JOSKI'JI HPKPS'CKH KKNISTAHD. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 
 A.i.;i..qDu.S3 
 
 xllrJlx 
 
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 6896-2 
 
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 MAR 2 3 1968JM£ 
 
 DEC2 7^^i7L 11 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 Z242.C7 K34 
 
 Some early printers and their colophons; 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 496 720 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029496720 
 
A studr ^ one hundfcd yean of Italian fiction. 
 '■■-. Iln. - 
 
 By Joseph Spencer Kennard, Ph.D^ D.C.L. 
 
 ENTRO UN CERCmO DI FERRO 
 
 (In Italian)* A itudy in pcychology. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN ROMANCE. 
 A studr of one hundfcd 
 (VoL I In cafly biuc.) 
 
 ALASKA LEGENDS AND TOTEMS, 
 
 as reflecting the origin, religion and customs of 
 Alaska Indians, 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 THE FRIAR IN FICTION. 
 
 A review of six centuries of the fictional friar, 
 as presented by the great writers of Europe. 
 (VoL I in early issue.) 
 
 THE FALLEN GOD, 
 
 and other essays in literature, music and art, 
 
 THE FAMFARA OF THE BERSIGLIARY. 
 And other stories of Italy, 
 
 STUDI-DANTESCHI 
 
 (In Italian). Studies in the Dhrinc Comedy of Dante. 
 
 MEMMOt ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 A nOTel of ItaGan Socialism and of the 
 Florentine bread riots. 
 
 DE DEO LAPSO COMMENTARIUS 
 (In Latin). A study of Satan. 
 
 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING, 
 by J. Spencer Kennard, D.D. 
 Edited by his son, Joseph Spencer Kennaid. 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTEE^ 
 AND THEIR COLOPHONS 
 BY JOSEPH SPENCER 
 KENNARD. ^ PUBLISHED 
 BY GEORGE W- JACOBS 
 AND COMPANY, PHILA- 
 DELPHIA. ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ 
 ANNO DOMINI MCMIL 
 
Of ''Some Early Printers" four hundred 
 and fifty copies have been printed from type, 
 of which this is No. 
 
 A .T--^^ ^^5 3 
 
 Copyright 1901 
 By JoKph Spencer Kuinard 
 
iv fiiPXCouT pia yi Soi^tas mjy^. 
 
 Some Early^ Printers and their Colophons 
 
 Introduction. Some Early Printers, pp. f-18 
 Their G>Iophons, ... pp. (9-129 
 
' 
 
 O LONG AS LITERA 
 TURE SHALL EXIST, 
 SO LONG AS BOOKS 
 SHALL BE PRINTED 
 AND READ, SO LONG 
 DOUBTLESS, WILL 
 THE ORIGIN OF " THE ART PRE- 
 SERVATIVE OF ARTS," THE 
 || METHODS OF THE PRODUCTION 
 4 AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE EAR- 
 LIER PRINTED BOOKS, AND HOW 
 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE 
 WORLD WAS SUSTAINED AND 
 NOURISHED BEFORE THEIR 
 APPEARING, BE SUBJECTS OF 
 PERENNIAL INTEREST./"? ONLY 
 ONE CORNER OF THIS LARGE 
 SUBJECT CAN BE TOUCHED UPON 
 IN THIS LITTLE BOOK. ^ AN OUT- 
 OF-THE-WAY CORNER, IT IS TRUE, 
 YET FULL OF INFORMATION, AT 
 FIRST HAND, AS TO THE BEGIN- 
 NINGS OF GREAT THINGS. ^ FULL 
 TOO OF QUAINTNESS, OF HUMOR, 
 OF PATHOS, THESE AUTOBIO- 
 
 
INTRODVCTION. 
 
 onjeJenS K'^P*"caI side-lights of those early 
 ai intereet. printer-publishers, whose foibles and 
 vanity, keen appreciation of the dig- 
 nity and importance of their work in 
 selecting and rendering available for 
 mankind the literature of the world, 
 and no less keen perception of the fail- 
 ures and impudent pretentions of their 
 fellow-craftsmen and would-be rivals ; 
 and sometimes, too, most touching 
 instances of their own humility; all 
 these appear in turn in the colophons 
 which they affixed to their books. 
 
 These colophons are revelations of 
 character; they are full of humamty. 
 They are no less valuable for their 
 information as to the introduction of 
 the art of printing. 
 
SOME EARLY PRIffTERS. 
 
 jF course, there were books be- ^"c eatii- 
 fore the days of the early ^^^ ''°°'''- 
 printers, and it would be in- 
 teresting to consider the history of their 
 production, preservation and distribu- 
 tion from the earliest Egyptian dynas- 
 ties down to and through the period of 
 intellectual activity in Greece and after- 
 ward at Rome; to speak of Alexandria 
 as a centre of book production and dis- 
 tribution and to continue the sequence 
 down to the days of Guttenberg. 
 
 ^UT though in the Alexandria of 
 the Ptolemaic kings and during 
 the Augustan age in Rome 
 there was effective book-publishing 
 and book-selling; yet, in attempting to 
 trace the continuous stream between 
 these early sources and the first 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 3Boo!t0 Ot 
 
 Caetetn 
 
 Aonaee 
 
 tcties. 
 
 printer-publishers, we should be led 
 far afield from the specific subject of 
 this essay. 
 
 VEN in limiting ourselves to 
 the early monkish scribes we 
 might justly include the literary 
 work done in those early monasteries 
 of Africa and Asia Minor, to which 
 we owe the preservation of so many 
 Greek classics and the writings of the 
 early fathers. 
 
 ^^SET the thread between the liter- 
 ^^^ ary work of those early scribes 
 in African and Asian monas- 
 teries is too slender and our knowledge 
 of their methods too slight to warrant 
 considering them in connection with 
 the early printers. 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 
 
 OT SO the scriptorium 
 
 of 
 
 J^^ VIVIERS, under the direction of 
 Cassiodorus, and the establish- 
 ment of the monastery of MONTE 
 CASSINO, near Naples, in 529. From 
 these scriptori to the workshop of Gut- 
 tenberg the line is direct, the nine 
 hundred intervening years being rep- 
 resented by the period of the monas- 
 teries of Western Europe, the period 
 of the older universities and the period 
 when the manuscript trade of Venice 
 and Florence became important and 
 the fairs of Frankfurt and Nordlingen 
 distributed their books, not only among 
 clerics and magisters, but among those 
 larger circles of the community who 
 required books written in the lan- 
 guage of the people. 
 
 Zbc print* 
 eri3 sues 
 ceede& to 
 tbe 0ctipa 
 tocfum. 
 
 J*^ 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 iPtlnteO 
 booh 
 
 ImitateO 
 manu= 
 script. 
 
 51EFERENCE will be made in 
 the text to this close connection 
 between the monkish-scribe 
 and his immediate successor, the first 
 printer. To appreciate these colo- 
 phons that connection must be kept in 
 mind. The text-type was a copy of 
 the scribe's handwriting, the size of 
 page, width of margin, style of illumina- 
 tion, manner of decoration — ^all was 
 done with the thought of producing a 
 printed imitation of the original manu- 
 script. 
 
 J* .*» 
 
 ■ffmptovea 
 
 ments ttom 
 
 ftale. 
 
 ^^^F course, in time came a less 
 ^^ slavish following of the written 
 page; there were obvious im- 
 provements. From Italy came the 
 three most valuable text letters: the 
 Roman, first founded by Sweinheym 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 
 
 in 1465, and perfected by Jenson in 
 147 It then the Italic zxvi small capi- 
 tals, introduced by Aldus Manutius, 
 at Venice, in 1501, and modeled on the 
 handwriting of Petrarch. To these 
 early forms modern taste is returning, 
 
 ^^ELIGHTFUL it would be, too, 
 ^^^ to trace the history of those 
 early printer-publishers — the 
 Estiennes, of France; Aldus Manutius, 
 of Venice; Plantin, of Antwerp; 
 Froben, of Basel; the Elzevirs, of 
 Lyden and Amsterdam, and the Ko- 
 bergers, of Nuremberg. Interesting, 
 too, the consideration of the influence 
 of Luther and Erasmus on early print- 
 ing and the importance of the ** devine 
 art" in the propagation of their 
 
to INTRODUCTION. 
 
 doctrines and the spreading of the 
 Reformation. With the requirement 
 came the men and also the invention. 
 
 ««int.rS INTERESTING, too, would be 
 a bois ^^\ ^ more exhaustive study of the 
 place. colophons affixed to manu- 
 
 scripts by those poor monkish scribes 
 and their influence on the colophons of 
 the first printers ; and how their rever- 
 ence for the printery was a direct in- 
 heritance from those devout scribes 
 who regarded their scriptori as holy 
 places and at their consecration used 
 to pray : 
 
 Benedicere digfnerist Domine, hoc scriptori- 
 um f amulonun tuorum, ut quidquid scriptum 
 f uerit, sensu capiant, opere perf iciant. 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. tt 
 
 ;E rccaU, too, that zealous 'l^l'L^f ^ °^ 
 scnbe in the monastery of Tmiestpbae 
 Wedinghausen, in Westpha- l'^. 
 lia, to whom it came upon a day when 
 his weary hand ceased to copy, his 
 eyes closed in the last sleep and the 
 angels received his spirit. His body 
 was committed to the ground and 
 mouldered into dust. But not alto- 
 gether, for a score of years after, when 
 the grave was opened, behold, the right 
 hand was found as firm of flesh as the 
 day he relinquished the pen. And, that 
 the infidel may see and believe, are not 
 the hand and the pen preserved unto 
 this day as holy relics and may be 
 seen in the reliquary under the altar of 
 the monastery chapel ? 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mSi" ^^^^* *°°' ^^'^^^ ^^^ Dietrich, 
 the first Abbot of Saint Evroul, 
 
 filled with holy zeal for the 
 transcribing of manuscripts and mak- 
 ing of books. In order that his monks 
 might work more earnestly he used to 
 tell them this story : 
 
 Once upon a time there was a 
 wicked monk. At his death the devil 
 claimed his soul. He thought he had 
 a sure thing. Now, it happened that 
 just before his death the monk had 
 completed the copying of a great fario 
 volume. This book the angels brought 
 to judgment-seat of God, and for each 
 letter written in the book one sin was 
 forgiven. When the recording angel 
 had added up the two sides of the ac- 
 count, behold, there was one little " i " 
 left over, and the monk's soul was 
 saved. 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 13 
 
 I^^ERE, again, is the colophon, or ^ «nanu= 
 iii^ finis, which a monkish scribe colopbon. 
 
 of Saint Jacob's Monastery, in 
 Liege, added after finishing his manu- 
 script : 
 
 Jacob Rebeccae dilexit simpUcitatem, 
 Altus mens Jacobi scribendi seduUtatem. 
 Ille pecus pascens se divitiis cumulavit, 
 Iste libf OS scribens mer itum sibi multiplicavit. 
 Ille Rachel typicam prae cunctis duxit amatam, 
 Hie habeat vitam justis super astra paratam. 
 
 [The Hebrew] Jacob loved the simplicity of 
 
 Rebecca ; 
 The lofty soul of [the monk] Jacob [loved] 
 
 the work of the scribe ; 
 The former accumulated riches in pasturing; 
 
 his flocks ; 
 The latter increased his fame through the 
 
 writing of books ; 
 The former won his Rachel, loved beyond 
 
 all others ; 
 May the scribe have the eternal life which 
 
 is prepared above the stars for the just. 
 
 4^ e5* 
 
14 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 printei 
 
 wae 
 
 ectlbe'e 
 
 0ucce00Ot. 
 
 f^jHESE are instances, to be sure, 
 '^m of reverence for the "holy art" 
 of transcribing manuscripts. 
 But the printer considered that, though 
 of a higher order, he was the direct 
 successor of the scribe and deserving 
 of the same and even greater honor, 
 inasmuch as by his art the boon of 
 books was brought to a greater num- 
 ber of people. His printery was a 
 sacred workshop and he himself en- 
 gaged in holy work, for which the 
 reasonable reward was, as the scribe 
 of Liege wrote, ** the eternal life which 
 is prepared above the stars for the 
 just." 
 
 a5* 9fi^ 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 
 
 15 
 
 E have mentioned the types 
 used by the first printers. It 
 would be interesting to con- 
 sider their origin and history and how 
 the modern printer, after wandering in 
 the desert for so many years, is awak- 
 ening to the fact that Aldus and Jenson 
 and Caslon and the Elzevirs and what 
 are called real Old English types were 
 full of beauty and have not been sur- 
 passed or improved upon by modern 
 founders. The type used throughout 
 this book is called the *' Jenson/' be- 
 cause it is so closely modeled after that 
 made by Nicholas Jenson in J471. 
 
 FAIR copy of the Old Flemish 
 Black letter is this colophon 
 to Caxton's History of '^y- 
 nard the Fox, printed in England in 
 
 Xll^pes U6ed 
 bfi eatlB 
 printers. 
 
 Specimen 
 of first tfipe 
 used in 
 England. 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1481. It is particularly interesting as 
 a specimen of the type first used in 
 printing in England, and was probably 
 imported by Caxton from the City of 
 Brughes. It is quite different from 
 either modern Flemish or German 
 text-letter and was anciently known 
 in France as grosse bitarde. 
 
 n^g^e aer 3 can ntg Coj)ge+t»5ic§e 
 
 toaein^utc^, 4nb6jTtteTJ7iffmC<iTton 
 tranefdteb in to i^x& rube ^ egmyfe (Bngs 
 fgau^mi^aBBegofWeBtmoneBtre. Ssns 
 8«e9ei f 9« <>J ^ft?« of3ttSn.^ B^* of ««t £orb 
 .^CCCCtam. ^f^»tBereofffe(5egne 
 of(|tgnge(Bit»arl»f0eiitj«- gm^ief^f^e 
 j^trf orpe of (Rcgnftrb f ^ Scsf- 
 
SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 17 
 
 N contrast, and as an example "ttbe 
 of a modern Black Letter which J^Jfoa?." 
 shows originality, the "author's 
 apology " is here offered in a type de- 
 signed by Mr. Will H. Bradley, and 
 the words are the words of the colo- 
 phon of Robartes quarto volume on 
 "Tythes," printed in Cambridge in 
 J613. 
 
 to tbe Reaaen lUbo f aultetb not, 
 lipetb not; wbo menaetb f ault$ is 
 commended: tbe Printer batb 
 faulted a little: it may be tbe Hu- 
 tbor oi^ersigbted more. Cby paine 
 (Reader) i$ tbe leaste; Cben erre 
 nottboumostby misconstruing or 
 by sbarpe censuring; lest tbou be 
 more uncbaritable tban eitber of 
 tbem batb been beedlesse: 6od 
 amend and guide us all ^ ^ 
 
t8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Without answering for the short- 
 comings of the printer, the author 
 knows well that he has "oversighted" 
 much that he will be glad to mend if a 
 second edition of his work is called 
 for. 
 
N the first age of 
 Typography print- 
 ers were deeply im- 
 pressed with a sense 
 of the importance of 
 their art, and gave 
 expression to it in terms that often 
 evoke a smile from the modern 
 reader of their colophons. Printing 
 is "a new manner of writing, and 
 almost divine;" it is " the master art," 
 an art ''holy," "divine," without qual- 
 ification; a "marvelous art," Yet 
 while thus fully conscious of the sacro- 
 sanct character of the Art Preserva- 
 tive of Arts, so engrossed were they 
 with the work they were doing that, 
 self-forgetting, they at first neglected 
 the opportunity of associating their 
 names with the immortal writings of 
 classic poets, historians, philosophers, 
 
 TPtinting I0 
 " tbe art 
 Wvlne." 
 
20 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 ptintind i0 and orators issued from their presses. 
 Wrfne " ^^"^Y of the earlier printed books ap- 
 peared without the printer's name or 
 the time or place of the printing. 
 
 This self-effacement gave occasion 
 to the controversy that has now for 
 four hundred years been waged over 
 the question, Who was the inventor 
 and first maker of types of cast-metal, 
 John Guttenberg or Coster, of Haarlem 
 in Holland? For though there are 
 other claimants of the title, Father of 
 the Art of Printing, Coster is the only 
 one who in recent years has seriously 
 disputed the claims of Guttenberg; 
 and even Coster's claims are now 
 generally discredited. 
 
 •^ 4^ 
 
pbon. 
 
 AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 21 
 
 3OON, however, the typog- ©tffitnot 
 raphers bethought them of ^^^^f '<" 
 the oversight, and began to 
 couple their names with the works 
 they were sending forth; and that 
 in no demure, self-denying way, but 
 with pretty loud trumpeting of their 
 artistic skill and the correctness and 
 elegance of their work: all this in 
 the Colophon or Finis; for it is usu- 
 ally there, -and not on the first page 
 — which was not yet in all cases a 
 title-page — ^that the first printers of 
 books made themselves and the city 
 of their domicile known to the reader. 
 Usually the printers hired a poet's pen 
 to celebrate in verse the glories of 
 typography in general and their own 
 artistic eminence in particular. 
 
22 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Colopbon 
 
 Of EDitio 
 
 princep0 of 
 
 XlVfi. 
 
 LRICH HAHN, for example, 
 in the colophon of his edition 
 of Livy's ''Histories" (Rome, 
 1469), orders his office poet to address 
 the Guardian Goose of the Tarpeian 
 Jove and bid her be of good cheer : 
 
 "O, Guardian Goose of the Tatpeian 
 Jove ! why dost flutter and beat thy wings ? 
 The Gaul (Gallus) is fallen : thy vengfer is 
 here, Ulricus Gallus [jgallus is Latin for 
 hahn]: he has proved that there is no 
 longer need of thy quills: in a day he ^ 
 prints more than can be penned in a year." J 
 
 Ulrich's poet was surely a fellow of 
 rare wit ; but though by his verses he 
 insures immortality to his employer's 
 name, he fails to tell in what year 
 Hahn printed his edition of Livy, 
 which, by the way, is the Editio 
 Princeps of that classic ; and because 
 the verses do not give the date of 
 printing, the right to the title of Prin- 
 ceps had to be established by research. 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 23 
 
 INDELIN of Speier prac- MinOelln 
 ticed the art of typography cSiopbon? 
 at Venice, in succession ta 
 his brother John. Windelin's poet: 
 puts in the mouth of the reader of 
 his edition of Q. Curtius Rufus* 
 ** History of the Deeds of Alexander 
 the Great" this apostrophe to the. 
 honest German typo: 
 
 "O, Windelin, this breath shall fail me 
 and return to the airs of heaven and quit 
 my tenantless corpse, ere thine high worth 
 and virtue and thine illustrious fame, my 
 noble- friend, shall be by me forgot." 
 
 This bard also fails to state the 
 place and date of printing the work ;: 
 but the place is Venice, and the date 
 almost certainly J470. 
 
24 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Bntlque 
 
 manner of 
 
 quoting 
 
 boohe. 
 
 kind 
 
 HE "History" itself begins ab- 
 ruptly on the first page with- 
 out title or heading of any 
 
 and without mention of the 
 
 author's name — a thing usual enough 
 in old MSS. Hence the once cus- 
 tomary mode of quoting books, as 
 papal bulls and legal instruments are 
 still quoted, by the first word or two 
 of their text, e, g., the bull in con- 
 demnation of Martin Luther, Exsurge 
 Domine, and as the Hebrew sacred 
 books are quoted and named by He- 
 braists and Jews, e. g., Bereshith 
 Bara, the book Genesis: the same 
 usage is seen in the names we give 
 to judicial writs, as Habeas corpus. 
 Fieri facias. 
 
 
AMD THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 25 
 
 T Rome, in 1471, was printed <rolopbon 
 
 an edition of the works of S,Sill«nf 
 _ , , , _ , o < . PtJncepa of 
 Ovid, by Conrad Schwein- ©vt&. 
 
 heim and Arnold Pannartz. The 
 printers* poet makes a graceful apol- 
 ogy for the outlandish surnames : 
 
 "Illustrioos reader, whoever you be that 
 look into these volumes, if you wish to 
 know the names of the printers, read : you 
 will smile at their harsh sounding: Teutonic 
 cognomens. Mayhap their art wiU make 
 less uncouth these vocables all unknown of 
 the Muses : Masters Conrad Suueynheim 
 and Arnold Pannartz imprinted many such 
 copies as this at once. The brothers Pietro 
 and Francesco Massimo provided offices \ 
 suitable for the work." 
 
 This is the Editio Princeps of the 
 complete works of Ovid. 
 
 
26 
 
 SOME EARLY TRINTERS 
 
 ®3O0Ui&OOl 
 
 asologna's 
 colopbon to 
 
 N the same year, 1471, was pro- 
 duced at Bologna an edition of 
 the same Roman poet by 
 
 " Baltasar Ozogfuido, Citizen of Bologna, 
 born in most honorable station," and what 
 is of more consequence, "the first inventor 
 of the printer's art in his city." 
 
 This printer's prose, it is seen, in 
 claiming for Baltasar the honor of in- 
 venting the art, makes a more daring 
 flight of fancy, or of some other faculty, 
 than the verse of the poets hired by 
 the German printers of Rome and 
 Venice. 
 
 pDESTLY dignified is the 
 «»"«"«' pi^ colophon of Jacobus Rubens, 
 
 modeet 
 colopbon 
 
 "By nation a Frenchman, who, when 
 the renowned Nicola Marcello was doge of 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 27 
 
 Venice, I47t, imprinted Ovid for the behoof 
 of the living and those to come after them." 
 
 His hired poet then takes up the 
 pen and thus addresses the reader ; 
 
 " O reader, if you desire admission to the 
 Muses' fountains, peruse the divine poems 
 of Ovid. Through Ovid is the surest way 
 to all other poets, for he first broke a path 
 through trackless regions." 
 
 Then, after an enumeration of the 
 beauties of the ''Metamorphoses," 
 "Art of Love," and the rest, he de- 
 clares this edition to be a work of 
 " Marvelous perfection." 
 
 Jacobus 
 ■Rubena' 
 modest 
 colopbon. 
 
 ^I^HIS is very tame compared cotnett of 
 ^^^k with the verses in which are ffcttara's 
 sung the praises of Augus- ^.q ©vie. 
 tin Corneri, who, in 1476, printed at 
 Ferrara an edition of the "Meta- 
 morphoses:" 
 
28 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Ootnert of " Were Ovid still breathingf this air of the 
 
 ^errata's upper world, thy fame, Augfustin, would 
 
 COlopbon to never sink into oblivion ; for not less would 
 
 (DviO. thy art be extolled than Corinna's charms.'' 
 
 Antonio Zarotto published the same 
 work at Milan the next year, 1477, 
 and in the colophon bluntly character- 
 izes himself as a 
 
 ''Distinguished printer." 
 
 Ji J- 
 
 Aatteo 
 
 Capcasa'e 
 
 ®pfO, lDen» 
 
 ice, 1489. 
 
 |UT the poet's judgment on his 
 employer's work may be sus- 
 pected of bias, and still more 
 open to suspicion is the printer's judg- 
 ment on his own .work. Here, for 
 example, is Matteo Capcasa, who, 
 in the colophon of his edition of the 
 Works of Ovid, printed at Venice 
 in 1489, assures us that the printing 
 was done 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 29 
 
 "With most scrupulous accuracy under fliatteo 
 happy and favoring auspices." Capcasa'B 
 
 ©vto, iDena 
 But when the critics come to pass ice, 1489. 
 
 judgment upon it they find it to be 
 teeming with error of every possible 
 kind — errors and blunders of editor, 
 compositor, proof-reader, pressman, 
 
 the D , the binders — in short, of 
 
 everybody that had a hand in it, A 
 copy of this notable edition of Ovid is 
 in the library of Heidelberg Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 JARNED, doubtless, by the pincio's 
 unfortunate result of poor ®vi5, Wen- 
 Capcasa's effort to produce *"' **®^- 
 a correct text of the bard of Love, an- 
 other printer, Filippo Pincio, to whom 
 we owe an edition printed in Venice 
 in I49t, sought help and guidance 
 
30 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 ®vS,'"wcn« ^^°^ heaven, still keeping his powder 
 ice, 1491. dry, however, for though he invoked 
 "the aid of God most high" — at least 
 he tells us that he sought such aid — 
 he did not fail, on his own part, to 
 give the work 
 
 "Most scrupulous care and g:reat indus- 
 try,'' 
 
 with what effect the historians of 
 printery report not. 
 
 The fair presumption is that Pin- 
 cio's work had some blemishes, for 
 the printer of another Venice edition 
 of Ovid, though doubtless he had 
 Pincio's Ovid before him, seems to 
 doubt the possibility of any consider- 
 able degree of critical accuracy: 
 
 " If, perchance, any cliang;e of letters, or 
 transposition, apposition, omission, or other 
 perversion of the same offend the reader's 
 eye, let him charg^e that to the account of 
 the difficulty of the proof-reading." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 31 
 
 The printer who thus prays for a Simon 
 charitable judgment is Simon Bibil- ^'""a^iw^'^ 
 
 aqua. 
 
 prsBer tot 
 cbatitable 
 juOfltnent. 
 
 HE next printer to get out an 
 edition of Ovid makes no ad- 
 dress to the reader. He doubt- 
 less had his trials and troubles while 
 doing the composition and press- work, 
 for in the colophon, as though with a 
 sigh of relief, he exclaims : 
 
 "Praise be to God Almighty; printed at 
 Venice by Bernardino Benali." 
 
 He neglects to note the year, but it 
 was J 494. 
 
 asernaromo 
 :t3enali's 
 
 OCVOttt 
 
 colopbon. 
 
 
32 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Unusual 
 
 date {ot« 
 
 mulas. 
 
 
 SINGULAR conjunction of 
 callings and avocations is seen 
 in the colophon of Paulus 
 Suardus* Commentary upon the "Me- 
 tamorphoses " printed 
 
 "At Brescia by the most skilful typog- 
 rapher the priest Baptista Farfeugo, doctor 
 of pontifical law, in the year MlD." 
 
 Dr. Farfeugo deserves credit for 
 writing the year 1499 so succinctly: 
 his three letters say precisely the same 
 as the long formula of his contempo- 
 raries, e. g., MCCCCLXXXXVrai. 
 Such is the date formula of an edition 
 of the " Tristia/* printed by 
 
 " The most diligent and industrious Joan- 
 nes de Cereto at Venice." 
 
 It is almost as long as the year 
 number written out in full in Latin — 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 33 
 
 millesimo quadringentesimo nonag^^J^J/i 
 imo nono. Doubtless our ingeniqusias. 
 priest-canonist-printer would have em- 
 ployed the more compendious form, 
 millesimo undequingentesimo, which 
 expresses precisely his MID — one 
 thousand five hundred less one. 
 
 HE next year, 1500, an Ovid 
 printed at Lyons 
 
 ''By the labor and skill of the careful 
 printer Jean de Vingle," 
 
 has the date MCCCCC instead of the 
 correct brief form MD. But the 
 vagaries of the old printers in dating 
 style are sufficiently curious to be 
 studied apart, and some specimens 
 will be presented later. 
 
34 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 TMltnDeUn's 
 
 poetic 
 
 colopbon. 
 
 HE Editio Princeps of Livy was 
 got out at Rome, in 1469, by 
 Ulrich Hahn, and contains the 
 famous apostrophe to the feathered 
 watchman of the Tarpeian Rock. 
 In the next year the "Histories" 
 were printed at Venice by Windelin, 
 of Speier. The text was edited by 
 a poet and scholar, Joannes Andreas, 
 bishop of Aleria, and he gave the typo 
 a grand send-off in twoscore and six 
 spirited elegiac verses. Apostrophiz- 
 ing the Roman historian, he tells him 
 that it is honest Windelin that rescues 
 his fame from oblivion. 
 
 " ' cNL&gna. loqttar sed vera (amen* — big 
 words, but true. If some one, O Livy, were 
 to save the lives of your children, would you 
 not say you owed that man more than you 
 could repay ? Now here is Windelin, who 
 has saved your great works, your progeny, 
 has beautified them and multiplied them: 
 You will surely be grateful to the artist." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 35 
 
 ^jfaNOTHER celebrated printer, Hntonto 
 ■^^^ Antonio Zarotto, of Milan, is Jj^^*"'^ 
 content to have his praises colopbon. 
 
 sounded in prose. In the colophon 
 
 of his Livy we find: 
 
 "Printed at Milan by the most consum- 
 mate artist, Antonio Zarotto, in the reigfn of 
 the most illustrious dukes Bona and Giovan 
 Galeazzo Maria Sforza t480." 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 PRINTER at Milan, Ales- J^no 
 sandro Minutiano, who was ot Allan, 
 
 also a classical scholar, but. 
 whose duties at the case left him little 
 time for critical work on his texts,. 
 thus brushes away all the pretensions 
 of scholars and editors to scrupulous 
 exactitude, telling them in effect that 
 they were but literary pharisees, puri- 
 tans, hypocrites, mugwumps : 
 
36 
 
 SOME EARLY <PRINTERS 
 
 Ao&est "He is no imitator of the insolence of 
 Ainutiano those who^ that they may appear to be 
 Ot ilbilan. knowing:, give out that they correct and 
 amend every text." 
 
 On the contrary, passages that ap- 
 pear to him doubtful or obscure he 
 leaves untouched, so that the true and 
 genuine reading may be investigated 
 in the light of ancient copies. 
 
 B&ttio 
 
 ptinceps 
 
 ot tTacitue, 
 
 Denice, 
 
 1168. 
 
 (INDELIN, of Speier, is in all 
 probability the printer of the 
 Editio Princeps of Tacitus. 
 It has no title prefixed, nor does it 
 give either the year or the place of 
 printing. In the colophon is a te- 
 trastich devoted equally to praise of 
 the historian and of the printer. 
 
 " Tacitus is the father of history and all 
 posterity will do him honor : the printer is 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 37 
 
 he of Speier, and he is the chiefest glory of 
 his art." 
 
 The place of printing is almost 
 certainly Venice, and the year almost 
 beyond a doubt is J468; there is some 
 uncertainty about the personality of 
 the printer — whether he is Windelin, 
 or Windelin's brother John, of Speier, 
 who died about 1468. 
 
 SMtio 
 Crincep0 
 of Tacitus, 
 tDenice, 
 1468. 
 
 6^ «^ 
 
 HE Editio Princeps of Horace BOitto 
 % appears without any indication f/!jj"gce 
 of place, or date, or printer's i^jo. 
 name: it has not even a title or head- 
 ing, nor are the pages numbered. It 
 would seem to have been printed at 
 Milan, in J 470, by Antonio Zarotto. 
 Some scholar, noting this omission 
 of the printer's name, has added, in 
 
38 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 E6ltlo the place of the usual colophon, four 
 of Horace* elegant and spirited verses, in which 
 H7o! he prays that 
 
 "Whoever gave ottt the Venusian bard's 
 poems in a copy so correctly printed, might 
 live in the memory of all generations even 
 as the immortal poet himself." 
 
 But an ungrateful posterity, looking 
 the gift horse in the mouth, finds it a 
 botchwork, full of all kinds of errors 
 and defects : e. g., the initial letters of 
 the several poems are omitted or not 
 supplied ; the long s is used as a final 
 letter; letters are often transposed; 
 words are dropped out so as to de- 
 stroy the metre ; and so on. Plainly 
 there was no editor; the ancient MS. 
 was given to the compositor and there 
 was no competent revision. Such is 
 the Editio Princeps of Rome's great- 
 est lyric poet ! 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 39 
 
 W^^HE next edition of Horace's ©tbet 
 H ™ks was certainly printed gjjo-ot 
 
 by Zarotto, at Milan, in 14/4. 
 To this he fearlessly, nay proudly, 
 signs his name. In the colophon we 
 have: 
 
 I "All the works of Qaintus Horatius Flaccos, 
 carefully corrected, and by Antonio Zarotto 
 elegfantly and faitlifolly imprinted, March 
 16, J474} Whoever buys this will never be -| 
 sorry." -* 
 
 In the same year, at Ferrara, 
 Augustino Corneri printed an edition 
 of Horace. In the colophon is an 
 elegant tetrastich, telling that : 
 
 "At Ferrara, in the reign of the godlike 
 Ercole, consort of the queenly Lionora, it 
 was imprinted by young Augustino Corneri, 
 son of the honest bookseller, Bernardo." 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
lETWEEN the time rase of 
 of the introduction wooocuts. 
 of typography and 
 the year 1500, the 
 works of Horace 
 seem to have been 
 published far more frequently than 
 those of any other Latin classic ex- 
 cept Virgil. An illustrated edition of 
 Horace was got out at Strassburg 
 in 1498 — the second instance of the 
 use of woodcuts in a classic author, 
 Terence had been similarly honored 
 in 1496. Both the annotations and 
 the woodcuts were by "Jakob Locher, 
 poet laureate and professor in the 
 University of Freiburg ; " and the pic- 
 tures are in the title described as very 
 beautiful ; but a later age pronounces 
 them to be "crude and often simply 
 ridiculous, like those in Crtininger's 
 Terence." 
 
42 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 BOitto ^^HE colophon of the Editio 
 
 Of pS«! H ^'^"^^^ °f P^'*^*"^ ^^'^^'^t^ 
 
 of one hexameter verse: 
 
 "Explicit ignokts per fotam Persius orbem, " 
 — here endcth Persius, a poet quite unknown 
 to the world. 
 
 The volume is without date, name 
 of printer and locality. Its title of 
 Princeps is given to it by inference 
 from the ambiguous word "un- 
 known" — taken to be equivalent to 
 "unpublished" or "unprinted." 
 
 HnecOotc But the printer's poet may have 
 ot St. 3n» writ better than he knew or in- 
 ^teuw. tended; at all events we are free to 
 give another meaning to the word 
 unintelligible. For however widely 
 the satires of Persius may be diffused, 
 they will be still " unknown," or not 
 understood. If the anecdote told of 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 43 
 
 St. Jerome is not true, it is at least a 
 happy invention. Jerome threw his 
 copy of Persius into the fire, saying : 
 
 " The flames will understand him ; " 
 
 and addressing His Obscurity, he 
 added : 
 
 ** If you don't want to be understood you 
 ought not to be read." 
 
 In this severely just judgment Jer- 
 ome was at one with Persius* best 
 friend and trustiest counsellor, Cor- 
 nutus, who, after Persius* death, gave 
 up to the flames a number of the 
 young poet's writings. Unfortunately 
 six of the Satires escaped that most 
 righteous doom, to pester all genera- 
 tions of schoolboys and scholars 
 of a larger growth in the ages that 
 followed. 
 
 anecOote 
 ot St. %ex9 
 ome an& 
 petsiu0. 
 
 aJ" *^ 
 
44 
 
 SOME EARLY TRJNTERS 
 
 TEliiXiO 
 
 pcincep0 
 
 of Salluet, 
 
 pati0, 
 
 H70. 
 
 m 
 
 HE Editio Princeps of Sallust 
 was printed at Paris by three 
 Germans, Ulrich Gering, Mar- 
 tin Kranz and Michel Freiburger, 
 about the year 1470; but all these 
 particulars are got from inference 
 only, for the work itself gives neither 
 date, printers* names, nor place of 
 printing. But in the colophon the 
 printers' poet has an octastich, the 
 first couplet of which is believed to 
 refer to the year 1470, when "the 
 world's greatest King" [Louis XI] 
 was "assembling armaments and men 
 and threatening destruction to his 
 ancient foes" [the Burgundians]. 
 The martial spirit of the people of 
 Paris is then lauded, and they are 
 asked "to number among their cham- 
 pions the Germans who printed these 
 histories of Sallust." If this Paris 
 edition is not the Princeps, then the 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 45 
 
 primacy* belongs to the Venice edi- "WlllnDelin's 
 tion of Windelin of Speier, the date of jo saSt. 
 which is without controversy 1470. 
 Windelin's office poet in a hexastich^ 
 after mention of the history and fate 
 of Jugurtha, rather petulantly ad- 
 dresses the reader : 
 
 V "Windelin has produced 400 copies of 
 Sallust, O, feader! and can you think of 
 lookingf at books written with the pen when 
 the work of the types is so much more "-^ 
 elegant?" —" 
 
 E^^ERE is the record of a faithful ^/„«"V' 
 nirVdlM f 1 1 f /-• mental 
 
 p|p<i^ friendship between two Ger- colopbon. 
 
 man printers settled in Venice. 
 
 It occurs in the colophon of a Sallust 
 
 printed in 1474: 
 
 "Printed at Venice under the direction 
 and at the cost of John of Cologne and John 
 
46 
 
 SOME EARLY -PRINTERS 
 
 a 0Cnti9 
 
 mental 
 
 colopbon. 
 
 Mantheim, of Gerretsheim> who live togethet 
 in tf ae accord." 
 
 Two other German printers of 
 Sallust, Petrus Kaiser and Johann 
 StoII, are memorable for us solely be- 
 cause of their curious business signs, 
 the Green Bellows in St. James Street, 
 Paris. Their poet contributes a clumsy 
 and ungrammatical octastich lauding 
 both Sallust and the two printers. 
 
 Curious 
 colopbonic 
 tetiaeticb 
 
 ERE is a very curious colo- 
 phonic tetrastich appended to 
 an edition of "Speeches taken 
 from Sallust's Histories:" 
 
 " O Christ, true God, for the love of thy 
 holy Mother, gaard me in body and soul : 
 from all the wiles of the Fiend shield thoo 
 me this night. I am a sinner: that I do 
 confess : do thoo have mercy upon me.** 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 47 
 
 The work does not give the name 
 of the printer, nor the date, nor the 
 place of printing. 
 
 Curious 
 
 colopbonlc 
 
 tettasticb. 
 
 
 HOUGH an entry on the title- 
 % page of a book has no rightful 
 place among these notes on 
 colophons, one may, in passing, notice 
 the edition of Sallust published at 
 Edinburgh, in 1744, by William Ged, 
 goldsmith. It is 
 
 " Printed not in the usual way from mova- 
 ble types, but from cast tablets or plates." 
 
 This Sallust is unquestionably the 
 first of the classics to be printed from 
 stereotype plates. By the way, 
 William Ged had the usual fate of in- 
 ventors : " died of a broken heart." 
 
 "Qlae ot 
 
 gtctcotgpe 
 
 plates. 
 
48 SOME EARLY -PRINTERS 
 
 aicero'0 
 (S)tation0 
 
 I^^KjO the "duumviri of the art 
 ^^ of printing in Italy/' Conrad 
 Schweinheim and Arnold Pan- 
 
 nartz, is due the credit of having been 
 the first to print some of the writings of 
 Cicero. The Orations were printed 
 by them, at Rome, in J471, and in 
 the same year at Venice by Christopher 
 Waldarfer. In the colophon, Chris- 
 topher's laureate has a tesseradecastich 
 in which first he lauds the inventive 
 genius of the Germans, 
 
 " Who is there that admires not the acute- 
 ness of the German mind? The German 
 does straightway whatsoever he essays to do. 
 See with what marvelous skill Christopher 
 Waldarfer, native of Ratisbon, the great 
 glory of his fatherland, has printed books, 
 how speedily he has reproduced so many 
 monuments of antiquity." 
 
 Then the printer's versewright pro- 
 nounces an encomium on Cicero, and 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 49 
 
 finally apostrophizing the great orator iliceto's 
 says: ®-«<'"^' 
 
 "Whoever studies thee, Tolly, will be with- 
 out more ado, eloquent." 
 
 fl5* fl^* 
 
 ANOTHER German printer, 
 Adam of Ammergau, robs his 
 fellow - countryman of two 
 verses of his tesseradecastich, and 
 solders them on to a couplet which 
 very plainly is shop-made and original 
 with Adam. 
 
 ** O, thou who readest this bulky volume 
 of causes forensic and discourses addressed to 
 the Senate and to the people." 
 
 So much Adam purloins from 
 Christopher surnamed of Waldarf or 
 Waldorf: 
 
 plagiatism 
 in coloa 
 pbons. 
 
so 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS. 
 
 plagiatism " Know that they are printed from metal 
 in colOs types by a man of Ammergau : lo, here is 
 pbons. Master Adam." 
 
 •^ 9^ 
 
 Stealing 
 a tBpo'a 
 tbunOct. 
 
 m 
 
 NOTHER instance of this 
 stealing a fellow-typo's thun- 
 der, or his wind, is seen in 
 Antonio Zarotto's edition of Justin's 
 "Histories." Zarotto conveys from the 
 Frenchman Nicolas Jenson (Venice, 
 1470), the first half of a tetrastich: 
 
 "I, Jostin, present to yoo the ancient 
 historians and recount the world's story: 
 read me, I am Trogos in brief ;" 
 
 and tacks to it a distich in praise of 
 himseE Zarotto's Justin appeared in 
 J474 at Milan. It was a great scandal 
 that one of the most eminent Italian 
 printers should commit so mean a 
 theft. 
 
CHWEINHEIM and J^'f^J^J^"'' 
 Pannartz produced j„ iRomc, 
 Cicero's ** Letters to 1467. 
 Friends/' at Rome, 
 in 1467. This is 
 the first of the an- 
 cient classics printed by them at 
 Rome. Previously they had had 
 a printery in the great Benedictine 
 monastery of Subiaco. In 1467 these 
 printers were not yet fully es- 
 tablished in the eternal city, and 
 they had to be content with a less 
 flamboyant envoi or send-off in the 
 colophon than was given them a little 
 later when they could afford to employ 
 a first-class versifier. In the colophon 
 of the Epistles of Cicero they simply 
 say that ^ 
 
 "Conrad Schweinheim and Arnold Pan- 
 nartz, partners, got out the work with 
 wonderful perfection." 
 
52 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Hnotber 
 
 «&itfon 
 
 ot tbe 
 
 'Xettcts." 
 
 m 
 m 
 
 NOTHER edition of the *' Let- 
 ters," printed by Emiliano of 
 Foligno and Johann Numei- 
 ster, appears without date or place 
 of printing, but the number of cop- 
 ies struck off is stated in the colo- 
 phon to have been 200. The art 
 of printing, and all the arts asso- 
 ciated with it, have made great prog- 
 ress since that time, but a book of 
 say 500 octavo pages, of which only 
 200 copies were printed from movable 
 type, would probably cost much more 
 now than then. On the other hand, 
 a copy of a mammoth sheet like one 
 of our daily newspapers would cost 
 in those old times several dollars. 
 
 i^ 0^ 
 
U0eot titles 
 page. 
 
 AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 53 
 
 ^HE Editio Princeps of Valerius Batlg 
 Maximus cannot be traced with example of 
 certainty to any printer, date 
 or place; it has the title in full on the 
 first page, therein differing from many 
 other books printed in early times ; but 
 the initial letter of chapters is nowhere 
 printed, being filled in by hand. The 
 only marks of punctuation are the 
 colon and period. The date is believed 
 to be 1470, and the place of printing 
 Strassburg. The edition of Valerius 
 Maximus, which came out very soon 
 after this, is very distinct, nay emphatic, 
 in setting forth the printer's name, the 
 time and the place. In the colophon 
 we read : 
 
 "The present most celebrated work of 
 Valerius Maximus! completed in the noble 
 city of Mainz ! in the year I47I on the I8th 
 before the Kalends of July ! by that excellent 
 master of the art of printing Petrus Schoyff er 
 of Gemsheim ! happily is consummated ! " 
 
54 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Earls This is followed by the arms of 
 
 example of p ^ ^^^j Schoeffer. 
 use of title* 
 
 page. 
 
 •3* J^ 
 
 TPDiinDelin's ^^^INDELIN of Speier is less 
 
 colopbon MIKM boastful in the colophon of 
 
 of Waletiu0 <^^^ <. -ii- t - i\ff • *t. 
 
 flsailmus. his Valerius Maximus than 
 
 he is wont to be; he has simply 
 
 "The end, HIU" 
 
 followed by a distich which tells that 
 
 "This work of art, printed with types and 
 shining: with splendor, was produced by 
 Windelin." 
 
 Posterity endorses Windelin's judg- 
 ment of his work, it is "sptendida 
 editio," a splendid edition. 
 
 .3ft .3ft 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 55 
 
 CHOEFFER'S colophon of JST 
 Valerius Maximus, which l?l'o>w. 
 we have noted on page fifty- 
 three, with its exclamation signs, is 
 imitated by Petrus Kaiser and Johann 
 Stoll in their edition. Their colo- 
 phon has: 
 
 ''The present most celebrated work ! . . . 
 most noble Paris ! " etc 
 
 A more servile imitation is seen in 
 an edition got out by the bachelor of 
 arts, Martin of Wurzburg, at Leipzig; 
 he has all the exclamation signs, but 
 he forgets to give the date. 
 
 e^ ftp* 
 
 AoOests 
 HE Frenchman Nicolas Jenson or fucoias 
 
 appends to his edition of Sue- 5«"«°n' 
 
 tonius, in J 47 J, four graceful 
 
 verses, in which he modestly enough 
 
 names himself as the printer — but 
 
 i 
 
S6 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 moOeatr alas I tramples on prosody to fit his 
 
 "/foe effo Nicoteos Galtas cognominejensotu" 
 
 Then he asks whether any one will 
 dispute the neatness of the artisanship^ 
 and thus addresses the reader : 
 
 ''While you are perusing; at ease your 
 Suetonius^ I beg, O reader, that you will 
 love the name of the printer." 
 
 Now that is perfection ! Nicolas, a 
 mere artisan, whose education was 
 got doubtless in the printing-office, is 
 a gentleman. 
 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 57 
 
 ^OW different the address of 
 Simone Paschalc Giodertino 
 in his Suetonius, printed at 
 Bologna, in J 488 : 
 
 B 
 
 asombastic 
 
 pascbale 
 
 (5io&ett(no. 
 
 " Whoever yoa are that desire Suetonius 
 of most absolute correctness, buy this and 
 go your way assured ; for Simone Paschale 
 Giodertino — he is the delight of his country- 
 men — has purged it of every error ; so that 
 ye shall seek in vain anything that makes 
 difficulty for readers: take ye therefore a 
 copy of this edition, or cease to look for a 1 
 faultless copy." 
 
 e^ fl^ 
 
 ^^^HE next year, J489, a Suetonius 
 ^^M published at Venice seems. 
 
 in its modest colophon, to re- 
 buke the extravagant pretensions of 
 the man of Bologna: 
 
 Su«toniu0, 
 
 Venice, 
 
 1489. 
 
S8 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS. 
 
 Venice' " Here yoa have, g;ood readett the lives of 
 
 lHQg' the Cesars, long earnestly desired, at a small 
 
 price and corrected with the utmost care by 
 
 the most competent scholars, and printed 
 
 most accurately by Bernardino of Novaro." 
 
 w 
 
ND now comes 
 a printer who, 
 though he will 
 not have his work 
 praised in verse, 
 takes extraordi- 
 nary pains with 
 the style of his prose colophon. He 
 is a purist, a classical Latinist, at 
 least he will tolerate no barbarisms. 
 He rejects such neologisms as im- 
 pressor to express "printer," prelum 
 for "press/' and so forth. As for 
 him, he is no "impressor," he is 
 biblioponus, a boofcwright in good 
 Greek ; he prints not with typt (types) 
 but with aes signatum (stamped 
 metal); nor does he use a prelum 
 (press), but iorcular (having the same 
 meaning); his very name, whatever 
 it may have been to his good old 
 
 Cneius 
 Bppius, a 
 colopbontc 
 purist. 
 
60 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Cneius 
 
 Bppfue, a 
 
 colopbonfc 
 
 PUti0t. 
 
 Deutsch mother and his schoolfel- 
 lows, is now, in ancient Latin style, 
 as when Plancus was consul, Cneius 
 Appius. 
 
 He had to leave the name of his city 
 little altered ; under his pen it became 
 Erphord, but we know from history 
 that ever since 1505, at least, the 
 name has been Erfurt; he reverts to the 
 ancient Latin manner of the epistolary 
 imperfect tense instead of the present : 
 in short, he achieves this exemplary 
 colophon: 
 
 " TeXos. 
 Aere. 
 
 Qn. Appius 'Bibtioponus Erphord 
 
 SIGNATO TORCULARIQUE 
 TRANSCRIBEBAT, Meose Jonio M. D. 
 VIII. 
 
 This seems to have been Cn. Ap- 
 pius' debut — it appears to have been 
 also his finale. 
 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 61 
 
 MN the same year, 1509, appeared 
 at Paris an edition of Sueton- 
 ius with a text freed from the 
 "monstral monsters" {monstris mon- 
 stralibus) of corrupt readings, formed 
 in previous editions, and restored to its 
 original purity. Of this edition the 
 great critic Emesti says — just what 
 might be expected of a rival editor : 
 
 " What a succession of editorial Sisyphi we 
 have been reviewing:." 
 
 Now let us sec what was the judg- 
 ment of critics upon the work of Emesti 
 himself. He puts forth a Suetonius in 
 1748, at Leipzig, and of this the critics 
 say: **His text is carelessly edited: 
 his annotations are unworthy of his 
 fame as a scholar." 
 
 poot 
 
 £rnesti's 
 
 jealoues. 
 
 XTbe critic 
 criticised. 
 
 fl^ «p" 
 
62 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Obtfetopbet 
 
 pot»bou0e 
 colopbon. 
 
 DISTASTEFUL indeed it must 
 have been to purge the texts of 
 the ancient classics of the errors 
 of copyists, printers and editors. Even 
 when the storyr of this herculean labor 
 is told in verse, as it is in an octastich 
 by Christopher Crassus, it excites a 
 feeling of disgust that can hardly find 
 adequate expression in our language 
 without giving offense to the pro- 
 prieties. This Christopher, in sing- 
 ing the praises of Cuspiniano, " favorite 
 of Apollo and all the Muses,'' and 
 editor and corrector of the text of 
 Florus, declares that said Cuspiniano 
 (here English is unequal to the occa- 
 sion) — ulcera defricuit mutto stiltantia. 
 tabo. 
 
 ^ J* 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 63 
 
 I^^T is with a grateful sense of re- 
 j^l^ lief that we turn away from 
 this vision of a lazar-house to 
 the sunshine and flowers to which 
 we are invited by another printer's 
 poet. In the colophon of a Florus 
 published in the same place, Vienna, 
 and the same year, J 511, as that 
 other : 
 
 " ' Studious youth ' is invited * to accept 
 buddingf and blooming Florus, whom chaste 
 Minerva in chaste wedlock bore.'" 
 
 And we can pardon the vehemence 
 of the curse that follows the poet's 
 distich : 
 
 " Therefore, whoever thou be that shall 
 call this edition adulterine, be thou accurst " 
 — sacer esio I 
 
 Colopbon 
 ofa jFlocuSf 
 Vienna, 
 1511. 
 
 
64 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 tlbe 6olden 
 Bpulelue. 
 
 £Oitio 
 
 ptfnceps 
 
 ot Acta* 
 
 motpbo0i0, 
 
 1469. 
 
 
 PULEIUS is represented by 
 an extraordinarily large num- 
 ber of copies in MS. : his 
 "Metamorphosis," or *' The Golden 
 Ass/' was among the first books to 
 issue from the printing-press. 
 
 And the way in which the authors 
 of Boccaccio, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, 
 and their modern imitators, ** borrow" 
 their choice episodes from the Numid- 
 ian philosopher, even as he "borrowed" 
 from Lucian, though it would make the 
 modern plagiarist-hunter shudder, yet 
 indicates his perennial popularity. 
 
 The Editio Trinceps of the "Meta- 
 morphosis" was printed at Rome in 
 1469 by Schweinheim and Pannartz. 
 In the colophon of an edition published 
 at Vienna in J497, the printer, who 
 calls himself in Latin Johannes de 
 Hiberna Arce (Winterthur ?) tells us 
 that his native place is — 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 65 
 
 ^'Not far from Rhine's banks and the £Mtion 
 city of Mainz, inventress and mother of the of Aeta« 
 art of printingf." motpbOSUt 
 
 1407. 
 
 
 DOME of the editions of the 
 "Metamorphosis," whether 
 in the original Latin or in 
 translation, have, either in the colo- 
 phon or the title-page, extravagant 
 laudations of the work as a book of 
 religious and moral edification; but it 
 would not be safe to expose for sale as 
 a devotional work the ** Golden Ass" 
 unexpurgated. In the German trans- 
 lation of J 588, made by 
 
 "Johann Sicder, erstwhile secretary of the 
 fight reverend prince and lord Lorenz von 
 Biber, bishop of Wtirzburg;, duke of Fran- 
 conia, etc., and imprinted by Alexander 
 Weissenhom, at Aogsburgf," 
 
 Oolopbonic 
 ptaiee ot 
 tbe <3oI&en 
 
 B00. 
 
66 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Colopbontc 
 
 praise of 
 
 tbe 0olOen 
 
 Bee. 
 
 £ditio 
 pcinceps 
 
 Of pline's 
 t)istotia 
 
 Datutalis. 
 
 we are told that in 
 
 " this beautiful fiction men are taug:ht how, 
 with God's help, they may be no longfer 
 like the horse and the mule, which have no 
 understandings, but may become well pleas- 
 ing; in the sig:ht of God and rational and 
 upright." 
 
 HE predecessor of Windelin, 
 John of Speier, his elder 
 brother, printed the Edttto 
 Princeps of Pliny's "Natural History," 
 at Venice, in 1469. A hexastich 
 in the colophon introduces Pliny, or 
 rather his great "Historia Naiura.lis," 
 giving praise to the honest printer : 
 
 L "Me whom the eager teadct erewhile 
 could so seldom take in hand, and who, in- 
 deed, was hardly intelligfible, John of Speier 
 has restored to integrity and has written out 
 with metal types. Let the tired hand and 
 the quill have a rest, for toil ghres place to 
 study and genius." 
 
 J' 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 67 
 
 That was in J469. In 1470 an 
 edition of the writings of St. Augus- 
 tin, Civitas Dei, printed at Venice, 
 has in the colophon a hexastich re- 
 counting the principal achievements 
 of John of Speier in printing, his death, 
 and the succession of his brother 
 Windelin : 
 
 "John of Speier, who proved to the Vene- 
 tians that in three months a hundred vol- 
 umes of Pliny a month and as many bigf 
 volumes of Cicero could be produced, had 
 made a beginning: on the writings of Aure- 
 lius Augustinus, when sudden death carried 
 him off. But Windelin, his brother, is here 
 in his stead, in the art not his inferior ; He 
 will live in the memory of Venetians." 
 
 This vaticination of immortality re- 
 gards "Windelin, not his deceased 
 brother, but both brothers are of the 
 band of the immortals. As for Win- 
 delin, he is doubtless the greatest ge- 
 nius that ever lived : He himself has 
 said it. 
 
 Oolopbon 
 to St. Btt« 
 au0tin'0 
 Civitae 3>ei, 
 1470. 
 
 :s 
 
68 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Aodest 
 TIQItndelfn 
 ot Speiec. 
 
 ^N the colophon of his edition of 
 Virgil, published in that same 
 year, Windelin's poet thus 
 lauds his employer: 
 
 ** Wmdelin of Speier printed these works 
 of Vf rg:il, at Speier ; so let others praise the 
 Polycletuses and the Parrhasiuses and such 
 like artists : but whosoever loves the gentle 
 arts of the Muses will extol Windelin with 
 highest praise; and that not so much be- 
 cause that he has produced many volumes 
 as for that his volumes are at once the most 
 correct and the most elegant of all." 
 
 And here be it confessed that the 
 good typo did produce editions of ex- 
 emplary correctness and of undeniable 
 artistic merit. 
 
 ^ jt 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 69 
 
 INDELIN'S rapturous thuri- 
 fication of himself in the 
 verses just quoted, his pelt- 
 ing himself with bouquets, might 
 justify one in taxing him with a 
 little vainglory. And see the effects 
 of bad example and the contagious- 
 ness of our vices. Windelin's too 
 enthusiastic hymn to himself is of the 
 year 1470. The very next year 
 Adam Roth, almost as good and great 
 a man as he, in the colophon of his 
 Virgil (Venice, 1471) sings, or sets 
 his office poet a-singing: 
 
 "Whoever desires to read the poems of 
 the bard of Mincio, let him read me." 
 
 It is the book that addresses the 
 reader. 
 
 " Not Solomon, nor Hiram, nor the Sibyl, 
 nor famed Greece with all her sages, nor 
 Rome mighty in arms and peer of gods. 
 
 Cbe cons 
 tagiou0« 
 ness of bad 
 example. 
 
tTbe contai 
 
 gioneneas 
 
 of bad 
 
 example. 
 
 70 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 ever could boast that they possessed so g;rand 
 an art. We are the progeny of that ADAM 
 whose name recalls the first parent of alL" 
 
 
 Zbe fall 
 
 of Bdam 
 
 1?otb. 
 
 ^N the same year, but without 
 mention of printer's name, or 
 place of printing, appeared 
 an edition of Virgil's acknowledged 
 works, with some spurious pieces of 
 an obscene character, at that time 
 commonly believed to be Virgilian. 
 In the colophon is a distich: 
 
 "You ask why these poems, thougfh 
 obscene, are printed? Excuse them: they 
 were writ by Virgil." 
 
 In the character of the typography 
 and in certain peculiarities of the com- 
 ' position, the hand of Adam Roth is 
 discerned : another Fall of Adam, 
 
 " whose name recalls the first parent of all." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS, 71 
 
 HRISTOPHER WALDAR- ^^"J'jJJJJJ 
 FER, or Waldorfer, was the tbe ctttic. ' 
 printer of a volume of Com- 
 mentaries on Virgil, by Servius Mau- 
 rus Honoratus, published at Venice, 
 J471, A decastich in the colophon 
 celebrates the absolute flawlessness 
 of the text, the great learning of the 
 editor and the skill of Christopher: 
 
 ^ " If any one desires books that are well 
 printed, books in which from beg:inningf to 
 end there is no blemish, let him examine 
 this: The text was corrected by thine hand. 
 Great Guarino ! and the proofs were read by 
 thy son, Baptista. These commentaries 
 never saw the light before. It cost money 
 and labor to get them : httstler Christopher 
 alone coald secure them — Christopher, of 
 the Waldarfer line, native of Ratisbon. The 
 Latin tongue approves the inventor's work" J, 
 — iribentoris opas ttngua tatina probat. 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
72 
 
 SOME EASLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 £trocs Of 
 
 tbeinetcant 
 
 Ouatino. 
 
 under the fairest possible aus- 
 pices I The next year another 
 edition was printed: proof, you will 
 perhaps say, of high public appre- 
 ciation of the critical, commentato- 
 rial and correctorial talents of Great 
 Guarino and Little Guarino ? Hardly. 
 The new edition has a different edi- 
 tor, and in it are corrected the errors 
 of the inerrant Guarino. An octastich 
 proclaims the unapproachable excel- 
 lence of the new edition, while not a 
 word is said of its faultless predecessor. 
 
 " Many a book, O Chtistopher, the gflory 
 of Ratfsbon! hast thou gfiven to the press 
 for the common good : Now thou g'tvest 
 furthermore the commentaries of the learned 
 Servius upon Virg^il's poems, thus makingf 
 accessible to all a work that used to be a 
 rarity. O youths! buy this book, it has 
 been corrected with the utmost care by 
 Ludovico Carbone, and will be of great 
 service to you." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 73 
 
 O Christopher Sisyphus, beware, 
 beware I They are fooling thee, those 
 pretended great scholars I 
 
 Etcor0 of 
 
 tbeinettant 
 
 Ouatino. 
 
 9P* <^ 
 
 [HE printer of a Virgil rated very 
 low the talents and learning 
 of the literary hacks of his 
 day. He signs himself B. H,, but 
 gives no particular of date, of place 
 of publication; but B. H. is supposed 
 to signify Benedetto Ercole, a printer 
 of Ferrara. He thus addresses the 
 reader : 
 
 " Reader, if you wish to read the works 
 of the greatest of poets, Virgfil, then read 
 them here, for here they are, redolent of the 
 grandeur of antiquity. Here you have 
 none of the polishing, furbishing, correcting, 
 emending of Roman and Venetian editors : 
 away with that laborious scrupling and 
 judging of critics: away with their pretended 
 
 Colopbon 
 to £ccole 
 of yetta* 
 ta's Virgil. 
 
74 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Colopbon corrections: here you have VirgiPs own 
 
 to £tcoleof copies that were treasured in the church of 
 
 yerrata'0 St. PauI, at Rome; here is the complete^ 
 
 IDtrgfl. true text : if you would be convinced, read. 
 
 Farewell. B. H. A. D. 1472." 
 
 N edition of Virgil, printed at 
 Venice, J 472, by Leonard 
 Achat, has in the colophon : 
 
 Xeonat^ 
 Bcbat'e 
 
 m 
 
 "I am of the city of Basel. Leonhardt 
 Achat is my name. I printed thy poems, 
 O divine VirgiL'^ 
 
 c:btee 
 
 etouts 
 
 beacted 
 
 comrade 
 
 ptintecs. 
 
 ^N the same year three partners, 
 Jacopo, Baptista and Alexan- 
 dre, printed at Fivizzano, in 
 Tuscany, the works [of Virgil. They 
 thus commend themselves to the reader 
 in a pretty pentastich : 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 75 
 
 " With nimble fingfer s and stout heart the 
 works of Virgil, a poet famed beyond the 
 skies, were imprinted by these three : Jacopo^ 
 the eldest ; Baptista, a priest, and Alexan- 
 dro, comrades living in kindly accord at 
 Fivizzano, a town worthy to be named above 
 towns." 
 
 Ubvee 
 
 atout- 
 
 beatted 
 
 comIa^e 
 
 ptlntera. 
 
 
 ^^LRICH HAHN,he of the Guar- 
 i^M ^^^^ Goose, finds himself, in 
 J 473, associated at Rome with 
 Simone de Luca, and the firm pro- 
 duces an edition of those obscene 
 short poems unjustly fathered on Vir- 
 gil. The colophon is in prose, but 
 is not less noteworthy for all that. 
 It reads: 
 
 ^' This present impression of the most re- 
 nowned poet Virgil was made in the kindly 
 city of Rome ; not with ink and a quill pen, 
 nor yet with a pen of metal, but by a cer- 
 tain device for imprinting or making letters 
 was the work done unto the praise of God." 
 
 ®I>0Cute 
 pocma 
 "unto tbe 
 
 fllOCB ot 
 006." 
 
16 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 9becute 
 
 poeme 
 
 'unto tbe 
 
 gloiie of 
 
 <5oe." 
 
 A curious fulfillment of the Apos- 
 tolic counsel, " whatsoever ye do do 
 all to the glory of God." 
 
 
 ptinttng 
 
 ' unto tbe 
 
 0lots of 
 
 Ooe." 
 
 m 
 
 OR is Ulrich Hahn the only 
 one of those ancient printers 
 who reproduce obscene poems 
 "unto the glory of God." But no 
 suspicion of impiety attaches to a 
 similar pious phrase in the colophon 
 of an edition of Virgil's complete 
 works printed at Milan. 
 
 " Happily imprinted at Milan with God's 
 help and by the industry of Germans at the 
 cost of Master Leonhardt Pachel, of Ingol- 
 stadt, and Master Ulrich Schinzenzeller, in 
 the year H78, in the reign of the most illus- 
 trious prince Giovan Galeazzo Maria Sfor- 
 za. Viscount, and the most unconquered 
 Duchess Bona, his mother. Unto the praise 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 77 
 
 of the Most High, the glory of the whole 
 heavenly court, and the benefit of mankind. 
 
 Amen." 
 
 
 f>tfnting 
 " unto tbe 
 diois of 
 
 OOO." 
 
 m 
 
 VIRGIL printed at Strassburg, 
 in 1502, is memorable chiefly 
 for having illustrations de- 
 signed by the celebrated Sebastian 
 Brandt, author of the " Ship of Fools." 
 In the colophon these wood cuts are 
 described as being "most artistic fig- 
 ures and images." At Strassburg 
 also appeared, in 1515, an edition 
 of the " Aeneid," printed by Johann 
 Knoblouch, as appears from a tetra- 
 stich written by Othmar Nachtgall — 
 appropriate surname for a poet ! But 
 Othmar was hardly even a poetaster. 
 He brings the very name, Knoblouch, 
 
 TTbe Ha 
 
 [uetrateO 
 
 Sttaesburg 
 
 Vitdil, 
 
 1502. 
 
78 
 
 SOME EARLY TRINTERS 
 
 ... .. yt into his verses — verses by courtesy. 
 llluattateJ) ^, i. j .i 
 
 Sttaaebutfl They can no more be scanned than 
 
 Wftflll, the daily stock reports : 
 
 t502. 
 
 ''John Knobloucht excelling; in his art, 
 imprinted this book from selected types; 
 also, he freed the Roman Homer from blem- 
 ishes so that now he appears in irreproach- 
 able form. No neater edition exists." 
 
 Soon after this, Knoblouch chris- 
 tened himself in Latin, Cnoblochus; 
 which is greatly to his credit. 
 
 
 Caxton's 
 
 £ng[(0b 
 
 VitfliI, 
 
 1490. 
 
 E have not yet noted any 
 colophon written in English. 
 Here is one, appended to an 
 
 English Virgil printed by Caxton in 
 
 J490: 
 
 "The Boke of Eneydos, compyled by 
 Vyrgyle." " Here fynyssheth the boke of 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 79 
 
 Eneydost compyled by Vyrgyle* whiclic hath 
 be translated oute of latyne in to frenshe 
 and oute of frenshe reduced in to engflysshe 
 by me Wyllm Caxton, the XXII daye of 
 Joyn the yere of oor lorde MiiiiLXXXX.** 
 
 And while we are in the neighbor- 
 hood we may just glance at another 
 translation of Virgil. It is entitled : 
 
 "The XII Buckes of Eneados of the fa- 
 mose poete Virgill." 
 
 Translated into Scotch metre by 
 Gavin Douglas, bishop of Durkeld; 
 its date is J 553, printed in London. 
 
 Caiton'6 
 £ngU0b 
 Vitgil, 
 
 1490. 
 
 MN the year 1524 was published 
 at Rome a work entitled ''Dis- 
 sertations upon Ausonius, Ovid 
 and Solinus,"by Mariangelo Accursio. 
 This scholar being accused of plagiar- 
 
 Colopbontc 
 oatb of 
 Aariangelo 
 Bccutsio. 
 
30 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Colopbontc 
 
 oatb of 
 
 Aariangelo 
 
 Bccutsto. 
 
 ism, makes an impassioned protesta- 
 tion, which, though it lies a little outside 
 of the field which we are exploring, 
 nevertheless shall have a place here 
 as a literary curiosity. The accusa- 
 tion was that this author has "con- 
 veyed," as the wise call it, the labors of 
 another scholar, Fabrizio Varani; the 
 defense is made in the form of an 
 oath, a pagan oath, in these terms: 
 
 " Let Gods and Men and Rig;ht and Truth 
 give ear. Under the religious sanctions of 
 the Oath and of whatever is higher, if 
 higher there be than the Oath, I do aff^, 
 and this I solemnly and sincerely wish to he 
 received as true : That never have I read, 
 nor so much as seen any writing that could 
 give one title of suggestion of help to me in 
 writing those lucubrations. And if I am 
 perjuring me, then let the Supreme Pontiff 
 see to it, and may the lucubrations be, at the 
 Devil {malas genius diatribis coniingat)', 
 so that if aught in them be good or even 
 tolerable, the same shall be esteemed of by 
 the unschooled vulgar as the worst possible 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 8t 
 
 and by the learned as worthless ; and if any 
 reputation is left to me, that it shall he 
 wafted hy the winds and made nousfht." 
 
 
 ^HEifc/f^fo Princeps of Lucretius 
 appears without date, place of 
 printing, numeration of pages 
 
 or of signatures, without catchwords ; 
 
 but the printer signs his name in the 
 
 colophon : 
 
 " Thoma Fer ando.'^ 
 
 Now, Ferando practiced his art at 
 Brescia, and his Lucretius would seem 
 to have been printed there in 1473. 
 
 In the colophon he is not at all 
 boastful of the correctness of his text. 
 After diligent search he was unable to 
 procure more than one copy of " this 
 exceedingly rare work." It was a 
 
 BOitto 
 princepd 
 of Xucte» 
 tlua, 1473. 
 
S2 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 EOftfo faulty one, but he made such correc- 
 ot lucres ^ioJ^s as he best could and put it in 
 tius, 1473. type. He says in the colophon: 
 
 ''The reader sorely will rather possess this 
 copy, faulty though it be, than no copy at 
 all : Should other copies chance to be found 
 he can by comparison with them correct the 
 errors of this." 
 
 Stsspbean 
 
 gtrfvinfl for 
 
 cotcect 
 
 text. 
 
 HE Sisyphean striving after irre- 
 proachable correctness of text 
 goes on forever. Here is Hein- 
 rich Qucntell, of Cologne, who in the 
 colophon of his Virgil, printed in 
 J 506, says that 
 
 *' the text has been freed from many slig'ht 
 blemishes " 
 
 found in his previous edition: these 
 were due to the 
 
 " inadvertence of the compositors;" 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 83 
 
 but in this revised edition the work of 
 correcting was done by 
 
 " a certain scholar who was by much impor- 
 tonity prevailed upon to undertake the 
 task.'' 
 
 Ste^pbean 
 striving tot 
 cortect 
 text. 
 
 
 UDWIG HOHENWANG, 
 native of Elchingen (as he in- 
 forms us in the colophon of 
 his Virgil, though he does not give 
 its date nor its place of printing), 
 seems to have concluded that in the 
 matter of the true Virgilian text 
 finality had been reached; so he 
 sets about ornamenting his edition 
 with a wood-cut portrait of the poet 
 and orders his colophonic versifier to 
 make honorable mention of it, which 
 the man does very neatly in the distich : 
 
 ■fcobens 
 wang's 
 colopbonic 
 veteitiet. 
 
84 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 'Doben* " Subduxit morti vivax pidara Muronzm, 
 wang'e Et quern Parca tuiii reddtt imago vevum." 
 
 COlopbontc (By lifelike portraiture Virgil is snatched 
 vetetfiei. from death and given back to us as he was 
 when rapt by Fate away.) 
 
 Neat verses they are indeed; but 
 the colophonist, in his use of tutii 
 takes a liberty with Latin that Virgil 
 would hardly approve ; also he has a 
 false quantity in vivam. 
 
 Dieticb 
 an edition 
 
 of £UtTOs 
 
 pius. 
 
 to f^l^^UUST as happy is the distich 
 on ^(^ of another printer's poet, ap- 
 pended to an edition of the 
 
 historian Eutropius : 
 
 " Hadenas Euiroptt titutum nomenqae, sed 
 ipsam 
 Nunc demum, ledor, conspids Etttro- 
 
 pium" 
 (Hitherto, O reader, you have had 
 Eutropius' name and title, now at last you 
 have Eutropius himself.) 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 85 
 
 3HE reader will have noticed 
 here and there in the colophons 
 frequent pious ejaculations and 
 precatory formulas : in fact, for the 
 first fifty or sixty years of the history of 
 printing, such prayers, or perhaps we 
 should rather call them ominations, 
 were of rule rather than exceptional. 
 The printers were the immediate suc- 
 cessors of the monkish copyists, and 
 it was customary with those humble 
 transcribers, when their stint of work 
 on a book was finished, to give thanks 
 and praise to God and his saints, and 
 to entreat the prayers and ** suffrages" 
 — as the term was in those times 
 understood — of whoever should read 
 the books, on behalf of the souls of the 
 transcribers. The request was made 
 at the end, in the colophon. Naturally 
 the printers, using as ''copy" the 
 work of the monks* hands, followed 
 
 pcintete' 
 colopbonic 
 prccatotB 
 formulas. 
 
86 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 foiiowinfl the custom established by the monks j 
 
 ^''monWab ^^^* ^^^ *^^*^ predecessors, they re- 
 copsiets. garded their labor and their art as 
 something sacred, holy, non-secular, 
 and looked on themselves as a sort of 
 ** clergy," as well indeed they might, 
 if they esteemed aright their calling. 
 
 ttbe 5uum» ^^SELL did the Cardinal de Cusa, 
 f taUan (^^ffli * ^^^vout, learned and enlight- 
 ptinting. ened churchman, and an al- 
 
 umnus of the school of Deventer, call 
 printing a " sacred art :" he was instru- 
 mental in procuring for the duumviri 
 of printing in Italy a local habitation 
 at Subiaco. Peter Schoeffer, in the 
 colophon of his edition of the Justinian 
 ** Institutes of Law," in the year 1468, 
 declares that the inventors of printing 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 87 
 
 were given to the world by the divine ^"^ ^uum= 
 Head of the Church himself: ZL 
 
 " Hos dediieximios scatpendiin arte magis- P^tnting. 
 trosr 
 
 (He gfavc those great masters of the art of 
 printing;.) 
 
 
 SURVIVING memorial of ?.f^^^^^ 
 this old-time view of the sa- ajt." 
 
 credness of the art is seen in 
 the term " chapel/' as used by printers, 
 viz.: first, to designate the typographical 
 workshop, the printery ; and then the 
 assembly or lodge of the journeymen 
 employed in a printery. Another ves- 
 tige of monachism is the official desig- 
 nation of the head of such a chapel, 
 viz.: ''father;" but perhaps this desig- 
 nation is now obsolete. The "devil" 
 of the printing-office may be a survival 
 of the slang of the medieval scripto- 
 rium, or copying-room in a monastery. 
 
88 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 an ambifl» g^OUCHING is the simplicity of 
 
 pbon. H^^ the honest soul who some time 
 
 before the era of printed books 
 
 wrote this at the end of a volume 
 
 containing Sallust's ''Histories/' and 
 
 Cicero's "Old Age:" 
 
 "Qais scripsH hunc tibram sua anima. in 
 paradiso." 
 
 (He that wrote this book, his soul is in 
 paradise.) 
 
 His grammar is shockingly bad, but 
 to his sentiment we may say amen. 
 
 Did he mean the soul of the pagan 
 author, or the soul of the copyist? 
 
 Who is there that will not approve 
 heartily the sentiment of "Leofric, 
 bishop of the church of St. Peter, at 
 Exeter," who " gives for the behoof 
 of his successors " a copy of Sallust, 
 adding this anathema : 
 
 "If any one shall take it away hence 
 let him be under a curse.' ** 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 89 
 
 HE good bishop made that 
 entry first in Latin, then in 
 Saxon. In Saxon the curse 
 could not miss being understood; even 
 the Maid of Orleans, though probably 
 she knew not five words of our lan- 
 guage, understood enough of it to 
 fashion a name of her own to desig- 
 nate Englishmen — ** godams " she 
 called them always, even amid the 
 dread solemnities of her trial and at 
 the a.ttto de fe. 
 
 And here is the colophon of a book 
 written in English at the time of 
 Chaucer : 
 
 ** Here cndeth the book of Revelations of 
 Juliana, the Norwich anachorete, to whose 
 sool may God be merciful.'* 
 
 JSisbop 
 Xeoftfc'0 
 double 
 cutse. 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
90 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 Cbtistian 
 an^ pagan 
 asccfptions 
 
 of ptatee. 
 
 ^^^HUS in nearly every MS. that 
 came into the hands of the 
 early printers were found such 
 prayers or pious ejaculations ; and the 
 printers for a time continued the lauda- 
 ble custom. Here are some of the 
 formulas used by them. This one we 
 have already noticed: 
 
 ** Imprinted to the praise of the Almighty 
 God and to the glory of the whole court of 
 heaven, and the good of mankind. Amen ! " 
 
 The piety and the orthodoxy of 
 that ascription of praise are unex- 
 ceptionable. 
 
 But what shall we say to such as 
 these : 
 
 ** May the Gods bless ot»r labors." 
 
 "May the Gods prosper the undertaking." 
 
 We shall see other heathenish 
 formulas employed. Very usual is 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 9t 
 
 the ejaculation, " Thanks be to God, 
 Amen;" "To God be praise;" "God 
 Almighty be praised;" "To Christ 
 alone be praise;" "Thanks to the 
 Most High God;" "With God's help 
 happily completed ;" "The end, praise 
 be to God," At the end of a copy of 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses, with its fables, 
 never very edifying, of gods and god- 
 desses, we find : 
 
 " In honor of God and the glorious Virgin 
 Mary." 
 
 Cbristian 
 and bea» 
 tbenisb 
 foimulas. 
 
 ^^^F an individual saint of rank in 
 ^Mj the celestial hierarchy inferior 
 to that of the Virgin is named, 
 it is always, so far as the present re- 
 search goes, St. Anthony, presumably 
 not the founder of monasticism, but St. 
 
 St. an« 
 tbons of 
 padua 
 patron of 
 printers. 
 
92 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 St. 2ln» Anthony of Padua, the worthy disciple 
 
 tbons of Qf g^ Francis of Assisi, and a popular 
 
 paOua , , T f TT . . f < f « 
 patron ot saint m Italy, rie is invoked only by 
 
 printers. Italian printers. The usual formula is: 
 " Guard as, blessed Father Anthony." 
 
 B case of 
 
 sood (3o&, 
 
 fl005 Devil. 
 
 f ^^^HERE is in the colophon of a 
 • ^^M Virgil a trace of the worship 
 
 Stars : 
 
 of the Heavenly Hosts of the 
 
 ''Imprinted under a lucky star." 
 
 But the printer compensates his 
 Sabianism with an even superlatively 
 Christian date-formula, viz.: 
 
 ** On the eve of Peter and Paul, apostles, in 
 the year I5I6, from the most Christian 
 birthday " — natali christianissimo. 
 
 But then he throws somewhat into 
 the opposite scale by styling Virgil's 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 93 
 
 poems "divine," Verily it is with 
 this printer a case of good God, good 
 Devil. In view of this apposition of 
 incongruous things, one is led to 
 suspect that our medieval forefathers 
 had no sense of humor. 
 
 a case of 
 good 0O&, 
 flooo Devil. 
 
 
 YPICAL of their obtusity in 
 that regard is a volume printed 
 in 1503, which contains those 
 bawdy pseudo-Virgilian little poems 
 and one more poem of a like kind, 
 "Bacchus and Venus," along with 
 "Brother Baptista of Mantua's Votive 
 Poem to the Blessed Virgin Mary." 
 Such conjunctions of irreconcilables 
 are so frequent both in these colophons 
 and in the architecture and painting of 
 the Middle Ages as to be almost a 
 ** note " of that period. 
 
 Conjunct 
 tions ot 
 itreconciU 
 ablee. 
 
94 
 
 SOME EARLY -PRINTERS 
 
 Some 
 
 cutlous 
 
 modee ol 
 
 dating. 
 
 :ONDERFUL and fearful are 
 the modes of dating employed 
 by these ancient printers, as 
 a few examples will serve to show. 
 Paul Friedberger, native of Passau, 
 domiciled at Verona, thus succinctly 
 notes the date of publishing an edition 
 of Lucretius: 
 
 "The J 486th year from the incarnation 
 of Christ, the 28th day of September, the 
 kalends of October." 
 
 An impossible month-date, by the 
 way, for September 28th is not the 
 October kalends, but four days before 
 the kalends, as the Latins used to 
 count, but three as we reckon. 
 
 ^ Jt 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 95 
 
 
 BOOK in German, printed at Aote 
 Augsburg, in 1482, has the ^"J^//^^ 
 date in this form: Dattna. 
 
 " The year of our Lord CD in the LXXXII 
 year, Wednesday before the conversion of 
 St. Paal," 
 
 i, e., June 25th, A,D. 482. A rather 
 early date for a printed book. 
 Another printer gives this date: 
 
 "Year 1584 after Christ's birth, Wednes- 
 day after St. Gertrude's day." 
 
 It was a roundabout way of writ- 
 ing November J 8. 
 
 Instead of Anno Domini or A.D. 
 we have such formulas as "year 
 of grace," "year so-and-so of the 
 Reconciled Nativity," and other un- 
 couth date styles. 
 
96 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 jftencb 
 fotmula. 
 
 URIOUS, indeed, is this date 
 in French: 
 
 *'L'an de grace M. quatre cents iiii.xx.et itii" 
 
 literally, year of grace one thousand 
 four hundred fourscore and four. 
 
 The French language has no other 
 word for 80 than quatre-Jmgt — four 
 twenties or fourscore. 
 
 precise 
 
 tbeo(O0i0 
 
 cal datinfl. 
 
 pRE is a day-date showing very 
 accurate knowledge of the dog- 
 ma of the divine incarnation : 
 
 "Day before the annunciation and the 
 Lord's incarnation." 
 
 Less precise, theologically, are these : 
 
 ** Day before the birth of the Lord ; " 
 ''Wednesday after the day of Mary, 
 
 Mother of God, in the year of our Saviour 
 
 so-and-so ; " 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 97 
 
 "Day next after the day of Vitalis the 
 martyt } " 
 
 " Year — after the birth of oar dear Lord ; ^ 
 "Year — from the incarnation of Jesus 
 Clirist our Saviour." 
 
 tTbcolOflfa 
 cal dating. 
 
 dating. 
 
 But the foregoing instances are ex- long band 
 amples of shorthand dating, as it were ; mooes of 
 here are formulas in longhand : 
 
 "Year — from the incarnation or nativity 
 (unorthodox theology) 1496;" 
 
 " The next day after the epiphany of the 
 Lord, which is the seventh day of the month 
 of January." 
 
 In justice to this **datist" it must 
 be said that the " which " of the last 
 clause relates to "next day/' and not 
 to "epiphany." The ambiguity does 
 not exist in the Latin. 
 
 fffi «^ 
 
98 SOME EARLY •PRINTERS 
 
 fngcnioue ^j^T would not be easy in our 
 
 * "^ ^Mj *^"^^ *° ^^'^^ anywhere a per- 
 son, however familiar with the 
 church calendar, who could offhand 
 tell on what day of what month falls 
 "Eric's day after St. Egidius' day," 
 
 which is the day-date of a book printed 
 in the year J 5 A. D. The year number 
 is important if true ; but there is reason 
 to believe that the true date is J 515. 
 With the help of a perpetual calendar 
 one ascertains that 
 
 "Monday after St. Valentine, year 1489, 
 after the birth of Christ," 
 
 was February 16, for in that year 
 
 February 14 was Saturday. 
 
 We find such a style as this: 
 
 "The J5I5th year of the sending of the 
 Divine Word into flesh," 
 
 and we admire the ingenuity of the 
 mind that invented it. 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 99 
 
 W^^HE consummate genius among <auenteil 
 ^^ all devisers of soundly ortho- jjatefotmg. 
 
 dox and catholic date forms 
 is unquestionably Heinrich Quentell, 
 printer, of Cologne. Here are two 
 specimens of his finest work : 
 
 "Year of the virginal childfaearingf next 
 before the centenary jubilee,'* /. e., 1499. 
 
 ** Festival of him who forbade marriage to 
 persons vowed to God, year of the virginal 
 childbearing next preceding the centenary 
 jubilee." 
 
 The answer to the puzzle would 
 seem to be " May 25, J499." This 
 printer died, if we may venture to 
 imitate his style of dating, "in the 
 year next after the centenary jubilee 
 of the virginal childbearing," but on 
 what festival, or eve, or octave of 
 what festival, history has not recorded, 
 though it was fitting that the day 
 should be the festival held everywhere 
 
too 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 fm|K)00(l>le 
 dates ate 
 fceauent. 
 
 (auentcii on April \. After his death his print- 
 
 a genius In ery was known as that of ** H. Quen- 
 Oatetotms. . ff r . t» 
 
 tell 01 pious memory. 
 
 HE curiosities of dating are not 
 yet exhausted. The peculiar 
 Roman division of months by 
 kalends, nones and ides made a great 
 deal of trouble for the old-time printers, 
 as we have already seen in the case 
 of Paul Friedberger, when he made 
 September 28 and October J the same 
 day. Impossible dates are exceedingly 
 frequent. Examples: 
 
 " 20th, before the ides of June ; " 
 
 but the highest possible number of 
 any day before the ides of June is 8th. 
 Similarly we find 
 
 " t& ides of July," 
 
 which is equally impossible. More 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 tot 
 
 curious and interesting is the mixing f mpoastble 
 
 of Roman, Grecian and Christian ^at^s ^"^^ 
 
 chronological styles, e.g.: ttcquent. 
 
 r 
 
 " 1472 7th ides December 2d year of the 
 295th Olympiad from Christ's birth." 
 
 MNST ANCES of blunders of no- 
 tation, like that from PauIFried- 
 berger, might be cited by the 
 dozen ; two or three will suffice here : 
 ^'MCCCCV," to express MXDV, or 
 J495; "MLXXXXVI" (1096) to 
 express MXDVI, or 1496. And 
 they sometimes made a similar error 
 -when they wrote the number out as 
 ordinals, e.g. : **Anno mitlesimo {gain- 
 gentesimo) undecimo'* (1011), the 
 word in parenthesis (500) being 
 omitted; similar is ** Mitlesimo deci- 
 motertio*' (1013), the word for 500 
 being again omitted. 
 
 3Biundet0 
 ot notation 
 tn dates. 
 
t02 
 
 SOME EARLY •PRINTERS. 
 
 Tlame of 
 
 a pope or 
 
 prince U0ed 
 
 in Dating. 
 
 ^^^O the year number the name of 
 ^^^ a pope or of a secular prince is 
 very often added, as — 
 
 " I5t3 Leo X, supreme pontiff , governing' 
 the Christian Commonwealth j " 
 
 "Year of Salvation J490, Innocent VIII 
 being supreme pontiff, his sixth year." 
 
 w 
 
E have reserved 
 as our last, and 
 to an English 
 reader the most 
 interesting of all 
 colophons, that 
 to Caxton's The 
 Recayelt of the 
 Histotyes of Troye, which, as we 
 have already stated, was the first 
 book printed in English. Of this book 
 Caxton was not only the printer, 
 but translator from the French. He 
 is not content to end with a long colo- 
 phon in English prose and Latin verse, 
 but must divide his longwindedness 
 between it and the prologue. Then, 
 to be sure that he has given the reader 
 the worth of his money and omitted 
 nothing, he prefaces the prologue with 
 an introduction or title-page. Verily 
 
 Coiopbon 
 to titst 
 boot; 
 
 ptinteb tn 
 Englisb. 
 
 Mas al0o 
 titlespagc 
 and 
 ptolofiue. 
 
t04 
 
 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 ample ot 
 titlespage. 
 
 this was before the preaching of ** the 
 strenuous life *' and the doctrine that 
 ** time is money," 
 
 HIS introduction (or title-page) 
 and prologue are interesting 
 not only for their subject- 
 matter^ but as marking the conception 
 of a title-page and preface. 
 
 Of course, in the earliest of printed 
 books there was no title-page, its 
 place being supplied, as we have seen, 
 by the colophon. Later, when the 
 title-page and preface were firmly 
 established, the mission of the colo- 
 phon ceased, and it passed into des- 
 uetude. 
 
 jn J^ 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. t05 
 
 ^AXTON had so much to say caxton'a 
 in this first printed English title»page. 
 book that he required title- 
 page, preface, and colophon to tell 
 his tale. 
 
 In the introduction or title-page he 
 says that the book was 
 
 ** translated and drawen out of Frensshe in 
 to Englisshe by Willyam Caxton, mercer, of 
 the cyte of London, at the comaundement 
 of the ryghtc hye, myghtye, & vertaoase 
 pryncesse, hys redoubtyd lady, Margarete, 
 by the grace of God Duchesse of Bottrgoyne, 
 of Lotryk, of Braband, etc. Whiche sayd 
 translacion and werke was begonne in 
 Bragis, in the Countee of Flaundres, the 
 fyrst day of Marche, the yere of the Incarna- 
 cion of our sayde Lord God a thousand 
 f oure honderd sixty & eyghte, and ended and 
 fynysshyd in the holy cyte of Colen the six 
 day of Septembre, the yere of our sayd Lord 
 God a thousand foure honderd sixty and 
 enleuen.'^ 
 
i06 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Caiton'e 
 PTOlodue. 
 
 'ASSING to the prologue, he 
 says: 
 
 " Whan I remembre that eucry man is 
 bounden by the comandement & counceyl 
 of the wise man to eschewe sloathe & 
 y dienes, whyche is moder and nottrysshar of 
 vyces, and ougfhte to put my self vnto ver- 
 tuous ocupacion &besinesse, than I, hauynge 
 no gtcte, charg;e of ocupacion, folowyngfe 
 the sayde counceyll, toke a Frenche booke 
 & redde therin many strangle and meruayl- 
 lous historyes, where in I had gfrete pleasyr 
 and delyte, as well for the nouelte of the 
 same as for the fayi Iang:age of Frenshe, 
 which was in prose so well & compendiously 
 sette & wreton, whiche me thought I vnder- 
 stood the sentence and substance of euery 
 mater." 
 
 •5^ •?■ 
 
 JSegins tbe 
 woth. 
 
 O he begins the work, and 
 with courage of a doughty 
 knight 
 
 " toke penne and ynke and began boldly to 
 reime forth as blynde Bayard in thys pre- 
 sente werke . . ." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 107 
 
 Then remembering his 
 
 "symplencs and vnperfightnes" 
 both in French and English^ he 
 
 " fyll in dispayr of thys werfce, and purposid 
 no more to haue contynuyd therein . . ." 
 
 and laid aside the work, 
 
 ''Tyll on a tyme hit fortuned that the 
 ryght hyghe, excellent, and right vcrtuoos 
 prynces, my ryght redooghted lady, my- 
 lady Margarete, by the grace of God, soster 
 vntothekynge of Englond and of France, my 
 sooerayn lor^ Duchesse of Bourgoinc ..." 
 
 ■flaOlscouts 
 aged and in 
 despair. 
 
 |T the command of this lady 
 Margaret, whose many titles 
 Caxton recites with the gusto 
 of the modem Englishman, who so 
 dearly loves a lord, he finished the 
 translation, and three years later it 
 was printed in Bruges, in 1474. 
 
 ffinallfi 
 finisbes 
 tbe worft. 
 
m 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 Caxton as 
 an autbot. 
 
 W.b'z be 
 
 learned 
 
 ptinting. 
 
 the colophon Caxton says : 
 
 " Thus cndc I this book, whyche I have 
 translated after myn auctor as nyg;he as God 
 hath gyuen me connynge, to whome be 
 ^oen the laude and preysing;." 
 
 The father of English printing tells 
 ■us with touching simplicity that, be- 
 cause his pen is worn, and his eyes 
 dimmed with long looking on white 
 paper, and because he had promised 
 to give his friends copies of the book 
 at the earliest possible moment, there- 
 fore 
 
 ** I haoe practysed and lemed at my grete 
 charge and dispense to ordeyne this said 
 book in prynte after the maner and forme 
 as ye may here see, & is not wreton with 
 penne and ynke as other bookes ben, to 
 thende that euery man may haue them 
 attones. For all the bookes of this storye 
 named the Recule of the Historyes of 
 Troye, thus enprynted as ye here see, were 
 begonne in oon day, and also fynysshid in 
 oon day." 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 109 
 
 ^^pHEN he prays all who read fnapiteo 
 Im this simple and rude book, in- ^« "'? '' '«" 
 
 eluding his redoubted lady, laOg." 
 to whom he has offered it, and 
 who has largely rewarded him, that 
 they may not disdain it. This "re- 
 doubted lady" was, as we have seen. 
 Princess Margaret of England, the 
 sister of King Edward IV. As the 
 wife of the new Duke of Burgundy, 
 Charles the Bold, she took great in- 
 terest in her fellow-countryman Cax- 
 ton, who, as governor of the English 
 nation, as they called the English 
 mercantile colony in Bruges, was the 
 leading Englishman in the entire 
 duchy of Burgundy. 
 
 fl^W Qp~ 
 
ito 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 " Zo point 
 a motal 
 
 and aOoin 
 a tale." 
 
 UT revenons a. nos moutons — 
 the colophon to the first book 
 printed in English. Caxton 
 continues that^ though Dictes and 
 Homerus incline to the side of the 
 Greeks and "Dares wryteth other- 
 wyse/' yet all agree as to the de- 
 struction of the 
 
 "noble qrte of Troy, and the deth of so 
 mony prynces, as kyng:es, dukes, eries, 
 barons, kynghtes & comyn peple.'' 
 
 These "comyn peple," though 
 counting doubtless ninety-nine per 
 cent, of the combatants and of the 
 slain, one may infer were of secondary 
 importance to Caxton, a thousand of 
 them not being worth one ** kynghte." 
 
 With all the earnestness of a mem- 
 ber of the "Peace Society** he reflects 
 upon the dreadful example and warn- 
 ing of this destructive war, and piously 
 concludes : 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 ttt 
 
 "Therefore, thapostle saith All that is 
 wreton is wreton to oor doctryne, whyche 
 doctryne for the comyn wele I besech God 
 maye betaken in suche place and tyme as 
 shall be moste nedef ul, in encrecyngf of peas, 
 loue, and charyte, whyche graunte us he 
 that suffryd for the same to be crycyfied on 
 the rood tree, and say we alle Amen for 
 charyte." 
 
 "Zo point 
 a motal 
 and adotn 
 a talc." 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 Ij^^F goodman Master Caxton had 
 ^^ been satisfied to end with this 
 preachment, we should have 
 felt that he needed no apology. 
 
 But look at this final flourish in 
 fourteen lines of rhymed doggerel 
 Latin with which he closes the colo- 
 phon to the first English printed 
 book: 
 
 Pergama fiere "volo, fata 'Danais data solo 
 Solo capta dolo, capta redacta solo 
 Causa malt talis, meretrix fait exidalts 
 Femina letalis, femina plena malts 
 
 Ibis doge 
 
 getel 
 
 Xatin. 
 
112 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Mis DoQ" Si fueris tota, si vita sequens bona tota 
 detel Xatin. Si eris ignota, non eris absque nota 
 
 Passa pritts paridem, peridis modo thesia pridem 
 Es fadara fidem, ne redeas in idem 
 Rumor de veteri, faciei "bentura timeri 
 Cras poiemni fieri, ixirpia sicut fieri 
 Scena quid euadis, modi qui cetera tradis 
 Cur tu non ctadis, concia ctade cadis 
 Femina digna mori, reamatur amore priori 
 Reddita vidori, deliciis que thorL 
 
 * ^ 
 
 a 
 
 OW, is not that very bad? — 
 this beggarly play upon the 
 word solo, in its three senses 
 — solo solare, to solace ; solo, alone ; 
 and solo, evil. Peridis and thesia are 
 not Latin at all. Such trifles of bad 
 grammar as qui for quae, of qui for 
 que, and of ne for ni, pale into insignifi- 
 cance compared with the puerility of the 
 expressions as to Helen, femina. letalis. 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 tt3 
 
 ''woman full of mischief" who es- 
 capes all harm, and reamatur amore 
 priori, "loved again with the old love." 
 Reddita Udori, deliciis que thori, is 
 ''given back to the conqueror and 
 the delights of the marriage-bed." 
 
 mis doge 
 detel Xatin. 
 
 «^ «?* 
 
 ?E should like to believe that 
 this rubbish was the pro- 
 duct of Master Caxton's of- 
 fice poet; but in default of evidence 
 to the contrary must leave the onus 
 on Caxton himself, remembering that 
 he was not content simply to print, 
 but that the majority of the works 
 issuing from his press (including the 
 one to which this colophon is added) 
 were his translations, and that in his 
 
 Caxton 
 bimself tbe 
 guilts one. 
 
tt4 
 
 SOME EARLY <PRINTERS 
 
 Caxton 
 bimself tbe 
 sutlts one. 
 
 edition of "The Golden Legend," in 
 the life of S. Roche, he says: 
 
 "Which lyff is translated oute of latyn 
 into eng^lysshe by me Wyllyam Caxton.'' 
 
 Yet was he a worthy man, and, in 
 spite of his sKght Latinity, with him 
 
 " saye wc aUe Amen for charyte." 
 
 And well we may, for he was not 
 given to boasting. In the colophon 
 of " Tully on Old Age " he says: 
 
 " Emprynted by me, sympte person, Will- 
 iam Caxton." 
 
 Bnotbet 
 
 mo&est 
 
 man. 
 
 HE modesty of this "symple 
 
 ^^M person" is in refreshing con- 
 
 trast with the flowers which 
 most of the German printers present 
 to themselves. 
 
AUD THEIR COLOPHONS, tl5 
 
 ;E have seen how the thurifica- *'l"ir"^,.„ 
 , f 111 '^^ plain 
 
 tion or one printer is the bad people." 
 
 example to another; so this 
 
 publisher's modesty is perhaps the in- 
 
 spirer of John Lydgate, who, in the 
 
 same year (I48J)» issues from Cax- 
 
 ton's press his Cura Sapientiae, or 
 
 " Court of Sapience," and in his bow 
 
 to the public says : 
 
 " I am a monk by my profession, 
 
 Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name. 
 
 And wear a habit of perfection, 
 
 Althougfh my life agfree not with the same." 
 
 The Cura Sapientiae has for us a 
 more serious interest, as the poem 
 was written only about twenty years 
 before the printing of the book, and 
 shows Caxton's willingness to ven- 
 ture on printing literature both con- 
 temporaneous and in the vernacular, 
 whereas other early printers, almost 
 without exception, printed in Latin 
 
It6 
 
 SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 printing or Greek, their works in general 
 tot "pisiiri being the early classics, or else 
 people." theological tomes. 
 
 Aotte 
 
 5'artbur 
 
 an5"copfi* 
 
 tiflbt" 
 
 queetion. 
 
 HE Morte d' Arthur is another 
 ^ book that was fairly contem- 
 porary, as Malory states that 
 he finished it in 1470 and Caxton 
 published it in 1485. A propos of 
 the subject of the beginnings of rights 
 to literary property, it would be inter- 
 esting to know whether Malory was 
 alive at the date of publication, and 
 whether Caxton paid him anything 
 for "copyright." 
 
 Of the book Caxton has this to 
 say: 
 
 "In these playsaunt historyes may be 
 seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte, 
 frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshipf 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 117 
 
 cowardysc, mordre, hate, vertue and synne. Oaxton tbe 
 Doo after the gfood and leve the cvyl and it Pt^acber. 
 shal bryngfe you to good fame and renom- 
 
 mee. 
 
 As good advice to-day as when it 
 was written. 
 
 This giving of good advice, this 
 telling the reader why he had printed 
 a book, and the benefit which would 
 accrue to the reader in its perusal, was 
 a weakness of Caxton's. Here, for 
 instance, is the " apologie " with which 
 he prefaces his translation of Blan- 
 chardin and Eglantine. Its interest lies 
 in that, so far as we know, it is the 
 first printed defense of novel-reading* 
 
 "A book joyful to be read by all virtuouse 
 youngf noble gfentlemen and women, as for 
 their pastime. For under correction, in my 
 judg:ment, histories of noble feats and vali- 
 ant acts of arms and war, which have been 
 achieved in old time of many noble princes, 
 lords, and knigfhts, are as well for to see and 
 know their valiantness for to stand in the 
 
 Caxton's 
 oetenee of 
 novels 
 teaOind. 
 
118 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Caxton'0 special g;race and love of their ladies, and in 
 
 Defense of like wise for gfentle young; ladies, and demoi- 
 
 novel* selles for to learn to be stedfast and constant 
 
 reading, in their part to them that they once have 
 
 promised and agfreed to, such as they have 
 
 put their lives oft in jeopardy for to please 
 
 them to stand in grace, as it is to occupy 
 
 the ken and study overmuch in books of 
 
 contemplation." 
 
 ^ Ji 
 
 peace to 
 bi0 asbes. 
 
 ^EACE to the ashes of the first 
 English printer! — sturdy, al- 
 ways prepared to defend his 
 position, and to give a reason for 
 the faith that was in him. Unlike 
 most of his brethren on the other 
 side of the Channel, he seems to 
 have been a good business man, pay- 
 ing his way as he went, and ask- 
 ing no favor from patron or lord. 
 He died in 1 49 1, working until a few 
 hours of his death on his translation 
 of the Vitae Patrum. 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. tl9 
 
 For our final colophon we can do ^^ ?"*' 
 no better than give that affixed to 
 this volume. It was written by Wyn- 
 ken de Worde, Caxton's assistant and 
 successor : 
 
 "Thus endyth the moost vertuous hys- 
 torye of the dewoute and rigfht renowned 
 lyves of holy faders lyvynge in deserte, 
 worthy of remembraunce to allwel dysposed 
 persones which hathe be translated oute of 
 Frenche into Engflisshe by William Caxton 
 of Westmynstre late ded, and fynysshed at 
 the laste daye of hys lyff ," 
 
|E are nearing 
 the end of this 
 stroll among the 
 book treasures 
 of the time of 
 Europe's awak- 
 ing from her 
 millennial sleep. 
 Truth to tell, it has been in a way 
 somewhat like a stroll through an old 
 graveyard : there, on the more preten- 
 tious tombs, we read ascriptions of all 
 the virtues, natural and supernatural, 
 to the fathers and mothers, husbands 
 and wives, sisters and brothers, that lie 
 there. The monuments of the old- 
 time printers are the books they pro- 
 duced, and noble monuments they 
 are; but the epigraphy of many of 
 them is Gothic, not to say Gargantuan. 
 
 3Soolt0 ate 
 tbe monu« 
 ments ot 
 olOstime 
 pcintets. 
 
 asut tbe 
 epigtapbs 
 is (Sotbic. 
 
122 
 
 SOME EARLY "PRINTERS 
 
 Eacfiing 
 
 confidence 
 
 in tbem« 
 
 ^ IF those early printers had 
 had the sublime confidence 
 in themselves and in the 
 greatness of their works which the 
 great painters and sculptors of an- 
 tiquity had — and the modern artists, 
 too — and simply subscribed their pro- 
 ductions with a "Fust printed this," 
 or " Udalricus Gallus fecit," after the 
 style of " Zeuxis painted," or " Phci- 
 dias, sculptor," they would have as- 
 sured immortality to their names ; but 
 then they would not have afforded to 
 irreverent posterity so much amuse- 
 ment by their nat^ vainglory. 
 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 123 
 
 jE only smile, however; we 
 do not scoff. Those good 
 and faithful artisans, them- 
 selves living in intellectual dark- 
 ness, in poverty, hardship, and all 
 sorts of discouragements, labored 
 day and night, as never men be- 
 fore, except the very elite of men, 
 to spread the light of civilization. 
 Poor fellows! their honest pride in 
 their noble art sticks out in every one 
 of their colophons. Well might they 
 all, as some of them did, regard them- 
 selves as ** of clergy ; " yet one does 
 not anywhere read of the sacred order 
 of Typographi being erected into a 
 Fourth Estate. 
 
 Often 
 idnotant, 
 usuallB 
 poor, BCt 
 immottal. 
 
 ^ .St 
 
124 SOME EARLY PRINTERS 
 
 ^"^ "" ^iiUT the whirligig of Timebrings 
 tbe wbitU« ^^M revenges : the spiritual pos- 
 flifl of time. terity of those ancient printers 
 
 to-day are more powerful than king 
 or church or parliament. It is not so 
 very long since the printery was as 
 dingy and obscure a place as the cob- 
 bler's or the tinker's shop, though 
 from it went forth currents of a force 
 that was transforming government, 
 science, creeds, everything human. 
 Without the printing press, Luther 
 would have left no impress on the 
 world's history. Well might those 
 old printers be proud, for they 
 had some dim consciousness of the 
 greatness of their art ; they were as 
 proud as Diogenes and as poor as he 
 in worldly goods. 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 125 
 
 HE art having been invented Satis 
 
 in Germany and its secret Pf'"t«'^« 
 
 vocxc 
 guarded for a while, most of ©erman 
 
 the artisans were in the early years Prtntcts. 
 
 of typography Germans. These 
 
 German printers, wherever they 
 
 exercise their art, do themselves 
 
 honor in the honor they never fail 
 
 to render to their fatherland and 
 
 to their native cities. Their names 
 
 are uncouth to the Italians, the 
 
 French, the Spaniards, but as Schwein- 
 
 heim and Pannartz tell their Italian 
 
 patrons, their art will conciliate favor 
 
 even for such outlandish names. 
 
 Jt- Ji 
 
m SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 . ?^i^ ^^OMETIMES they latinize 
 loved tbe B^^A , , ' , 
 
 j|fatbetian&. (]^^^ their surnames, e,g„ change 
 
 Lichtenstein into an equiv- 
 alent Latin form — LeviUpis; Hahn 
 into Ga.ltas, and so on, but usually 
 they preserve in the Latin coun- 
 tries the German form ; and not con- 
 tent with that sign of their Deatsch- 
 thum, they in nearly every instance 
 name, and usually with some honorific 
 epithet, their native province or their 
 native town — plainly, they loved the 
 Old Land, and were but sojourners in 
 the land of the stranger. One of them 
 is named Franck, and he invariably 
 qualifies himself as Allemannus, " the 
 German ; ** another, Sixtus Riesinger, 
 at Naples, is **a. Strassburger ; " and 
 wc have John " of Westphalia," John 
 ''of Cologne," John " of Vienna," and 
 so on. If a printer is itom Mainz, it 
 is for him " the noble city of Mainz ; " 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 127 
 
 and we have ** renowned Basel," CbcB 
 "holy Cologne," "princely city of l°^«» l^e 
 Landshut, etc. 
 
 
 m 
 
 REALLY touching instance 
 of their fond regard for the 
 Old Home is seen in one of 
 the colophons — ^that of Friedberger 
 "of Passau in Germany." Plainly 
 he knew no Latin, but enough 
 of Italian to know that in that lan- 
 guage Deutschland is Atlemannia, 
 He somehow got the name of his 
 native town latinized fairly enough 
 into Passavium, but to latinize 
 Deutschland was beyond his powers 
 and the best he could do or get was 
 Alia Magna — " 'Passa.vium cAlae 
 
 anO wete 
 loi^al to 
 tbelt 
 Deutecbo 
 tbum. 
 
m SOME EARLY 'PRINTERS 
 
 xofiai Magnac.*' Be that Latin or no, " he 
 
 H)cut6Cb- g°* ^^^^ ^^^ *^^ same," and Deutsch- 
 tbum. land is honored of her son. 
 
 HOSE poor printers! They 
 knew neither Greek nor Latin, 
 
 Tsnotant 
 tbefi, fict 
 
 Oiftualng. ^ but they were the cause of Latin 
 and of learning in others. While they 
 were diffusing intellectual light over 
 all Europe, they were themselves 
 nearly as ignorant of the true meaning 
 and fruit of their labor as the blind 
 horse that turns a mill of the office it 
 is performing. What would have 
 been their sense of personal dignity 
 had they known the intellectual con- 
 tents of the works they set in type; 
 and with what delight would they 
 have prosecuted their labor if, as they 
 
AND THEIR COLOPHONS. 
 
 129 
 
 progressed with the copy, the intellec- 
 tual lights of the ancient sages and 
 poets had irradiated their minds! Sic 
 "bos non "hobis. 
 
 Ignotant 
 tbcB, get 
 ugbto 
 Disusing. 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 HESE poor printers were doing 
 in truth the work of clergy: 
 but the titular clergy — drones 
 they, or worse — were enjoying the 
 honors and the emoluments provided 
 by the piety of ages and by the toil 
 of the passing generation, for the 
 spiritual and intellectual nurture of 
 Europe. 
 
 ^beg Did 
 tbe worft 
 of cletgg. 
 
 J. ^