Part 3
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.