well worthy of a place here.
Picturesque in another way also is the Mark of J. Grapheus, Antwerp,
1520-61; the example we give is a distinct improvement on a very roughly
drawn Mark which this printer sometimes used, which is identical in
every respect to this, except that it has no borders. It is one of the
few purely pictorial, as distinct from armorial, Marks which we find
used at Antwerp in the earlier half of the sixteenth century. One of
this printer’s most notable publications is “Le Nouueau Testament de
nostre Sauflueur Iesu Christ trãslate selon le vray text en franchois,”
1532, a duodecimo of xviii and 354 folios, a rare impression of Le Fèvre
d’Etaples’ Testament as it had been issued by L’Empereur, in 1530, who
had obtained the licence of the Emperor and the Inquisition for this
impression. Henri Van den Keere, a book-seller and printer of Ghent,
1549-58, had four Marks, all of which resemble more or less closely the
rather striking and certainly distinct example here given. Of the Bruges
printers of the sixteenth century, Huber or Hubert Goltz, 1563-79, is
perhaps the most eminent, not so much on account of the typographical
phase of his career, as because of his works as an author and artist.
The “Fasti Magistratum et Triumphorum Romanorum,” is one of his books
best known to scholars, whilst to students of numismatics his work on
the medals from the time of Julius Cæsar to that of the Emperor
Ferdinand, in Latin, of which a very rare French edition appeared at
Antwerp in 1561, is well known, and the original edition of his works in
this respect is still highly esteemed, although, as Brunet points out,
Goltz has suffered a good deal in reputation since Eckel has
demonstrated that he included a number of spurious examples, whilst some
others are incorrectly copied. His interesting typographical Mark is
given on p. 51. J. Waesberghe, of Antwerp and Rotterdam, had at least
three Marks, of which we give the largest example, and all of which are
of a nautical character, the centre being occupied by a mermaid carrying
a horn of plenty; in the smaller example of the accompanying Mark, the
background is taken up by a serpent forming a circle. The Mark of M. De
Hamont, a printer and bookseller of Brussels, 1569-77, is worth quoting
as one of the very few instances in which the subject of St. George and
the Dragon is utilized in this particular by a printer of the Low
Countries. Rutger Velpius appears to have had all the wandering
proclivities of the early printers; for instance, we find him at Louvain
from 1553 to 1580, at Mons from 1580 to 1585, and Brussels from 1585 to
1614: he had three Marks, of which we give the largest. Of the Liege
printers, we have only space to mention J. Mathiæ Hovii, whose shop was
“Ad insigne Paradisi Terrestris” during the latter half of the
seventeenth century, and whose Mark is of rather striking originality
and boldness of design.

[Illustration: JODOCUS DESTRESIUS.]

[Illustration: THOMAS VAN DER NOOT.]

[Illustration: J. GRAPHEUS.

CHARITAS
Ἡ ἀγάπη πάντα δέγει.]

[Illustration: HENRI VAN DEN KEERE.

Anziet thende.
Van den keere.
HVDK]

[Illustration: J. WAESBERGHE.

LITERÆ IMMORTALITATE[M] PARIV[N]T]

[Illustration: MICHEL DE HAMONT.]

[Illustration: RUTGER VELPIUS.

SVB VMBRA ALARVM TVARVM PROTEGE NOS]

[Illustration: J. M. HOVII.

CAVETE
I. C. I]

The two most distinguished names in the annals of Dutch and Flemish
printing are unquestionably Plantin and the Elzevirs. A full description
of the various Marks used by Christophe Plantin alone would fill a small
volume, as the number is not only very great, but the varieties somewhat
conflicting in their resemblance to one another; all of them, however,
are distinctly traceable to three common types. Some are engraved by
Godefroid Ballain, Pierre Huys, and other distinguished craftsmen. His
first Mark appeared in the second book which he printed, the “Flores de
L. Anneo Seneca,” 1555. His second Mark was first used in the following
year, and bears the monogram of Arnaud Nicolaï. Of each of these
examples we give reproductions, as also of the fine example designed for
Plantin’s successors either by Rubens or by Erasme Quellin, and engraved
by Jean Christophe Jegher, 1639, Plantin having died in 1589. The most
famous of all Plantin’s Marks is of course that with the compass and the
motto “Labor et Constantia,” which he first used in 1557. Plantin
explains in the preface to his Polyglot Bible the signification of this
Mark, and states that the compass is a symbolical representation of his
device: the point of the compass turning round signifies work, and the
stationary point constancy. One of the most curious combinations of
Printers’ Marks may be here alluded to: in 1573, Plantin, Steels and
Nutius projected an edition of the “Decretals,” and the Mark on this is
made up of the three used by these printers, and was designed by Pierre
Van der Borcht.

[Illustration: C. PLANTIN. (First Mark.)

EXERCE IMPERIA ET RAMOS COMPESCE FLVENTES]

[Illustration: C. PLANTIN. (Second Mark.)

CHRISTVS VERA VITIS]

[Illustration: C. PLANTIN.

LABORE ET CONSTANTIA
I. C. I.]

Nearly every volume admittedly printed by the Elzevir family possessed a
Mark, of which this family, from Louis, in 1583, to Daniel, 1680, used
four distinct examples. The founder of the dynasty, Louis (1583-1617),
adopted as his sign or mark an Eagle on a cippus with a bundle of
arrows, accompanied with the motto, “Concordia res parvæ crescunt”--the
emblem of the device of the Batavian Republic--and as the year 1595
occurs on the primitive type of this Mark, it might be concluded to date
from that period. But Willems points out that no book published by Louis
in the years 1595 and 1596 carries this Mark, which (he says) figures
for the first time on the Meursius, “Ad Theocriti idyllia Spicelegium,”
1597. In 1612 Louis Elzevir reduced this Mark, and suppressed the date
above mentioned. For some time Isaac continued the use of the sign of
his grandfather, and even after 1620, when he adopted a new Mark--that
of the Sage or Hermit--he did not completely repudiate it. Bonaventure
and Abraham scarcely ever used it except for their catalogues.

[Illustration: THE SAGE.

NON SOLUS]

The second Mark, which Isaac (1617-25) adopted in 1620, it occurring for
the first time in the “Acta Synodi Nationalis,” is known as the
Solitaire and sometimes as the Hermit or Sage. It represents an elm
around the trunk of which a vine, carrying bunches of grapes, is twined;
the Solitaire and the motto “Non solus.” The explanation of this Mark is
obvious, and may be summed up in the one word “Concord;” the solitary
individual is symbolical of the preference of the wise for solitude--“Je
suis seul en ce lieu être solitaire.” This Mark was the principal one of
the Leyden office, and was in constant use from 1620 to 1712, long after
the Elzevirs had ceased to print.

The third Elzevir Mark consists of a Palm with the motto “Assurgo
pressa.” It was the Mark of Erpenius, professor of oriental languages at
the University of Leyden, who had established a printing-press which he
superintended himself in his own house. At his death the Elzevirs
acquired his material, with the Mark, which occurs on the Elmacinus,
“Historia Saracenica,” and on the Syriac Psalter of 1625, on the
“Meursii arboretum sacrum,” 1642, and on about seven other volumes.

[Illustration: THE ELZEVIR SPHERE.

THE SPURIOUS SPHERE.

THE GENUINE SPHERE.]

The fourth important Elzevir Mark is the Minerva with her attributes,
the breastplate, the olive tree, and the owl, and the motto “Ne extra
solus,” which is from a passage in the “Frogs” of Aristophanes. It was
one of the principal Marks of the Amsterdam office, and was used for the
first time by Louis Elzevir in 1642. After Daniel’s death this Mark
became the property of Henry Wetstein, who used it on some of his books.
It was also used by Thiboust at Paris and Theodoric van Ackersdyck at
Utrecht.

In addition to the foregoing, a number of other Marks were employed by
this firm of printers, the most important of the minor examples being
the Sphere, which occurs for the first time on “Sphæra Johannis de
Sacro-Bosco,” 1626, printed by Bonaventure and Abraham; and from this
time to the end of the period of the operations of the Elzevirs, the
Sphere and the Minerva appear to have equally shared the honour of
appearing on their title-pages. Among the other Marks which we must be
content to enumerate are the following: a hand with the device of
“Æqvabilitate,” an angel with a book, and a book of music opened, each
of which was used occasionally by the first Elzevir; and one in which
two hands are holding a cornucopia, of Isaac; the arms of the Leyden
University formed also occasionally the Mark of the Elzevirs established
in that city.

The Mark of Guislain Janssens, a bookseller and printer of Antwerp, at
the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, is
both distinct and pretty, and is worth notice if only from the fact that
artistic examples are by no means common with the printers of this city.

[Illustration: GUISLAIN JANSSENS.

VIGILATE QVIA NESCITIS DIEM NEQVE HORAM EXPERGISCERE
G I]

[Decoration]

PRINTERS’ MARKS IN ITALY AND SPAIN.[1]

[Illustration: A. FRITAG.

A F]

The _incunabula_ of Italy offer very little interest so far as regards
the Marks of their printers, and the adoption of these devices did not
become at all general until the early years of the sixteenth century.
Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who were the first to introduce
printing from Germany into Italy, first at the monastery of Subiaco,
near Rome, in 1465, and to that city in 1467, appear to have had no
Mark; and the same may be said of several of their successors. We give
the earliest Roman example with which we are acquainted, namely, that of
Sixtus Riessinger, and George Herolt, a German, who printed in
partnership at Rome in 1481 and 1483. One of the books produced by this
partnership was the “Tractatus sollemnis et utilis,” etc., which
contains “full-page figures of the Sybils, fine initials, and an
interlaced border to the first page of text, all executed in wood
engraving.” The next Roman typographers who used a Mark were, like
Herolt, “Almanos” or Germans, for as such Johann Besicken (1484-1506)
and Martens of Amsterdam describe themselves in the colophon of
“Mirabilia Romæ,” a 24mo. of 63 leaves, 1500. This work contains ten
woodcuts, of which that on “the reverse of leaf 36 has at the bottom the
words ‘Mar’ and ‘De Amstdam’ in black letters on white scrolls, and ‘ER’
immediately beneath the latter, in white letters on a black ground,
showing that Martin of Amsterdam, one of the printers, was also the
engraver. On the woodcut on the reverse of leaf 25 also, there is a
shield with the initials of both printers, ‘I’ and ‘M’ interlaced, in
both large and small letters.” Andreas Fritag de Argentina (or
Strassburg), 1492-96, is another early Roman printer who used a Mark.
The four foregoing Marks are given on the authority of J. J. Audiffredi,
“Catalogus ... Romanorum Editionum saeculi XVI.,” 1783. Among the early
sixteenth century printers of Rome, one of the most distinguished was
Zacharias Kalliergos of Crete, 1509-23, who had started printing at
Venice in 1499, and of whom Beloe has given an interesting account in
the fifth volume of his “Anecdotes of Literature.” A miniature of his
device is given at the end of this chapter.

[Footnote 1: The reader will find on page 25 a series of thirty
reduced reproductions of Marks used for the most part by the
Italian printers. These are given after Orlandi (“Origine e
Progressi della Stampa,” 1722) and Horne (“Introduction to the
Study of Bibliography,” 1814), but several of the names are open
to question from the fact that the former author has given no
account either of the places at which they worked, or of the
books which they printed.]

[Illustration: SIXTUS RIESSINGER.

S R D A]

[Illustration: J. BESICKEN.

I B
I M]

[Illustration: THIERRY MARTENS.

DE AMST[ER]DAM
T A M]

Printing was introduced into Venice by Johannes de Spira in 1469, and,
as showing the extent to which it was quickly carried, Panzer reckons
that up to the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than 189 printers
had established themselves here, and had issued close upon 3,000 works.
From 1469 to 1480, over sixty master printers were found within the
precincts of the city. The first of the superb series of early printed
books produced here is the folio edition of Cicero, “Epistolæ ad
Familiares,” 1469, although the honour of being the most magnificent
production appears to be equally divided between the Livy and the
Virgil, 1470, executed by John of Spira’s brother and successor
Vindelinus. So far as we know, neither of the two brothers, nor Nicolas
Jenson, 1470-88, many of whose beautiful books rivalled the De Spiras’,
used a Mark.

[Illustration: ERHARDUS RATDOLT.

Erhardi Ratdolt foelicia conspice signa.
Testata artificem qua valet ipse manum.]

Erhardus Ratdolt may be regarded as one of the earliest, if not actually
the first Venetian printer to adopt a Mark. From 1476 to 1478 he was in
partnership with Bernardus Pictor and Petrus Loslein de Langencen, but
from the latter year to 1485 he was exercising the art alone. (It is not
altogether foreign to our subject to mention that this firm printed the
“Calendar” of John de Monteregio, 1476, which has the first ornamental
title known.) In 1487, Ratdolt was at Augsburg, and perhaps his claims
as a printer are German rather than Venetian, but as his best work was
executed during his sojourn in Venice, it will be more convenient to
include him in the present chapter. Like so many others of the early
printers, he regarded his own performances with no little
self-complacency, for in his colophons he describes himself, “Vir
solertissimus, imprimendi arte nominatissimus, artis impressoriæ
magister apprimè famosus, perpolitus opifex, vir sub orbe notus,” and so
forth. To him is attributed the credit of having invented ink of a
golden colour; and he was the first to employ the “flourishes,” (“literæ
florentes”) or initial letters formed of floral scrolls and ornaments
borrowed from the Italian manuscripts, and sometimes printed in red and
sometimes in black. Joannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1480-1516, and
Gregorius alone, 1516-28, make a very good show in the way of printed
books, one of the most notable being the first quarto edition of
Boccaccio, 1516, and another the “Deutsch Römisch Brevier,” 1518, which
is printed in black and red Gothic letter with numerous full-page
woodcuts and borders. Contemporary with these two brothers and also
famous as a prolific printer comes Ottaviano Scotto, “Civis
Modoetiẽsis,” 1480-1500, and his heirs, 1500-31, of whose Mark we give
an exact reproduction. Baptista de Tortis, 1481-1514, also issued a
number of interesting books, more particularly folio editions of the
classics, copies of which are still frequently met with, and of whose
Mark we give a reduced example on p. 25; and the same may be said of
Bernardinus Stagninus, 1483-1536. The Mark, also, of Bernardinus de
Vitalibus, 1494-1500, is sufficiently distinct to justify a reduced
example. Bartholomeus de Zanis, 1486-1500, was not only a prolific
printer on his own account, but also for Scotto, to whom reference is
made above. The Marks, on a greatly reduced scale of Dionysius
Bertochus, 1480; of Laurentius Rubeus de Valentia, 1482; of Nicholas de
Francfordia, 1473-1500; and of Peregrino de Pasqualibus, 1483-94, who
was for a short time in partnership with Dionysius de Bertochus, are all
interesting as more or less distinct variations of one common type (see
p. 25). Of Petrus Liechtenstein, 1497-1522, who describes himself as
“Coloniensis,” and whose very fine Mark in red and black forms the
frontispiece to the present volume, it will be only necessary to refer
to one of his books, the “Biblij Czeska,” 1506, which is the first
edition for the use of the Hussites. Of this exceedingly rare edition,
only about four copies are known. It is remarkable in not having been
suppressed by the Church, for one example of its numerous woodcuts
(which are coloured) at once betrays its character, viz., the engraving
to the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse, in which the Pope appears lying
in hell. As illustrative of some of the more elaborate and pictorial
Marks which one finds in the books of the Venetian printers during the
sixteenth century, we give a couple of very distinct examples, the first
being one of the Marks of the Sessa family, whose works date from 1501
to 1588; and the second example distinguishing the books of the brothers
Paulum and Antonium Meietos, who were printing books in 1570.

[Illustration: OTTAVIANO SCOTTO.

O S
M]

[Illustration: MELCHIOR SESSA.

DISSIMILIVM IN FIDA SOTIETAS.]

[Illustration: P. AND A. MEIETOS.

NON COMEDETIS FRVGES MENDACII]

[Illustration: THE FIRST ALDINE ANCHOR.

ALDVS]

The Aldine family come at the head of the Venetian printers, not only in
the extreme beauty of their typographical work, but also in the matter
of Marks. The first (and rarest) production of the founder of the
dynasty, Aldus Manutius, 1494-1515, was “Musæi Opusculum de Herone &
Leandro,” 1494, a small quarto, and his life’s work as a printer is seen
in about 126 editions which are known to have been issued by him.
“I have made a vow,” writes Aldus, in his preface to the “Greek Grammar”
of Lascaris, “to devote my life to the public service, and God is my
witness that such is my most ardent desire. To a life of ease and quiet
I have preferred one of restless labour. Man is not born for pleasure,
which is unworthy of the truly generous mind, but for honourable labour.
Let us leave to the vile herd the existence of the brutes. Cato has
compared the life of man to the tool of iron: use it well, it shines,
cease to use it and it rusts.” It was not until 1502 that Aldus adopted
a Mark, the well-known anchor, and this appears for the first time in
“Le Terze Rime di Dante” (1502), which, being a duodecimo, is the first
edition of Dante in portable form. This Mark, and one or two others with
very slight alterations which naturally occurred in the process of being
re-engraved, was used up to the year 1546. In 1515 the original Aldus
died, and as his son Paolo or Paulus was only three years of age, Andrea
Torresano, a distinguished printer of Asola, into whose possession the
“plant” of Jenson had passed in 1481, and whose daughter married the
first Aldus, carried on the business of his deceased son-in-law, the
imprint running, “In ædibus Aldi et Andreæ Asulani soceri.” In 1540
Paulus Manutius took over the entire charge of the business founded by
his father. The Anchor, known as the “Ancora grassa,” which he used from
1540 to 1546, is more carefully engraved but less characteristic than
that of his father; whilst that which he used from 1546 to 1554 was
usually but not invariably surrounded by the decorative square indicated
in the accompanying reproduction; then he again modified his Mark, or
more particularly its border. Paulus Manutius died in April 1574. Aldus
“the younger,” 1574-98, the son of Paulus and the last representative of
the house, also used the anchor, the effect of which is to a great
extent destroyed by the elaborate coat-of-arms granted to the family by
the Emperor Maximilian. Aldus “the younger,” was a precocious scholar,
of the pedant type, and under him the traditions of the family rapidly
fell. He married into the eminent Giunta family of printers, and died at
the age of 49. The famous Mark of the anchor had been suggested by the
reverse of the beautiful silver medal of Vespasian, a specimen of which
had been presented to Aldus by his friend Cardinal Bembo, the eminent
printer, adding the Augustan motto, “Festina lente.” The Mark of the
dolphin anchor was used by many other printers in Italy, France, Holland
(Martens, Erasmus’ printer, among the number), whilst the “Britannia” of
Camden, 1586, printed by Newbery, bearing this distinctive Mark, which
was likewise employed by Pickering in the early part of the century;
and, as will be seen from the next chapter, is still employed by more
than one printer.

[Illustrations: ANDREA TORRESANO.

FEDERICVS TORESANVS

A T]

[Illustration: THE ALDINE ANCHOR, 1502-15.

ALDVS]

[Illustration: THE ALDINE ANCHOR, 1546-54.

ALDI FILII]

[Illustration: THE ALDINE ANCHOR, 1555-74.

ALDVS]

The Giunta or Junta family, members of which were printing at Florence
and Venice from 1480 to 1598, may be conveniently referred to here. One
of the earliest books in which the founder of the family, Filippo, used
a Mark, is “Apuleii Metamorphoseos,” Florence, 1512; our example, which
is identical with that in Apuleius, is taken from Ὀππιανου Ἁλιευτικων
(Oppiani de natura seu venatione piscium), Florence, 1515, which was
edited by Musurus. From a typographical and artistic point of view the
books of Lucantonio Junta (or Zonta) are infinitely superior to those of
Filippo. He was both printer and engraver, and many of the illustrations
which appear in the books he printed were executed by him. His Mark
appeared as early as 1495 in red at the end of an edition of Livy which
he appears to have executed for Philippus Pincius, Venice, and again in
red, this time on the title-page, in another edition of the same author,
done for Bartholomeus de Zanis de Portesio, Venice, 1511. Each of these
productions contained a large number of beautiful woodcuts. Early in the
sixteenth century those “vero honesti viri” (as they modestly described
themselves), Jacobi and Francisci, were printing at Florence (“et
sociorum eius”), the accompanying mark being taken from a commentary
on Thomas Aquinas, 1531. It will be noticed that in the three marks of
different members of the family the _fleur-de-lys_ appears. Among the
Venetian printers of the beginning of the sixteenth century Johannes de
Sabio et Fratres may be mentioned, if only on account of their Mark
which is given herewith. Its explanation is certainly not obvious; and
Bigmore and Wyman’s suggestion that it is a punning device is not a
correct one, whilst the statement that the cabbage is of the “Savoy”
variety is also erroneous, for this variety has scarcely any stalks;
for “Brasica” we should read “Brassica.” In 1534, “M. Iwan Antonio de
Nicolini de Sabio” printed “Alas espesas de M. Zuan Batista Pedreçan,”
a rare and beautiful edition with woodcuts, and, in small folio, of
“Primaleon” in Spanish; and in 1535 Stephano da Sabio issued a
translation of “La Conquesta del Peru,” etc., of Francesco de Xeres.

[Illustration: THE ALDINE ANCHOR, 1575-81.]

[Illustration: P. GIUNTA.]

[Illustration: L. GIUNTA.

L A]

[Illustration: F. DE GIUNTA.

I F]

Although not the first printer either at Cremona, where he started in
1492, or at Brescia, where he was printing from 1492 to 1502, Bernardino
de Missintis deserves mention among the typographers of the fifteenth
century. So far as regards the latter place, the Mark of Giammaria
Rizzardi, who was established in this city during the latter half of the
last century, is one of the most distinct, and was probably designed by
Turbini. Bonino de Boninis of Ragusa, was printing at Venice, 1478-1480,
at Verona, 1481-3, and afterwards removed to Brescia, where he was
printing until about 1491. The earliest known book printed at Modena (or
Mutine) is an edition of Virgil, executed by Johannes Vurster de
Campidonâ, 1475; but one of the best known printers of this city is
Dominico Rocociolo, or Richizola, 1481-1504, who was in partnership with
Antonio Miscomini, 1487-89.

[Illustration: THE BROTHERS SABIO.

IO ANT ET FRES DE SABIO BRASICA]

Printing was introduced into Milan (Mediolanum) in 1469 or in the year
following, and from the numerous presses established in this city before
the end of the fifteenth century very many beautiful books were issued.
Gian Giacomo di Legnano and his brothers, whose highly decorative Mark
we reproduce, were working in this city from 1503-33; one of their most
interesting books is a Latin translation of the first edition (Vicenza,
1507) of the “Paesi novamente retrovati, et Novo Mondo da Alberico
Vesputio Florentino intitulato.” Bologna was also a busy printing centre
from 1470 onwards; but it must suffice us to give the monograms of three
of the more noteworthy, namely, Hercules Nanni, 1492-4; Giovanni Antonio
de Benedetti (or Johannes Antonius Platonides de Benedictis), 1499, and
Justinian de Ruberia, 1495-9 (see p. 25).

[Illustration: GIAN GIACOMO DI LEGNANO.

IHS
IO IACOMO E FRAT D LEGNANO
IHS
IOL IOL]

[Illustration: GIAMMARIA RIZZARDI.

Non solum nobis
Cagnoni sculp]

The Printers’ Marks of Spain (including Portugal) need not detain us
long. They cannot in any case be described as other than archaic, and
they are for the most part striking on account of the coarseness of
their design. A few examples are given in Fray Francisco Mendez’s
“Tipografica Española,” of which the first and only volume appeared at
Madrid in 1796; and of which a second edition, corrected and enlarged by
Dionisio Hidalgo, was published at the same city in 1861. As the latter
writer clearly points out “los del siglo XV., y aun hasta la mitad del
XVI. los mas eran estranjeros, como lo demuestran sus nombres y
apellidos, y algunos lo declaran espresamente en sus notas y escudos.”
These “estranjeros” were almost without exception Germans.

Valencia (or Valentia Edetanorum) was the first place in Spain into
which the art of printing was introduced; the earliest printers being
Alfonso Fernandez de Cordova and Lambert Palomar (or Palmart) a German,
whose names however do not appear on any publication (according to
Cotton) antecedent to the year 1478. Although not the earliest of the
Seville printers the four “alemanes, y compañeros,” Paulo de Colonia,
Juan Pegnicer de Nuremberga, Magno y Thomas, their composite Mark is one
of the first which appears on books printed in Spain. It is of the cross
type, with two circles, one within another, the smaller divided into
four compartments, each of which encircles the initials of the four
printers, “P” (the lower part of which is continued so as to form an
“L”), “I M T.” Among other books which they printed is the “Vidas de los
Varones ilustres de Plutarco.” In 1495, Paulo de Colonia appears to have
left the partnership, for the Mark appeared with its inner circle
divided into three compartments in which the initials “I M” and “T” only
appear. This firm continued printing at Seville until the commencement
of the sixteenth century. Federico de Basilea (or, as his name appears
in the imprints of his books, Fadrique Aleman de Basilea) was busy
printing books at Burgos from the end of the fourteenth to the second
decade of the fifteenth century; his Mark, a cross resting on a V-shaped
ground, is a poor one, the motto being “sine causa nihil.” “En mushos
libros de los que imprimió puso su escudo,” observes Mendez; this
printer possesses an historic interest from the fact that he issued the
first edition the unabridged “Chronicle of the Cid,” 1512--“Cronica del
Famoso Cauallero Cid Ruy Diez Campeador,” a book of the greatest rarity.
One of the early printers of Barcelona, Pedro Miguel, had a Mark, also
of the cross type, the circle surrounding the bottom of which is divided
into three compartments, in two of which occur his initials “P M.”

[Illustration: JUAN ROSEMBACH.]

[Illustration: V. FERNANDEZ.]

One of the most noteworthy names in the early annals of Spanish printing
is that of Juan de Rosembach de Haydellerich, who printed books in
Barcelona, 1493-8, and again at the beginning of the sixteenth century;
in Perpignan, 1500; in Tarragona, 1490, and in Montserrat. In 1499 he
printed at Tarragona the famous “Missal de aquel Arzobispado,” which
Mendez declares to be “muy recomendable por varias circumstancias.” At
Barcelona he printed in 1526 an edition of the “Oficias de Cicero.” The
Marks of this printer vary considerably, but the example here reproduced
may be regarded as a representative one. Of the early Lisbon printers,
Valentin Fernandez “de la Provincia de Moravia” was probably the first
to use a Mark (here reproduced), one of his publications being the
“Glosa sobre las Coplas” of Jorge Manrique, 1501.

[Illustration:

1. ZACHARIAS KALLIERGOS.
2. J. A. DE LEGNANO.
3. J. DE VINGLE, OF PICARDY.
4. M. HUGUNT.]

[Illustration:

A good book is a true friend
a wise author a public benefactor.
1726]

SOME MODERN EXAMPLES.

[Illustration: THE STATIONERS’ COMPANY.

VERBUM DOMINI MANET IN ÆTERNUM]

During the past few years there has been a very evident revival in the
Printer’s Mark as a modern device, but the interest has much more
largely obtained among publishers than among printers. We propose,
therefore, to include in this chapter a few of the more interesting
examples of each class. On the score of antiquity the Stationers’
Company may be first mentioned. Founded in 1403--nearly three-quarters
of a century before the introduction of printing--its first charter was
not received until May 4th, 1557, during the reign of Mary. The number
of “seditious and heretical books, both in prose and verse,” that were
daily issued for the propagation of “very great and detestable heresies
against the faith and sound Catholic doctrine of Holy Mother the
Church,” became so numerous, that the government were only too glad to
“recognize” the Company, and to intrust it with the most absolute power.
The charter was to “provide a proper remedy,” or, in other words, to
check the fast-increasing number of publications so bitter in their
opposition to the Court religion. But, stringent and emphatic as was
this proclamation, its effect was almost _nil_. On June 6th, 1558,
another rigorous act was published from “our manor of St. James,” and
will be found in Strype’s “Ecclesiastical Memorials” (ed. 1822, iii.
part 2, pp. 130, 131). It had specific reference to the illegality of
seditious books imported, and others “covertly printed within this
realm,” whereby “not only God is dishonoured, but also encouragement is
given to disobey lawful princes and governors.” This proclamation
declared that not only those who possessed such books, but also those
who, on finding them, do not forthwith report the same, should be dealt
with as rebels. It will be seen, therefore, how easy it was, in the
absence of any fine definition, for books of whatever character to be
proscribed. There was no appeal against the decision of the Stationers’
Hall representatives, who had the power entirely in their own hands.
A few months after Mary’s futile attempt at checking the freedom of the
press, a diametrically objective change occurred, and with Elizabeth’s
accession to the throne in November, 1558, the licensed stationers
conveniently veered around and were as industrious in suppressing
Catholic books as they had been a few weeks previously in endeavouring
to stamp out those of the new religion. The history of the Stationers’
Company however has been so frequently told that it need not be further
entered upon here, and it must suffice us to say that, after many
vicissitudes, all the privileges and monopolies had become neutralized
by the end of the last century, till it had nothing left but the right
to publish a common Latin primer and almanacks, and the right to the
latter monopoly was annulled after a memorable speech of Erksine. The
Company still continues to publish almanacks, and uses the two Marks or
Arms here reproduced. The larger example is the older, and is used on
the County almanacks; whilst the smaller one is used on circulars and
notices.

[Illustration: THE STATIONERS’ COMPANY.

VERBUM DOMINI MANET IN ETERNUM.]

[Illustration: THE RIVINGTONS.

Fear God
Honour the King]

Of the existing firms of publishers and printers, that of Messrs.
Longmans is the most memorable; _vice_ the firm of Messrs. Rivingtons,
which has now become joined to that of the Longmans. This gives us the
opportunity to consider briefly the Marks of the two firms together. In
the year 1711, Richard Chiswell, the printer of much of Dryden’s poetry,
died, and his business passed into the hands of Charles Rivington,
a native of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Thoughtful and pious himself,
Charles Rivington threw himself with ardour into the trade for religious
manuals, and not only succeeding in persuading John Wesley to translate
“à Kempis” for him, but also in publishing the saintly Bishop Thomas
Wilson’s “Short and Plain Introduction to the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper,” the first edition of which bears Charles Rivington’s name on
the imprint, and which is still popular. To the novelist Richardson, he
suggested “Pamela.” Dying in 1742, he left Samuel Richardson as one of
the executors of his six children, but his sons, John and James,
continued to conduct the business. A few years later, it was deemed
advisable for the brothers to separate, and while John remained at the
“Bible and Crown,” St. Paul’s Churchyard, James joined a Mr. Fletcher in
the same locality, and started afresh. One especially fortunate venture
was the publication of Smollett’s continuation of Hume, which brought
its lucky publishers upwards of £10,000, a larger profit than had
previously been made on any one book. However, Newmarket had attractions
for James, and eventually disaster set in; he died in New York in 1802
or 1803. His brother, meanwhile, had plodded on steadily at home, and
admitting his two sons, Francis and Charles, into partnership. About
this time there were numerous editions of the classics, the common
property of a syndicate of publishers, and it says much for Mr. John
Rivington that he was appointed managing partner. About 1760 he obtained
the appointment of publisher to the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, a lucrative post, held by the firm for upwards of two
generations. By the year 1889, the two representatives of this ancient
firm were Messrs. Francis Hansard Rivington and Septimus Rivington; in
this year the partnership was dissolved, and the goodwill and stock were
acquired by Messrs. Longmans. They used at various periods no less than
eight Marks, the design of which was in most cases based upon the
ancient sign of their shop, “The Bible and Sun.”

[Illustration: LONGMAN AND CO.

ERRABANT MARIA OMNIA CIRCUM
1726]

[Illustration: THE CLARENDON PRESS.

DOMINVS ILLUMINATIO MEA]

The history of Messrs. Longmans may be said to commence with the birth
of Thomas Longman in 1699. The son of a Bristol gentleman, he lost his
father in 1708, and, eight years later, was apprenticed, on June 9,
1716, to Mr. John Osborn of Lombard Street, London. His apprenticeship
expiring (he had come into the possession of his property two years
earlier), we find him, in 1724, purchasing from his master, John Osborn
(acting with William Innys as executors), the stock in trade of William
Taylor, of the Ship and Black Swan in Paternoster Row. Readers of
_Longman’s Magazine_ turn to Mr. Andrew Lang’s genial gossip, “At the
Sign of the Ship,” without recalling the origin of the title.
Henceforward the Ship carried the Longman fortunes as cargo, and the
prosperity of the vessel is not yet ended. Messrs. Longmans have used
nearly a dozen Marks, all of which have been suggested, like those of
the Rivingtons, by the sign of their shop, which has now grown into a
very imposing pile of buildings. Of these Marks we give two of the most
artistic and interesting. As taking us back into a comparatively remote
period in the history of printing and publishing in England, the Mark of
the Clarendon Press, or, in other words, the arms of the University of
Oxford, may be here cited.

[Illustrations: WILLIAM PICKERING.

ALDI DISCIP. ANGL.

ALDI DISCIP. ANGL.]

[Illustration: BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING.

B M Pickering
Aldi Discipulus Anglus]

[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.

HOPE WELL AND HAVE WELL
CW]

The “Chiswick Press” of Messrs. Whittingham and Co., is in several
respects a link with the long past, and, having been in existence for
more than a century, is one of the oldest offices in London. It has
attained a world-wide celebrity for the excellence of its work, the
careful reading and correction of proofs, and the appropriate
application of its varied collection of ornaments and initial letters.
The Chiswick Press was the first to revive the use of antique type in
1843, for the printing of “Lady Willoughby’s Diary,” published by
Messrs. Longmans. Since that time its use has become universal. The
founder, Charles Whittingham, was born on June 16th, 1767, at Calledon,
in Warwick, and was apprenticed at Coventry in 1779, working
subsequently at Birmingham, and then in London. He commenced business on
his own account in Fetter Lane in 1790; and in 1810 he had removed to
Chiswick, and since that period the firm has always been known as “The
Chiswick Press.” In 1828 he began to execute work for William Pickering,
the publisher, and his press quickly acquired an unrivalled reputation
for its collection of ornamental borders, head and tail pieces. The
publisher Pickering, and the printer Whittingham, had employed about two
dozen marks in their various books: the former justly calling himself a
disciple of Aldus, and using a large number of variations on the
original Anchor and Dolphin Mark of the great Venetian printer. Of these
we give two examples, one with, and one without a cartouche; and also
the mark of Basil Montagu Pickering, the son and successor of William
Pickering. We also reproduce three of the more striking Marks of the
Chiswick Press, the shield on one of which, it will be observed, carries
the Aldine Anchor and Dolphin.

[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.]

[Illustration: THE CHISWICK PRESS.

Charles Whittingham]

[Illustration: CHATTO AND WINDUS.]

[Illustration: DAVID NUTT.

LIBELLUS IN NUCE]

[Illustration: CASSELL AND CO.

LA BELLE SAUVAGE]

[Illustration: MACMILLAN AND CO.

MM&Co]

[Illustration: T. FISHER UNWIN.

TFU]

[Illustration: LAWRENCE AND BULLEN.

LB]

[Illustration: KEGAN PAUL AND CO.

ARBOR SCIENTIÆ ARBOR VITÆ]

The name of Cassell takes us back to the era of Charles Knight and John
Cassell, and the inauguration of the noble results which these two
pioneers achieved on behalf of cheap and healthy literature. The name of
the former is no longer associated with either printing or publishing;
but that of the latter is still one of the most prolific firms of
printers and publishers. Its Mark is founded on the name of “La Belle
Sauvage” Yard, Ludgate Hill, in which the business has been located for
a long series of years.

[Illustration: R. AND R. CLARK.

PRINTERS
R & R
PRINTERS
EDINBURG]

Two Edinburgh printers may be here conveniently referred to. Messrs. R.
and R. Clark, whose business was started in Hanover Street, Edinburgh,
in 1846, and removed to Brandon Street, in that city, in 1883, are well
known for the excellence of their printing. Mr. Austin Dobson thus
sings, in Mr. Andrew Lang’s Book on “The Library:”

“‘Of making many books,’ ’twas said,
‘There is no end;’ and who thereon
The ever-running ink doth shed
But proves the words of Solomon:
Wherefore we now, for Colophon,
From London’s City drear and dark,
In the year Eighteen-eighty-one,
Reprint them at the press of Clark.”

The accompanying Mark was designed by Mr. Walter Crane, and first used
by Messrs. Clark in 1881. It is used in several sizes. Of the very
handsome Mark of Messrs. T. and A. Constable, the Queen’s Printers, at
the University Press, we may mention that the legend is a hexameter; it
was written by Professor Strong, and contains two puns; the ship is an
old Constable device. The Marks of both Messrs. Chatto and Windus (who
succeeded to the business, started and carried on with such energy by
the late John Camden Hotten) and Messrs. Macmillan and Co. (whose firm
dates from the year 1843) are characterized by the extremest possible
simplicity.

[Illustration: T. FISHER UNWIN.

TFU
VITA SINE LITERIS MORS EST]

[Illustration: T. AND A. CONSTABLE.

FIRMA PERERRAT AQVAS ET CONSTABILITVR EVNDO
T A C]

[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS

kelmscott
William Morris]

The finest of the several Marks used by Messrs. George Bell and Sons is
given in two colours on the title-page of the present volume, and is a
play on the surname, the Aldine device being added to the bell. Another
example will be found on page 261.

[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS.

Kelmscott]

Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Limited, originally a
branch of the extensive Anglo-Indian firm of H. S. King and Co., first
used the accompanying device in the autumn of 1877; the drawing was
executed by Mrs. Orrinsmith in accordance with Mr. Kegan Paul’s
suggestions. Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen, like Messrs. Clark, called in
the aid of Mr. Walter Crane in designing their charming little Mark.

We give two of the several Marks used by one of the most prolific of the
younger publishers, Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, the one is simply his initials,
and the more elaborate example is a copy of a type not infrequently met
with among the marks of the sixteenth century printers. Mr. David Nutt’s
device is a quaint and effective play on his surname. Through the
courtesy of Mr. William Morris, we are enabled to give examples of both
of the Kelmscott Press Marks, each of which was designed by Mr. Morris.

As indicating the position of the printer’s Mark in America, we group
together seven of the most interesting examples of the leading printers
and publishers in the United States. The eighth example is that of Mr.
Martinus Nijhoff, of the Hague; the device, “Alles komt te regt,”
signifies “All turns right,” or something to that effect.

[Illustration: D. APPLETON AND CO.

D·A & Co.
INTER FOLIA FRUCTUS]

[Illustration: J. S. CUSHING AND CO.

J. S. CUSHING & CO
BOOK PRINTERS
192 Summer St
BOSTON]

[Illustration: HARPER BROTHERS.

H B
ΛΑΜΠΑΔΙΑ ΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΔΙΑΔΩΣΟΥΣΙΝ ΑΛΛΗΛΟΙΣ]

[Illustration: H. LOCKWOOD AND CO.

H L
LOCKWOOD PRESS
NEW YORK]

[Illustration: BERWICK AND SMITH.

PRESS OF BERWICK & SMITH
192 SUMMER ST BOSTON MASS]

[Illustration: THEODORE L. DE VINNE AND CO.

καὶ μὴν ἀρθμὸν
ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων
ἐξεῦρον αὐτοῖς
γραμμάτων τε συνθέσεις
μνήμην τ’ ἁπάντων μουσομητορ’ ἐργάτιν.
IMPRIMATUR
THE DE VINNE PRESS]

[Illustration: J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO.

J B L Co.
DROIT ET AVANT]

[Illustration: M. NIJHOFF.

M N
ALLES KOMT TE REGT.]

[Illustration:

THE HAVEN

OF HEALTH:

Chiefely gathered for the comfort of Stu-
dents, and consequently of all those that haue a
care of their health, amplified vpon fiue words of
_Hippocrates_, written _Epid. 6._ _Labor, Cibus,
Potio, Somnus, Venus_: By _Thomas Coghan_
master of Artes, & Bacheler
of Phisicke.

_Hereunto is added a Preseruation from the Pestilence,
With a short Censure of the late sicknes at Oxford._

_Ecclesiasticus. Cap. 37. 30._

By surfet haue manie perished: but he that dieteth
himselfe prolongeth his life.

nor
W

AT LONDON

Printed by Henrie Midleton,

_for William Norton_.

1584.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The following books will be found helpful to those who wish to prosecute
their studies further into the subject of the Printer’s Mark. Special
information respecting the devices of the more eminent typographers,
such as Plantin, Elzevir, and others, will be found in the monographs
and bibliographies which have been compiled concerning these men and
their works.

HAVRE, G. VAN. Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires
anversois, 2 vols. Avec plus de 1000 reproductions.

Anv., 1884.

HEITZ (P.) and BARACK (K. A.). Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker und
Verlegerzeichen. Elsässische Büchermarken bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhdts.
Nebst Vorbemerkungen u. Nachrichten üb. d. Drucker. Mit 76 Holzschn.
Tafeln.

4o. Strassburg, 1892.

HOLTROP, J. W. Monuments Typographiques des Pays Bas au quinzième
siècle.

Fol. La Haye, 1868.

HORNE, REV. T. H. Introduction to the Study of Bibliography.

8vo. London, 1814.

HUMPHREYS, H. N. Masterpieces of the Early Printers.

Fol. London, 1870.

INVENTAIRE des marques d’imprimeurs et de libraires de la France.

4o. Paris, 1886-87.

JOHNSON, J. Typographia, 2 vols.

London, 1824.

LEDEBOER, ADRIAN MAR. Alfabetische lijst der Boekdrukkers,
Boekverkoopers en Uitgevers in Nord-Nederland. With 4 plates of
Printers’ Marks.

4to. Utrecht, 1876.

LEMPERTZ, HEINRICH. Bilder Hefte zur Geschichte des Bücherhandels und
der mit demselben verwandten Künste und Gewerbe. 11 Hefte mit 65 Taf.,
enthalt. Facs. Reprod. von Portraits berühmter Buchhändler, auf den
Buchhandel bezügl. Schriftstücke, Initialen, Ex-libris, Abbilden
kunstvoller Einbände.

Fol. Köln, 1853-65.

LINDE, A. V. D. Geschichte der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst. 3 Bde.

4o. 1886-87.

MEERMANN, GERARD. Origines typographicæ, 2 vols. With 10 pl. Printers’
Marks.

4o. Hag. Com., 1765.

MENDEZ, FRAY FRANCISCO. Tipographia española ó historia de la
introduccion, propagacion y progesos del arte de la imprenta en España.
Second edition revised by D. Hidalgo.

Madrid, 1861.

ORLANDI, P. A. Origin e Progressi della Stampa.

4o. Bolog. 1722.

ROTH-SCHOLTZ, F. Thesaurus Symbolarum ac Emblematum, etc. Fol.
Nüremberg, 1730 (with reproductions of several hundred Marks).

SILVESTRE, L. C. Marques typographiques ou recueil des monogrammes,
chiffres, enseignes, etc., des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en
France depuis 1470, jusqu’à la fin du 16e siècle. Avec plus de 1300 fig.
s. bois.

Paris, 1853-67.

THIERRY-POUX, O. Premier Monuments, etc., de l’imprimeur en France au XV
siècle.

Fol. Paris, 1890.

WEIGEL (T. O.) and ZESTERMANN (A. C. A.). Die Anfänge der Druckerkunst
in Bild und Schrift. An deren frühesten Erzeugnissen in der Weige’schen
Sammlung erlaütert. Mit 145 Facs. u. viel. Holzschn. im Text.

Folio. Leipz., 1866. 2 vols.

[Decoration]

INDEX.

Abiegnus, J., 26.
Aldine family, The, 218-223.
Alexandre, J., 13, 26.
Allen, John, 92.
Andrewe, W., 26, 65, 70.
Angelier, J., 27.
Anshelm, Thomas, 155, 156.
Apiarius, Mathias, 7.
Appleton and Co., 250.
Arbuthnot, A., 81, 82.
Aubri, B., 14, 36.
Auvray, G., 27.
Auzolt, R., 26.

Back, G., 188-190.
Bade, C., 91.
---- J., 12, 115, 129.
Baland, E., 22.
Baptista de Tortis, 25, 215.
Barack, Dr. K. A., 140.
Barbon, H., 8.
Barker, C. and R., 90.
Bartholomæus, D., 47.
Bartholomeus de Zanis, 25.
Bassandyne, T., 99.
Baumgarten, C., 171.
Beck, R., 49, 143, 144.
Bellaert, Jacobus, 191, 195.
Bell (Geo.), and Sons, 247.
Benedetti, G. A. de, 25, 228.
Benedetto d’Effore, 25.
Bentley, R., 19.
Berger, Thiebold, 150-151.
Bernardino de Misintis, 25, 225.
Bernardinus de Vitalibus, 25.
Berrichelli, D., 25.
Berthelet, T., 71.
Bertochus, D., 25, 215.
Bertramus, A., 29.
Berwick and Smith, 251.
Besicken, J., 210-211.
Besson, J., 21.
Bichon, G., 7.
Bien-Né, J., 20.
Bignon, J., 14.
Birckmann, A., 162-163.
Blades, W., 55.
Blount, E., 87.
Bocard, A., 20.
Bonino de Boninis, 25, 225-256.
Boucher, N., 27.
Bouchet, G., 21.
---- J., 21.
Bouchets Brothers, 12.
Boulle, G., 34.
Bounyn, B., 14.
Bourgeat, G., 27.
Bouyer, J., 21.
Bradshaw, Henry, 53.
Breuille, M., 32, 33, 125.
Brothers of Common Life, 181.
Brylinger, N., 176.
Bumgart, Herman, 158-159.
Burges, J., 22.
Byddell, J., 72.
Bynneman, H., 85, 86.

Cæsar, N., 161.
Cæsaris, A., 189, 191.
Caillaut, A., 3.
Caligula de Bacileriis, 25.
Calvarin, P., 14.
Calvin, J., 174.
Cartander, _see_ Cratander.
Cassell and Co., 243-4.
Caxton, W., 53-57.
Cervicornis, Eucharius, 159.
César, P., 12.
Chandelier, P., 7, 137-138.
Charteris, H., 99.
Chatto and Windus, 243, 247.
Chaudière, G., 27, 28.
---- R. and G., 126.
Chepman, W., 95, 97.
Chevallon, G., 22.
Chiswick Press, The, 240-2.
Chouet, J., 31.
Christopher de Canibus, 25.
Clarendon Press, The, 238, 240.
Clark, R. and R., 244.
Cleray, G., 32.
Clopejau, M., 27.
Cloquemin, L., 12.
Colines, _see_ De Colines, S.
Colomies, J., 137.
Colophon, The, 49.
Constable, T. and A., 246-7.
Copland, R., 67, 68.
---- W., 68.
Corrozet, G., 32.
Couteau, Gillet, 4, 103.
Cox, T., 92.
Cramoisy, S., 127.
Cranach, L., 170.
Crane, Walter, 247, 249.
Cratander, 44-45.
Creede, T., 90, 91.
Crespin, J., 20.
Cushing and Co., 250.
Cyaneus, L, 125.

Dallier, J., 32.
Davidson, T., 98.
Day, John, 78-80.
De Bordeaux, J., 32.
De Campis, J., 51.
De Codeca, M., 25.
De Colines, S., 14, 27, 118-119, 120, 126.
De Francfordia, W., 25.
De Gourmont, G., 13, 118, 124.
---- J., 21.
---- R., 27.
De Hamont, M., 27, 200.
De la Barre, N., 26.
De Laet, 30.
Delalain, Paul, 24.
De la Noue, D., 8.
De la Porte, A. S. and H., 133-135.
---- H. and A., 66.
De la Rivière, G., 8.
De Marnef Brothers, The, 26, 106-107.
Denidel, A., 21.
Denis, J., 38.
De Pfortzheim, Jacobus, 163, 165.
De Saincte-Lucie, P., 14.
De Salenson, G., 17.
De Sartières, P., 14.
Destresius, J., 194.
De Tournes, J., 29, 31, 133.
---- S., 25
De Vingle, 115, 232.
De Vinne, Th., 251.
Dewes, R., 89.
Dolet, E., 16, 132, 133.
Dorp, R. van den, 188-189.
Duff, E. Gordon, 62.
Dulssecker, J. R., 47, 50, 153-154.
Du Mont, A., 8.
Du Moulin, J., 6.
Du Pré, Galliot, 5.
---- J., 26, 108, 136.
---- P., 22.
Du Puys, J., 8, 10, 129.

Eckert de Hombergh, H., 34.
Eggestern, H., 139.
Elzevirs, 17, 18, 205-208.
Endter’s (W. E.) Daughter, 167.
Erasmus, 166, 181.
Erpenius, T., 49.
Estienne, Family, The, 100, 118-123.
Eve, N., 8.

Faques, W., 16, 62.
Fawkes, R., 63.
Federico de Basilea, 230.
Fernandez, A., 229.
---- V., 231, 232.
Feyrabendt, J., 172.
Fézandat, M, 14.
Fouet, R., 32.
Fradin, C., 36.
---- F., 26.
Francfordia, N. de, 215.
Frellon, J., 22.
Friburger, M., 100, 101.
Fritag, A., 209-211.
Froben, J., 42-44, 48, 58, 164-166.
Froschover, C., 71, 175.
Furter, M., 166.
Fust and Schoeffer, 40-42.

Gering, U., 100, 101.
Gerla or Gerlis, L., 25.
Gibier, Eloy, 12.
Girard, J., 173-174.
Giunta Family, The, 222-225.
Goes, M. van der, 187-188.
Goltz, H., 57, 197.
Gourmont, _see_ De Gourmont.
Grafton, R., 10, 74-76.
Grandin, L., 18.
Granjon, R., 14.
Grapheus, J., 194, 197.
Gregorius, J. and G. de, 214.
Grosii, The, 22.
Groulleau, E., 32.
Grüninger, J., 140.
Gryphius, S., 6, 135, 136.
---- The, 36.
Guarinus, 73.
Gueffier, J., 8.
Guerbin, L., 172-173.
Guillemot, M., 32.

Hall, Rowland, 84, 85.
Hardouyn, G., 18, 117.
Harper Bros., 250.
Harrison, R., 89.
Hauth, David, 152.
Heitz, P., 140.
Hellenius, M., 189, 191-192.
Henrici, H., 192, 194.
Henricpetri, 166.
Herembert, J., 131,
Herolt, G., 210.
Hesker, H., 34.
Hester, A., 26, 70.
Hillenius, M., 57.
Holbein, Hans, 42-45, 163.
Hombergh, H. Eckert van, 188.
Hovii, J. M., 201-202.
Huby, F., 34.
Huguetan, The Brothers, 17, 49.
---- J., 26.
Hugunt, M., 232.
Husz, M., 26.

“Inventaire des Marques d’Imprimeurs,” 24.

Jacobi, P., 29.
Jaggard, Isaac and William, 87, 88.
Janot, W., 14, 15, 107, 129.
Janssens, G., 208.
Jenson, N., 213.
Johannes de Spira, 211.
Jove, M., 8.
Jucundus, J., 29.
Jugge, R., 80, 82.
Julian, G., 8.
Junta, _see_ Giunta.
Justinian de Ruberia, 25, 228.

Kalliergos, Z., 211, 232.
Kerver, T., 7, 34, 111, 115.
Keysere, _see_ Cæsaris.
Kingston or Kyngston, Felix, 88, 89.
Knoblouch, J., 17, 91, 142.
Koberger, Anthony, 167.
Kobian, Valentin, 156.
Koelhoeff, J., 159-160.
Köpfel (or Cæphalæus), W., 17, 145, 146.
Krantz, M., 100, 101.

Lagache, J. and A., 29.
Lambert, J., 14, 26.
Lamparter, N., 166.
L’Angelier, A., 10.
Laurens, Le Petit, 34.
Lawrence and Bullen, 243.
Le Bret, G., 36.
Lecoq, Jehan, 6, 7, 137.
Leeu, G., 184-186.
---- N., 184.
Le Forestier, J., 21.
Legnano, G. G., 226-228.
---- J. A., 232.
Le Jeune, M., 20.
Le Noir, Michel, 3, 13, 109.
---- P. and G., 4, 110.
Le Preux, F., 177.
---- J., 12.
---- Poncet, 36.
Le Rouge, P., 109.
Le Talleur, G., 26.
Liechtenstein, P., 215.
Lippincott and Co., 251.
Lockwood and Co., 250.
Longis, J., 14.
Longman and Co., 233, 237, 240.
Loslein, P., 48, 213.
Lotter, Melchior, 169, 170.
Lynne, W., 52, 83.
Macé, B., 36.
---- R., 13.
---- Family, The, 108.
Macmillan and Co., 243.
Madden, J. P. A., “Lettres,” 57.
Magno, 229.
Maillet, J. and E., 5.
Mainyal, G., 101.
Mallard, O., 14.
Manilius, G., 32.
Mansion, Colard, 181.
Marchant, G., 29, 106.
Marnef, _see_ De Marnef.
Martin d’Alost, T., 180, 210, 211.
Martin, L., 34.
Meer, J. J. van der, 186.
Meietos, P. and A., 217.
Mentelin, J., 139.
Middleton, W., 76-77.
---- H., 252.
Miguel, P., 26, 231.
Miscomini, A., 226.
Mittelhus, G., 26.
Morel, G., 17, 38.
Morin, M., 137.
Morris, William, 247-91.
Moulin, J., 97.
Müller, Craft, 147, 148, 149.
Myllar, A., 6, 95, 96.

Nani, H., 25.
Neobar, C., 20.
Nijhoff, M., 251.
Nivelle, S., 14, 126, 128, 129, 130.
Noir, _see_ Le Noir.
Norton, W., 88, 252.
Notary, J., 61-62.
Nourry, C., 14.
Nutt, David, 243.

Oglin, Erhart, 163-164.
Olivier, J., 23.
Orwin, T., 30.

Paffraej, Albertus, 183-184.
---- Richard, 184.
Palomar, L., 229.
Pannartz, A., 209.
Paulo de Colonia, 229.
Paul (Kegan) and Co., 243, 249.
Pavier, T., 10, 12.
Pegnicer, J., 229.
Pepwell, H., 63, 189.
Peregrino de Pasqualibus, 25, 215.
Périer, T., 27.
Petit, J., 6, 9, 112, 115.
Pfortzheim, _see_ De Pfortzheim.
Picart, B., 46.
Pickering, W., 239, 242.
---- B. M., 239, 242.
Pigouchet, 97, 112, 113.
Pincius, P., 223.
Pine, J., 46.
Pinzi, P., 25.
Plantin, C., 203-205.
Pollard, A. W., 48.
Portunaris, V., 22.
Prevosteau, E., 17.
Printers’ Marks:
punning devices, 3, 10;
mottoes from sacred history, 8;
printing press, 12;
mottoes, 13;
Hebrew and Greek mottoes, 17;
the Sphere, 17, 207;
the Brazen Serpent, 20;
Balaam’s Ass, 22;
Christ on the Cross, 22;
St. Christopher, 22;
Saints and riests, 23;
The Cross, 23-26;
St. George and the Dragon, 26;
Time and Peace, 27;
musical notes, 29;
rustic subjects, 29;
the Cornucopia, 30;
the Unicorn, 32-34;
the Griffin, 35;
the Mermaid, 36;
the Anchor, 37;
Angels, 37;
Arion, 37;
Bellerophon, 37;
astrological signs, 37;
Cat, 38;
Eagle, 38;
Fortune, 38, 44;
Fountain, 38;
Heart, 38;
Hercules, 38;
Lion, 38;
Magpie, 38;
Mercury, 38;
Pelican, 38;
Phœnix, 39;
Salamander, 39;
Swan, 39.
Psalter, The Mentz, 41.
Pynson, R., 59-61.

Rastell, J., 36.
Ratdolt, E., 162, 212-214.
Regnault, F., 75, 103-105.
---- P., 105.
Rembolt, B., 17, 26, 101, 102.
Reynes, J., 16.
Ricci, B., 25.
Richard, J., 34.
---- T., 29.
Rigaud, B., 14.
Rihel, Wendelin, 150.
Rivery, J., 174.
Rivingtons, The, 235-8.
Rizzardi, G., 225, 228.
Roccociola, D., 25, 226.
Roce, D., 4, 14, 66.
Rodt, Berthold, 163.
Roffet, J., 29, 30.
---- Family, The, 125.
Rose, Germain, 4.
Rosembach, J., 26, 230, 231-2.
Roth-Scholtz’s “Thesaurus,” 24.
Rubeus de Valentia, L., 25, 215.
Ryverd, G., 22.

Sabio Brothers, The, 224-226.
Sacer, J., 25.
Sacon, J., 26, 73.
Schäffeler of Bodensee, 22.
Schaufelein, Hans, 155, 156.
Scher, Conrad, 152.
Schomberg, W., 25.
Schott, M. and J., 141.
Schultis, E., 32.
Schumann, V., 170-171.
Scolar, J., 93, 94.
Scott, or Skott, J., 66.
Scotto, O., 25, 214-215.
Sergent, P., 18.
Sessa, M., 217-218.
Siberch, J., 94, 95.
Silvius, G., 22.
Singleton, Hugh, 82, 83.
Sixtus Riessinger, 210.
Snellaert, C., 34, 35, 186.
Somaschi, The, 25.
Soter, Johann, 161-162.
St. Albans Press, The, 54-56.
Stadelberger, J., 172-173.
Stagninus, B., 25, 215.
Stationers’ Company, The, 233-6.
Steels, J., 19, 191.
Steinschawer, Adam, 173.
Suardo, L., 25.
Sweynheim, C., 209.

Tardif, A., 8.
Temporal, J., 14, 27.
Thanner, J., 139, 171.
Ther Hoernen, A., 24, 157, 159, 183.
Thomas, 229.
Title-page, The First, 48.
Tonson, J., 94.
Topie, M., 131.
Torresano, A., 219.
Tory, Geoffrey, 14, 117-118.
Tottell, R., 85.
Tournes, _see_ De Tournes.
Trepperel, J., 21.
Treschel, J., 25, 115, 132.
---- The Brothers, 17.
Treveris, P., 64.

Unwin, T. F., 243, 245.

Van den Keere, H., 195, 198.
Van der Noot, T., 194, 196.
Van Hombergh, H. E., 188.
Vautrollier, T., 7, 73, 75.
Veldener, J., 178.
Velpius, Rutger, 200.
Vérard, A., 21, 102.
Vidoue, P., 17, 124.
Vincent, Simon, 34, 51.
Vindelinus de Spira, 213.
Vitalibus, B. de, 215.
Von Andlau, G., 1, 32, 146.
Vostre, S., 102, 103, 111, 112.
Vurster de Campidonâ, J., 226.

Waesberghe, J., 199.
Walthoe, J., 92.
Ware, R., 92, 93.
Wéchel, A. and C., 31, 125-127.
Weissenburger, J., 167-169.
Whitchurche, E., 75.
Whittingham, Messrs., 240-2.
Wight, or Wyghte, J., 83, 84.
Windet, J., 82.
Wolfe, R., 20, 77, 86.
---- John, 77, 78.
Woodcock, T., 10, 86, 87.
Wyer, R., 68.
Wynkyn de Worde, 51, 57-59, 67.

Zainer, G., 41, 162.
Zanis, Bartholomeus, 215.
Zell, Ulric, 157, 178.
Zetzner, L., 151, 152.

[Illustration:

GEORGE BELL AND SONS.]

[Decoration]

CHISWICK PRESS:--CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLISH BOOKSELLING.
Crown 8vo. Sampson Low and Co. 1889.

CHRISTIE’S: A Chapter in the History of Art.
[_In the Press_.

* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *

ERRATA (Noted by Transcriber)

Main Text:

primus excogitavit Aldus._” [_missing close quote_]
and with the motto “Vogue la gualee.”
[_illustration text has “guallee”_]
“... eu pour origine l’affiliation à une confrérie religieuse.”
[_error for “eut pour”?_]
The editions of the Printer, “à la licorne,” Deft
[_spelling “Deft” unchanged: may be quoting original_]
in this device we have the sun shining [devise]
“Veritas virescit vulnere.”
[_illustration text has “viressit”_]
“Pour proquer la grand’ miséricorde,
[_text unchanged: illustration has “provocquer”_]
the two first, Jean or Jehan and Galliot, were the most celebrated.
[_final period missing or invisible_]
the motto “ardentes juvo,”
[_illustration text has “audentes”_]
examples of the Strasburg printers
[_here and below, anomalous spelling with one “s” unchanged_]
their very elaborate “Elsässische Büchermarken bis Anfang des
18. Jahrhunderts,”
[_missing period in “18.”, present in earlier citation_]
Berthold Rodt of Hanau, one of Fust’s workmen [Füst’s]
probably that of Wilhelm Moritz Endter’s daughter [thatof]
an enthusiastic bibliopole
[_not an error: bookseller, not bibliophile_]
Johann Feyrabendt
[_spelled -bendt in body text, -bend in figure caption_]
Le Nouueau Testament de nostre Sauflueur Iesu Christ
[_spelling unchanged_]
Joannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1480-1516, [1480--1516]
the “Britannia” of Camden ... which was likewise employed
[_text unchanged: superfluous “which”_]
the first edition the unabridged “Chronicle of the Cid,”
[_text unchanged: missing “of”?_]

Illustrations of Printers’ Marks:

Non-classical spellings in Greek are not individually noted.

14. Hercules Nani. [_period . after 14. in caption invisible_]
γίνεσθε φρόνιμοι ὥς ὁι ὄφεις, [_breathing mark as shown_]
¶ Melius est nomen bonum q[uam] diuitie mnlte. Prou. xxu.
[_error “mnlte” for “multe” in original_
_text seems to say “xxu” (xxv, 25) but passage is at 22_]
Ερευνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς, οτι ἐμ ἀυταῖς
ζωὴμ ἀιώνιομ ἔχετε.
[_All errors, including the use of mu for nu, are in the original._]
Ἡ ἀγάπη πάντα δέγει.
[_There is no such word as δέγει or σέγει, but the intended form
could not be deduced; it might be a variant of θίγει._]
’ Galle premes tecum mox Leo uictus erit
[_unambiguous apostrophe ’ neither flyspeck nor part of verse_]
καὶ μὴν ἀρθμὸν
[_text unchanged: error for ἀριθμὸν_]

Bibliography:

Elsässische Büchermarken bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhdts.
[_missing period in “18.”, present in first citation_]
l’imprimeur en France au XV siècle.
[_text unchanged: error for “XV^e” (superscript e)?_]

Index:

A few missing commas after initials were silently supplied.

De Vinne, Th., 251. [151]

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography" ***

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