Printers' Marks Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: SeBASTIEN NIVELLE.

S N HONORA PATREM TVVM, ET MATREM TVAM.

VT SIS LONGaeVVS 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, Bartholomaeus 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 a 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 ill.u.s.trated edition of Terence, 1493, is described as forming "the most striking and artistic work of ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration; and in some cases the words "scabra dolo" are printed on the axe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERLIN, DESBOYS AND NIVELLE.

h.o.m.o NASCITVR AD LABOREM VADE PIGER AD FORMICAM PROVENIET TEMPVS MESSIONIS NON ODERIS LABORIOSA OPERA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. TOPIE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. TRESCHEL.

I T]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Ayme 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 partners.h.i.+p with Antoine Vincent about 1559. Although the Du Pres 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. Sebastien 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUGUES DE LA PORTE AND A. VINCENT.

LIBERTATEM MEAM MECVM PORTO VINCENTI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SeBASTIEN GRYPHE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACQUES COLOMIES.

I C IACQVES COLOMIES]

So far as regards the French cities and towns, we have only s.p.a.ce 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. MORIN.

M M IMPRIME A ROVEN DEVANT SAINCT LO]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIERRE LE CHANDELIER.

LVCERNIS ACCENSIS FIDELITER MINISTRO.]

[Decoration]

PRINTERS' MARKS OF GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Stra.s.sburg 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 Stra.s.sburg (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 "Elsa.s.sische Buchermarken bis Anfang des 18.

Jahrhunderts," the first Strasburg printer to use a Mark was Johann Gruninger, who, after working at Basel for a year or two, took up his residence in Stra.s.sburg 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 Ptolemaeus, "Geographicae Enarrationes,"

1525, differs completely from all the others, the single letter G occupying the centre of the masonic compa.s.s and rule. Gruninger, 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 alchimistae 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 k.n.o.blouch, which is found in the majority of the books printed by him from about 1521 to 1526, notably several works by Erasmus (_e.g._ "Moriae 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHANN GRuNINGER.

IOHANNES. SANTVS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARTIN SCHOTT.

M S]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHANN k.n.o.bLOUCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: REINHARD BECK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.signs to Beck's press, of the date 1490, are remarkable for the large number of woodcuts which they contain, relating princ.i.p.ally 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 Kopfel (whose surname sometimes appears in its Greek translation of Cephalaeus) 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 Muller, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLFGANG KoPFEL.

ESTAS HYEMS PROPE LONGE MORS ET VITA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLFGANG KoPFEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRAFT MuLLER (CRATO MYLIUS).

Hostibus haud tergo, sed forti pectore notus.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATTHIAS BIENER (APIARIUS).

??e???te t?? ??af??, ?t? ? ??ta??

??? ?????? ??ete. Ioan. 5.

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