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Transcriber’s Note:
The following presumed errors have been corrected in the text.
Page 107, “1457” changed to “1497” (printed by Geoffroy de Marnef in 1497)
Page 154, “precedette” changed to “procedette” (non diligente impressore
procedette)
Page 162, “rari” changed to “rara” (Cum quondam fuerit copia rara tui.)
Footnote 4, “nome” changed to “nomen” (Enee Siluio nomen erat) and
“incolaru” changed to “incolam” (de Lubeck Colonie incolam)
Index entry for Indictions, page reference “70” changed to “170”
The Publication Committee of the Caxton Club certifies that this copy of
“An Essay on Colophons” is one of an edition consisting of two hundred
and fifty-two copies on French hand-made paper and three copies on
imperial Japanese paper, printed from type, and completed in the month of
August, nineteen hundred and five.
AN ESSAY ON COLOPHONS
AN
ESSAY ON COLOPHONS
WITH SPECIMENS
AND TRANSLATIONS
BY
ALFRED W. POLLARD
AND AN INTRODUCTION BY
RICHARD GARNETT
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
THE CAXTON CLUB
MCMV
Copyright, 1905, by
THE CAXTON CLUB
CONTENTS AND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ix
I. THE COLOPHON’S REASON FOR EXISTENCE 3
Homer. Florence: [B. Libri,] 1488 5
Breslau Missal. Mainz: P. Schoeffer, 1483 8
II. COLOPHONS AT MAINZ 9
Latin Bible. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1462 10
Balbus. Catholicon. Mainz: [J. Gutenberg,] 1460 14
Cicero. De Officiis. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1465 18
S. Jerome’s Epistles. Mainz: P. Schoeffer, 1470 20
Tritheim. Chronicarum opus. Mainz: Joh. Schoeffer, 1515 27
III. COLOPHONS AT VENICE 30
Cicero. Epistolae ad Familiares. Venice: John of Speier,
1469 32
Cicero. Epistolae ad Familiares. Second Edition. Venice:
John of Speier, 1469 33
Pliny. Historia Naturalis. Venice: John of Speier, 1469 35
Dante. Divina Commedia. Venice: Wendelin of Speier, 1476 40
Cicero. Rhetorica. Venice: N. Jenson, 1470 42
Decor Puellarum. Venice: N. Jenson, 1461 for 1471 45
Cicero. De Oratore. Venice: C. Valdarfer, 1470 49
Cicero. Orationes. Venice: C. Valdarfer, 1471 50
Caracciolus. Quadragesimale (and several other books).
Venice: Bartolommeo of Cremona, 1472 52
IV. PRINTERS’ COLOPHONS IN OTHER TOWNS 57
Meissen Missal. Freiberg: C. Kachelofen, 1495 66
Bononia illustrata. Bologna: Plato de Benedictis, 1494 73
Guido de Baysio. Super Decretis. Venice: John of Cologne
and Nicolas Jenson, 1481 78
Boniface VIII. Decretals. Basel: M. Wenssler, 1477 82
Fasciculus Temporum. Louvain: Veldener, 1476 84
Ioh. Faber. Breuiarium super codice. Louvain: John of
Westphalia, c 1475 84
S. Cyprian. Epistulae. Rome: Sweynheym and Pannartz,
1471 (and in many other of their books) 87
Cicero. Orationes Philippicae. Rome: Ulrich Han [1470]
(and in several other of Han’s books) 88
V. PUBLISHERS’ COLOPHONS 91
Latin Bible. Vicenza: Leonardus Achates, 1476 94
Laurentius Valla. Elegantiae. Rome: Arnold Pannartz, 1475 96
Gasparo Visconti. Rithmi. Milan: Ant. Zarotus, 1493 103
Journal Spirituel. Paris: Vérard, 1505 105
Statius. Achilleis. Parma: Steph. Corallus, 1473 109
Franciscus Curtius. Consilia. Milan: U. Scinzenzeler, 1496 116
VI. COLOPHONS OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS 123
Georgius Natta. Repetitiones. Pavia: C. de Canibus, 1492 126
Henricus Bruno. Super Institutionibus. Louvain: Aeg. van
der Heerstraten [1488?] 128
Petrus de Ancharano. Repetitio. Bologna: Jo. Jac. de
Benedictis for Benedictus Hectoris, 1493 141
Roman Missal. Venice: G. Arriuabenus and P. de Paganinis,
1484 147
Cicero. Epistolae Familiares. Milan: Lauagna, 1472 150
Homiliae. Basel: N. Kessler, 1498 155
VII. REPETITIONS, THEFTS, AND ADAPTATIONS 159
VIII. DATES IN COLOPHONS 170
INDEXES 185
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
Leaving the Colophon in its bibliographical aspects to the able hand by
which these are about to be treated, it may not be amiss to preface Mr.
Pollard’s researches by a brief inquiry into the origin and significance
of the term itself, and the reason why the colophon for so long performed
the office of the title-page.
_Colophon_ originally meant the head or summit of anything. It is
clearly cognate with κορυφή, but is a word of far less importance, for
while thirteen derivatives from κορυφή are given in Liddell and Scott’s
Dictionary, κολοφών has not one. The former word is continually used by
Homer; the latter is first met with in Plato, and then and afterwards
only in a figurative sense. Yet it is clear that the word must from the
first have borne the signification of “summit” or “crest,” for such is
the position of the city of Colophon, which must have derived its name
from its elevation, just as a modern house may be called “Hilltop.” Names
of this kind, if not given at the first, are rarely given at all; we must
suppose, then, that _colophon_ was a recognized Greek word for “summit”
when the city was founded about the tenth century B.C., according to
Strabo by a Pylian colony, though this seems difficult to reconcile with
the fact of Colophon being an Ionian city. In any case, the word has long
survived the place.
According to the information supplied by the New English Dictionary,
_colophon_ made a brief appearance in English, in the first half of the
seventeenth century, in its secondary classical sense of a “finishing
stroke” or “crowning touch,” being used thus in Burton’s “Anatomy of
Melancholy,” and again in 1635 by John Swan, who writes in his “Speculum
Mundi” of how God “comes to the Creation of Man and makes him the
colophon or conclusion of all things else.” Of the use of the word
_colophon_ in the particular significance elucidated in this essay—the
end or ultimate paragraph of a book or manuscript—the earliest example
quoted in the New English Dictionary is from Warton’s “History of English
Poetry,” published in 1774. A quarter of a century before this it is
found as a term needing no explanation in the first edition of the
“Typographical Antiquities” of Joseph Ames, published in 1749. How much
older it is than this cannot lightly be determined. The bibliographical
use appears to be unknown to the Greek and Latin lexicographers, medieval
as well as classical. Pending further investigation, it seems not
unlikely that it may have been developed out of the secondary classical
sense already mentioned sometime during the seventeenth century, when
the interest in bibliography which was then beginning to be felt
would naturally call into existence new terms of art. The Latin word
_subscriptio_, which is used in a not very dissimilar sense, could
hardly have been modernized without ambiguity. The Greek κορωνις, used
for a flourish at the end of a manuscript, had not entered into any
modern language. It is possible that it was thus only at a comparatively
late date that a need was felt for a special word to denote the final
paragraph of a book, and that the metaphorical use of _colophon_ for a
“finishing touch” caused it to be specialized in this sense. But whenever
this use of the word _colophon_ may have arisen, it is manifest that
if this paragraph is to convey any description of the book, it fulfils
the office of a title-page; and when we examine the manner in which
_colophon_ came to bear this special connotation, we shall see that the
printer’s colophon could not, except for a very short period while men’s
ideas were still indefinite, have coexisted with the title-page.
The idea especially implied in the Greek proverbial phrase “to put on the
colophon” is that of putting the finishing stroke to anything, as when a
building is completed by the addition of the coping-stone, or a discourse
is summed up by a recapitulation of its general gist. Is the word simply
used in the sense of a crowning peak? or has it a special connection
with the city of Colophon? Ancient writers assert the latter, and assign
two reasons, one of which at least seems fanciful. Strabo says that
the allusion is to the decisive charges of the Colophonian cavalry,
which were made at the last moment. There seems no other indication of
Colophon having possessed a high military reputation. The Scholiast on
the “Theaetetus” of Plato gives a more probable derivation; he says that,
on account of their having received the Smyrnaeans into their city,
the people of Colophon were allowed a casting-vote in the Panionium,
or congress of the twelve Ionian cities, and hence the expression was
equivalent to “turn the scale.” There would be nothing unreasonable in
this supposition if we were sure that the Colophonians actually had this
casting-vote; but the notion may well have been invented to explain
the proverb; and, after all, if κολοφών has the sense of “crest,” no
historical explanation seems necessary.
We have, however, solely to consider here the application of the term
_colophon_ to books, and must ask, What portion of a book would embody
that final touch which we have seen to be essential to the idea of
a colophon? In modern times we should probably say the imprint, for
although the printer’s name, as well as the publisher’s, may be given
at the bottom or on the reverse of the title-page, it is more usual to
find it at the end. The ancient colophon also gave this information, but
it commonly gave much more. To understand the part it played in early
printing, we must go back to its predecessor, the manuscript.
Manuscripts, as the parents of printed books, have necessarily exercised
the greatest influence on their development. A step which might have
been very important was taken when, probably early in the fifth century,
the form most convenient for the printed book was established by the
definitive supersession of the roll form of manuscript by the _codex_, or
manuscript in modern book form. Codices are of sufficient antiquity to be
figured in the paintings at Pompeii, but the derivation from _caudices_,
thin leaves of wood, shows that they were not at first much used for
literary purposes, but rather for accounts or memoranda. When they began
to compete with the roll, a step in the direction of convenience which
may be appreciated by us if we can imagine that all our books had at
one time been printed in newspaper form, we find the colophon already
installed under the title of _index_. This did not denote the key to
the contents of a book, thought so indispensable in modern times, but
to the title, giving generally the subject and author of the book with
the utmost brevity, and written at the end, precisely like a colophon,
which in fact it was, though not bearing the name. As the papyrus roll
was not bound, there could be no lettering upon a cover unless when, as
was sometimes the case, a fine manuscript was inclosed within a case or
wrappage for its protection; and the inconvenience of having to open
every roll to find the title soon suggested the idea of hanging the index
outside the roll on a separate slip, brightly dyed so as to attract
attention. Examples may be seen in paintings from Pompeii. The general,
though as yet by no means universal, displacement of papyrus by parchment
led to the introduction of binding, early in the fifth century, as the
best method of preserving codices. It had, of course, been practised
before, but could not make much progress while the majority of books were
papyrus scrolls; and even in the case of codices it seems to have been
chiefly employed for the opportunity it afforded of adorning a valued
manuscript with a splendid exterior. The disuse of the roll, however,
soon made binding universal. In the Customs of the Augustinian priory at
Barnwell it is distinctly laid down: “As the books ought to be mended,
printed, and taken care of by the Librarian, so ought they to be properly
bound by him.”
The question of binding, as it concerns the colophon, is chiefly
interesting from the point it raises whether the colophon, representing
as it certainly did the title-page, was the sole clue to the contents of
a manuscript, or whether the binding was lettered by a label affixed,
or by the author’s name being written on it. The books represented in
the picture of “Ezra Writing the Law,” the frontispiece to the Codex
Amiatinus, reproduced in Mr. Clark’s work on “The Care of Books,” show no
signs of lettering; and centuries later, in the Augustinian Customs, we
find the librarian enjoined not to pack the books too closely together,
“_ne nimia compressio querenti moram invectat_.” Delay, therefore, in
finding a book on the shelf was recognized as an evil to be guarded
against: it is scarcely likely that this would have been so manifest if
the books had been distinctly lettered, or that the librarian would not
have been enjoined to supply lettering if lettering had been the practice.
It would seem, then, that the colophon of a manuscript would be the
principal means of affording information respecting its contents; but,
if we may so far extend the signification of the term as to cover any
addition made at the end by the transcriber, and having no reference
to the subject-matter of the book, it was capable of conveying much
beside. How touchingly the feelings of the copyist, “all with weary task
fordone,” craving to be assured that he has not labored in vain, are
portrayed in this final note to a volume written in the ninth century!
I beseech you, my friend, when you are reading my book, to keep
your hands behind its back, for fear you should do mischief to
the text by some sudden movement, for a man who knows nothing
about writing thinks that it is no concern of his.[1] Whereas
to a writer the last line is as sweet as the port is to a
sailor. Three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body toils.
Thanks be to God, I, Warembert, wrote this book in God’s name.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Very moving, too, is the injunction of some tender spirit in a manuscript
of the fourteenth century:
Whoever pursues his studies in this book, should be careful to
handle the leaves gently and delicately, so as to avoid tearing
them by reason of their thinness; and let him imitate the
example of Jesus Christ, who, when he had quietly opened the
book of Isaiah and read therein attentively, rolled it up with
reverence, and gave it again to the Minister.
On the other hand, manuscripts frequently contain anathemas against the
pernicious race of book thieves, which can hardly be deemed uncalled
for when we remember the frank admission innocently volunteered by a
Sicilian knight, in a ballad translated by Rossetti, that he had stolen
his Bible out of a church, “the priest being gone away.” Sometimes
additional force is sought to be given to these imprecations by the
assertion that the book is to be regarded as the personal property of the
patron saint of the church or monastery—St. Alban, for example.
We have dwelt at some length upon the question of colophons, or
inscriptions corresponding to colophons, in manuscripts, as these have
been little investigated, and form the groundwork of the more important
inquiry concerning the development of the colophon in the printed book,
which is the subject of Mr. Pollard’s essay. It would be interesting to
collect from medieval manuscripts and bring together in one corpus the
ejaculations of medieval scribes, whether minatory, hortatory, or simply
expressive of gratitude or relief at the termination of their irksome
labors. How far this latter sentiment may have been qualified by the
artist’s pleasure in his calligraphy must be matter of conjecture. If he
was illuminator as well as transcriber, he must frequently have had ample
ground for complacency. It would be a proof how little the conception of
painting as an art independent of every other was developed if we could
suppose the illustrator of a fourteenth-century Dante, for example,
whose talent would in this age have made his fortune as a painter of
pictures, condescending to the humble labors of a copyist, exquisite as
his calligraphy might be. Yet the craft of the illuminator was destined
to be absolutely obliterated by printing, while that of the transcriber
exercised an important influence on early printing, as evinced by the
care which the first printers took to adapt their types to the forms of
letters prevalent in the manuscripts of their respective countries.
The same adaptation is observable in the use of the colophon by the
early printers in the place of a title-page, when, as was not always the
case, they thought fit to give a title at all. To us this seems almost
incomprehensible. The immense advantage of a book bearing a title on its
front and manifesting its nature from the first is so apparent that our
practical age cannot comprehend how it could have been less obvious to
our predecessors than to ourselves. It further seems in accordance with
common sense and general usage in all similar matters that proclamation
should be made at the beginning and not at the end, at the entrance and
not at the exit, as the dedication of the temple is inscribed above the
portico. The neglect of this apparently self-evident rule is perhaps to
be explained by the influence of the “traditions of the scribes,” which
affected early printing in many ways. We have alluded to the manner in
which types were modelled upon the style of handwriting in use in the
respective countries, the beautifully clear Italian type contrasting
so markedly with the massive and imposing ruggedness of the Gothic. We
also see how the tradition of illumination long induced printers to
leave blank spaces for capital letters, especially at the beginnings
of chapters, to be filled in by the artist, and to employ the services
of a “rubricator” to preserve at least some phantom of the wealth of
color which the printing art was destroying as effectually as in our day
the photograph has killed the woodcut. The elegant border, also, was a
legacy from the manuscript to the printed book, and this, fortunately
lending itself to engraving, admitted of preservation. The service
rendered by printing to engraving, it may be parenthetically remarked,
is a great set-off against the injury it inflicted upon art in the
shape of pictorial illustration. All these circumstances indicate the
strong influence of the scribe upon the printer; and it is perhaps not
surprising that the latter should for some time have followed the example
of his predecessor, and given no title except occasionally the brief
heading which frequently precedes the first chapter of a manuscript.
This was never set out on a distinct leaf, an indispensable condition of
a title-page, until many years after printing had effectually dethroned
transcription as the method of the reproduction of books. The first
title-page did not appear until some twenty years after the invention of
printing. Title-pages became the rule about 1490, but it was not until
1493 that the announcement of the printer or publisher, hitherto buried
in the colophon, began to appear upon them.
This it is which gives the colophon such extraordinary importance in the
history of early printing. Wherever one exists, the question of place
and printer, and frequently the question of date, is entirely solved.
Where there is no colophon, we are left to conjecture. The problem is,
indeed, generally soluble by a really scientific investigation, but it
is only of late that science has been thoroughly brought to bear upon
it by a Bradshaw and a Proctor. It is no unimportant matter, for every
determination of the locality of an early book is a paragraph added
to the history of the culture of the country where it originated. The
beginnings of printing, as of other arts, were obscure, and we must be
most grateful for any information which has been afforded us by men
who assuredly no more thought of posterity than does any tradesman who
advertises his wares without reflecting that he too is contributing
something to the history of culture or of industry. The ancient printers
had no more notion than Shakspere had what interesting figures they would
appear in the eyes of posterity.
The colophon, however, does much more than reveal matters of fact. It
admits us in a measure into the intimacy of the old printer, shows us
what manner of man he was, and upon what he rested his claims to esteem
as a benefactor of the community. We find him very decided in asserting
his superiority to the copyist, a reaction, perhaps, against a feeling
entertained in some quarters that the new art was base and mechanical in
comparison with the transcriber’s, with which, in the estimation of the
devotee of calligraphy, it could only compare as a motor-car may compare
with an Arab steed. That such a feeling existed in highly cultivated
quarters we learn from the disdain for printing expressed by the eminent
scholar and educator Vespasiano da Bisticci, who had collected the
library of the Duke of Ferrara, and who looked upon the manuscripts he
had gathered with such joy and pride as an admiral of the old school
may have looked upon his lovely frigates in comparison with the ugly,
but undeniably more powerful, ironclad. Such printers as Jenson might
have replied that their typographical productions were hardly inferior
in beauty to the manuscript, but we are not aware that they ever took
this line. They rather lay stress upon a more tangible advantage—their
superior accuracy. They also affirm, and with truth, that their work
is easier to read. “As plain as print” is a proverb which has grown
up of itself. They might also have dwelt upon the various sorrows and
afflictions which copyists prepared for their employers, so graphically
described by Petrarch. Petrarch’s lamentation must have been a rare
enjoyment to the first printer who published it, if he understood it and
had professional feeling.
Much more might be said about the old printer as revealed by the
colophon—his trade jealousies, his disposition to monopolize, his
deference to patrons, his joy at having carried his work through the
press, his conviction that his labors have not been unattended by the
divine blessing. That inferior person, the author, too, occasionally
gets a good word, especially when his authorship assumes the form of
translation or commentary. But our business is mainly with the colophon
in its literary and bibliographical aspects, and it is time to make way
for Mr. Pollard, whose monograph upon it will, we believe, be found the
fullest, the most entertaining, and the most accurate extant.
R. GARNETT.
AN ESSAY ON COLOPHONS
[Illustration]
I
THE COLOPHON’S REASON FOR EXISTENCE
The interest of individual colophons in early printed books has often
been noted. The task which, under the kind auspices of the Caxton Club,
is here to be assayed is the more ambitious, if less entertaining, one
of making a special study of this feature in fifteenth-century books,
with the object of ascertaining what light it throws on the history
of printing and on the habits of the early printers and publishers.
If, instead of studying each colophon singly for the sake of the
information it may give us as to the book which it completes, or for
its own human interest,—if it chance to have any,—we compare the same
printer’s colophons in successive books, and the colophons of different
printers in successive editions; if we group those which have similar
characteristics, and glance also at the books which have no colophons at
all, or quite featureless ones, then if there is anything to be learnt
from colophons, we ought to be by way of learning it; and if there is
only very little to be learnt, that also is a fact to be noted.
The existence, incidentally referred to in our last paragraph, of
books which have no colophons, or colophons from which all positive
information is conspicuously absent, is a point which may well be
enlarged on. In Mr. Proctor’s “Index of Early Printed Books” the one
unsatisfactory feature is the absence of any distinguishing mark between
the books which themselves contain a statement of their printer’s name,
and those of which the printer was discovered by the comparison of
types, or ornaments, or other inferential evidence. Mr. Proctor used
humorously to excuse himself for this omission on the ground that he had
already used so many different symbols that if he had added one more
to their number the camel’s back would have broken. But the omission,
while occasionally vexatious to the student, is regrettable chiefly as
obscuring the greatness of Mr. Proctor’s own work. If all books gave
full particulars as to their printers and dates, there would have been
little need of Bradshaw’s “natural-history” method, or of Mr. Proctor’s
almost miraculous skill in applying it. It is the absence of colophons
in so many books that calls into play the power of identifying printers
by their types, and of dating books by the appearance of new “sorts,” or
the disuse of old ones. A single instance will suffice to illustrate the
secrets thus revealed. To Ludwig Hain, Bartolommeo di Libri of Florence
is the printer of four books. In Mr. Proctor’s Index he is credited
with no fewer than one hundred and twenty-six in the collections of the
British Museum and the Bodleian alone, among these being the famous first
edition of Homer and some of the finest Florentine illustrated books. He
is thus raised from obscurity to the front rank of Italian printers,
an example of a man who, though he did excellent work, hardly ever
troubled himself to take credit for it. In the face of such an instance
the partial nature of the information we can gather from colophons is at
once plain. And yet from this very absence of Libri’s name we glean some
really characteristic evidence. For, to begin with, the great Florentine
Homer is not without a colophon. On the contrary, it possesses this very
explicit one:
[Illustration: Homer. Florence: [B. Libri,] 1488.]
Ἡ τοῦ Ὁμήρου ποίησις ἅπασα ἐντυπωθεῖσα πέρας εἴληφεν ἢδη σὺν
θεῷ ἐν Φλωρεντίᾳ, ἀναλώμασι μὲν τῶν εὐγενῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν,
καὶ περὶ λόγους ἑλληνικοὺς σπουδαίων, Βερνάρδου καὶ Νηρίου
Τανάιδος τοῦ Νεριλίου φλωρεντίνοιν· πόνῳ δὲ καὶ δεξιότητι
Δημητρίου μεδιολανέως κρητὸς, τῶν λογίων ἀνδρῶν χάριν καὶ λόγων
ἑλληνικῶν ἐφιεμένων, ἔτει τῷ ἀπὸ τῆς Χριστοῦ γεννησέως χιλιοστῷ
τετρακοσιοστῷ ὀγδοηκοστῷ ὀγδόῷ μηνὸς Δεκεμβρίου ἐνάτῃ.
This printed edition of all Homer’s poetry has now come to
its end by the help of God in Florence, by the outlay of
the well-born and excellent gentlemen, enthusiasts for Greek
learning, Bernardo and Nerio, sons of Tanais Nerli, two
Florentines, and by the labor and skill of Demetrio of Milan,
a Cretan, for the benefit of men of letters and professors of
Greek, in the year from Christ’s birth the one thousand four
hundred and eighty-eighth, on the ninth day of the month of
December.
Here Demetrio Damilas, the Cretan of Milanese descent, is anxious enough
to advertise himself: perhaps all the more anxious because his name seems
to have been suppressed in the case of some previous Greek books in which
he may have had a share. He compliments also, as in duty bound, the
brothers Nerli, without whose munificence the book could not have been
produced. But the craftsman at whose press the Homer was printed was too
insignificant a person for a scholar of the very self-regarding type of
the first professors of Greek to trouble to mention him, and thus Libri
is ignored by Damilas as completely as the later printers were ignored by
the publishers. In some of his larger works of a less learned kind,—books
by Boccaccio, the Florentine Histories of Bruni and Poggio, and the Logic
of Savonarola,—Libri, when left to himself, was at the pains to print his
name. But in the mass of “Rappresentazioni,” Savonarola pamphlets, and
other seemingly ephemeral books which he made attractive by procuring
for them delightful woodcuts, he did not take sufficient pride to claim
the credit which Mr. Proctor after four centuries recovered for him. The
scribes who preceded the printers were by no means forward in naming
themselves. Though not to the same extent as Libri, the early printers
largely imitated their reticence. More especially with vernacular books
they were careless of connecting themselves, because vernacular books
were as yet despised. Hence, though we shall have to quote some in the
chief languages of Western Europe, the comparative rarity of vernacular
colophons. Hence, on the other hand, the comparative frequency of the
Latin ones, which can be culled from all kinds of learned books, more
especially from the laborious legal commentaries which now possess so
few attractions beyond their beautiful, though crabbedly contracted,
typography. It is a pity, because the Latin found in colophons is often
far from classical, and occasionally so difficult that our renderings
will be offered in fear and trembling. But it was in Latin that literary
distinction was mainly to be won in the fifteenth century, and it was
therefore with Latin books that the printers desired their names to
be associated. Colophons, in fact, are the sign and evidence of the
printer’s pride in his work, and this is the main clue we have in seeking
for them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Breslau Missal. Mainz: P. Schoeffer, 1483.]
[Illustration]
II
COLOPHONS AT MAINZ
[Illustration: Latin Bible. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1462.]
It was said at the end of our first chapter that the presence of a
colophon in an old book is to be taken as a sign of its printer’s pride
in his work. This being so, it would seem only reasonable to expect that
the very earliest books of all, the books in which the new art made its
first appearance before the book-buying world, should be found equipped
with the most communicative of colophons, telling us the story of the
struggles of the inventor, and expatiating on the greatness of his
triumph. As every one knows, the exact reverse of this is the case, and a
whole library of monographs and of often bitterly controversial pamphlets
has been written for the lack of the information which a short paragraph
apiece in three of the newly printed books could easily have given. What
was the reason of this strange silence we are left to guess. It will be
thought noteworthy, perhaps, that all three of these too reticent books
are Latin Bibles—the 42-line Bible variously assigned to Gutenberg and
to Fust and Schoeffer, the 36-line Bible variously assigned to Gutenberg
and Pfister, and the 48-line Bible known to have proceeded from the press
of Johann Mentelin of Strassburg. It is indeed a curious fact, and it is
surprising that the folly of Protestant controversialists has not leapt
at it, that not merely these three but the great majority of Latin Bibles
printed before 1475 are completely silent as to their printers, place
of imprint, and date. Of the fourteen editions which in the catalogue
of the British Museum precede that which Franciscus de Hailbrun and
Nicolaus of Frankfort printed at Venice in 1475, only three reveal their
own origin—those printed at Mainz by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462 and by
Schoeffer alone ten years later, and the edition of 1471, printed by
Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome. On the other hand, the three editions
printed before 1462, as well as those of Eggestein and the “R-printer”
at Strassburg and of Ruppel and Richel at Basel, are all anonymous. We
might imagine that there was a fear that the natural conservatism of the
church would look askance at the new art, and that therefore in printing
the Bible it was thought best to say nothing about it. But, as a matter
of fact, it was not only in their Bibles that these printers showed their
reticence. Gutenberg never put his name in any book at all. Bertold
Ruppel never dated one; Eggestein dated nothing till 1471, Mentelin
nothing till 1473, Richel nothing till 1474. Most of their books are
anonymous. When we remember that Mentelin was printing at Strassburg,
a city with which Gutenberg had many relations, as early as 1458, and
Eggestein not long after; that Ruppel was Gutenberg’s servant and Richel
was Ruppel’s partner and successor, it would almost seem as if all this
reticence were part of a distinct Gutenberg tradition, an attempt to keep
the new art as secret as possible, either in order to lessen competitors
and keep up prices, or (to take another alternative) because some of
these printers may have broken promises of secrecy imposed on them with
this object, and were thus less anxious to advertise themselves.
In strong contrast to the almost furtive behavior of this group of
printers is the insistent glorification of themselves and the new art by
Johann Fust the goldsmith and Peter Schoeffer the scribe, his son-in-law.
The contrast is so great that it must certainly be reckoned with by those
who hold that to Fust and Schoeffer must be assigned the production of
the anonymous 42-line Bible, though in the tangled relations of the Mainz
printers about 1454 there may have been reasons for silence at which we
cannot guess. As printers in their own names the known career of Fust and
Schoeffer begins with the publication, in 1457, of the famous Psalter in
which we find our first colophon:
Presens spalmorum [_sic_ for psalmorum] codex venustate
capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter
distinctus, Adinuentione artificiosa imprimendi ac
caracterizandi absque calami vlla exaracione sic effigiatus, Et
ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus, Per Johannem fust
ciuem maguntinum, Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernszheim Anno domini
Millesimo.cccc.lvij In vigilia Assumpcionis.
The present copy of the Psalms, adorned with beauty of capital
letters, and sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been
thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and
stamping without any driving of the pen, And to the worship of
God has been diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a
citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schöffer of Gernsheim, in the year
of the Lord 1457, on the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption.
A few notes on some of the words in this colophon may be offered.
“Codex,” which has been paraphrased “copy,” meant originally a collection
of tablets waxed over for writing on, and so any book in which the
leaves are placed one on another instead of being formed into a roll.
“Capital letters” must be understood of large initials, not merely, as
the phrase is often used to mean, majuscules, or “upper-case” letters.
“Adinventio” appears to mean simply invention, and not, as with our
knowledge of stories of “prefigurements” of printing in Holland afterward
completed in Germany we might be inclined to think, the perfecting of an
invention. The epithet “artificiosa” probably only means skilful, without
emphasizing the contrast between the artificial methods of printing as
compared with the natural use of the hand. About “caracterizandi” it is
not easy to feel quite sure. Does it complete “imprimendi” by adding
to the idea of pressing the further idea of the letter (χαρακτήρ)
impressed, or is “imprimendi” already fully equivalent to printing, while
“caracterizandi” refers to engraving the letters on the punches? Lastly,
it may be noted that in _calamus_, “reed,” and _exaratione_, “plowing
up,” which properly refers to the action of the “stilus” of bone or metal
on the waxed surface of a tablet, we have reference to two different
methods of writing, one or other of which must necessarily be slurred.
Not all colophons present so many small linguistic difficulties as
this, but few are wholly without them, and many of the renderings which
will be offered in ensuing chapters must be accepted merely as the best
paraphrases which could be attained.
This first colophon was repeated by Fust and Schoeffer with very
slight alterations in the Psalter of 1459 (in which were added the
words “et honorem sancti iacobi,” “and to the honour of S. James,”
the patron of the Benedictine monastery at Mainz, for whose use the
edition was printed), in the “Durandus” of the same year, the Clementine
Constitutions published in 1460, and the Bible of 1462.
Meanwhile, in 1460, there had been published at Mainz an edition of the
“Catholicon,” a Latin dictionary compiled by Joannes Balbus of Genoa, a
Dominican of the thirteenth century. The colophon to this book, instinct
with religious feeling and patriotism, and interesting for its pride in
the new art and use of some technical terms, yet lacks the one important
piece of information which we demand from it—the name of the printer.
Altissimi presidio cuius nutu infantium lingue fiunt diserte,
Quique numerosepe paruulis reuelat quod sapientibus celat,
Hic liber egregius, catholicon, dominice incarnacionis annis
Mcccclx Alma in urbe maguntina nacionis inclite germanice,
Quam dei clemencia tam alto ingenij lumine, donoque gratuito,
ceteris terrarum nacionibus preferre, illustrareque dignatus
est, Non calami, stili, aut penne suffragio, sed mira
patronarum formarumque concordia proporcione et modulo,
impressus atque confectus est.
Hinc tibi sancte pater nato cum flamine sacro
Laus et honor domino trino tribuatur et uno
Ecclesie laude libro hoc catholice plaude
Qui laudare piam semper non linque mariam.
Deo Gracias.
[Illustration: Balbus. Catholicon. Mainz: [J. Gutenberg,] 1460.]
By the help of the Most High, at Whose will the tongues of
infants become eloquent, and Who ofttimes reveals to the lowly
that which He hides from the wise, this noble book, Catholicon,
in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1460, in the bounteous
city of Mainz of the renowned German nation, which the clemency
of God has deigned with so lofty a light of genius and free
gift to prefer and render illustrious above all other nations
of the earth, without help of reed, stilus, or pen, but by the
wondrous agreement, proportion, and harmony of punches and
types, has been printed and finished.
Hence to Thee, Holy Father, and to the Son, with the Sacred Spirit,
Praise and glory be rendered, the threefold Lord and One;
For the praise of the Church, O Catholic, applaud this book,
Who never ceasest to praise the devout Mary.
Thanks be to God.
In addition to the “Catholicon,” the British Museum possesses three
books in the same type, which are, therefore, ascribed to the same
press—a “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” of Matthew of Cracow, and
two editions of the “Summa de articulis fidei” of S. Thomas Aquinas; but
these, perhaps because they are only little books, have no printer’s
colophon. On November 4, 1467, a Latin-German vocabulary known as the
“Vocabularius Ex Quo” was finished at Eltville, near Mainz, by Nicolaus
Bechtermünze and Wigandus Spiess of Ortenberg, having been begun by
Heinrich Bechtermünze, brother of Nicolaus. It is printed in the same
type as the “Catholicon,” reinforced by some slight additions, and
it is noteworthy (as illustrating what we may call the hereditary or
genealogical feature which runs through many colophons) that in taking
over the type used in the “Catholicon,” part of the wording of its
colophon was taken over also, though a few words appear to be borrowed
from Fust and Schoeffer. To show this we may quote the colophon to the
1467 “Vocabularius” as transcribed by Mr. Hessels (“Gutenberg: was he the
inventor of printing?” p. 141):
Presens hoc opusculum non stili aut penne suffragio sed noua
artificiosaque invencione quadam ad eusebiam dei industrie per
henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altauilla est inchoatum
et demum sub anno domini M.cccc.l.xvij ipso die leonardi
confessoris, qui fuit quarta die mensis nouembris, per nycolaum
bechtermuncze fratrem dicti henrici et wygandum spyesz de
orthenberg est consummatum.
Hinc tibi sancte pater nato cum flamine sacro
Laus et honor domino trino tribuatur et uno:
Qui laudare piam semper non linque mariam.
This present little work, not by the help of stilus or pen, but
by a certain new and skilful invention to the worship of God,
was diligently begun at Eltville by Heinrich Bechtermünze of
pious memory, and at last, in the year of the Lord 1467, on the
day of Leonard the Confessor, which was on the fourth day of
the month of November, by Nicolaus Bechtermünze, brother of the
said Heinrich, and Wigandus Spiess of Orthenberg, was brought
to completion.
Hence to Thee, Holy Father, and to the Son, with the Sacred Spirit,
Praise and glory be rendered, the threefold Lord and One.
O thou who never ceasest to praise the devout Mary.
The omission of the third line of the “Catholicon” quatrain, obviously
because the word “Catholice” no longer had especial import, makes the
construction even more mysterious than in the original, nor is this the
only instance we shall find of such mauling.
While the Eltville colophon thus mainly takes its phrasing from that
of the “Catholicon,” with a few words from Fust and Schoeffer’s thrown
in, the latter firm were themselves not above borrowing a happy phrase,
since in the “Liber Sextus Decretalium Bonifacii VIII” not only do we
find an antithesis introduced to the “artificiosa adinuentio,” but in
some copies, if Maittaire is to be trusted, the praise of Mainz is bodily
taken over, so that the full colophon now reads:
Presens huius Sexti Decretalium preclarum opus alma in urbe
Maguntina inclyte nacionis germanice, quam dei clemencia
tam alti ingenii lumine donoque gratuito ceteris terrarum
nacionibus preferre illustrareque dignatus est, non atramento
plumali canna neque aerea, sed artificiosa quadam adinuentione
imprimendi seu caracterizandi sic effigiatum et ad eusebiam dei
industrie est consummatum per Iohannem Fust ciuem et Petrum
Schoiffher de Gernsheim. Anno domini M.cccclxv. die uero xvii
mensis Decembris.
The present splendid edition of this sixth book of Decretals,
in the bounteous city of Mainz of the renowned German nation,
which the clemency of God has deigned with so lofty a light of
genius and free gift to prefer and render illustrious above all
other nations of the earth, has been thus fashioned not by ink
for the pen nor by a reed of brass, but by a certain ingenious
invention of printing or stamping, and to the worship of God
diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of
Mainz, and Peter Schoiffher of Gernsheim, in the year of the
Lord 1465, and on the 17th day of December.
By this time even a patient reader may well be weary with this ringing
of the changes on the two colophons first printed, respectively, in 1457
and 1460. But, without pushing the suggestion too far, we may at least
hazard a guess as to how they came thus to be amalgamated in December,
1465. For it was in this year that Gutenberg, who, when all is said, is
the most probable printer for the “Catholicon” and the other books which
go with it, became a pensioner of Adolph II, Archbishop of Mainz, and
presumably gave up printing. The two small books in the “Catholicon” type
(_i.e._ the “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” and the “De articulis
fidei”) appear in Schoeffer’s catalogue of 1469-70. Whether he bought
the stock of them as early as 1465 cannot be proved, but it would seem
reasonable to connect his taking over the “Catholicon” colophon in that
year with the disappearance of Gutenberg from any kind of rivalry. As
between printers in different cities, there was certainly no copyright
in colophons any more than there was in books. We shall see presently
how, when books of Schoeffer’s were reprinted at Nuremberg and Basel,
his colophons, with slight alterations, were taken over with them.
But in Germany at this time, between citizens of the same town, trade
rights, I fancy, were much more respected than at Venice, for instance,
or at Paris, where the editions of Caesaris and Stoll were impudently
pirated by two other firms in the very same street. At all events, it is
worth noticing that the “Catholicon” printer’s colophon seems to have
been taken over by Schoeffer, who bought some of his stock, and by the
brothers Bechtermünze, who had the use of his types.
Passing now to other of Schoeffer’s colophons, we find in the edition
of the “Officia et Paradoxa” of Cicero of this same year, 1465, a more
personal form of the colophon, which gives us an explicit statement that
Fust, the capitalist of the business, probably owing to failing health,
now left the actual superintendence of the printing to his son-in-law
Schoeffer, the quondam scribe. It runs:
[Illustration: Cicero. De Officiis. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1465.]
“Presens Marci tulii clarissimum opus Iohannes Fust Moguntinus ciuis, non
atramento plumali, canna neque aerea, sed arte quadam perpulcra, Petri
manu pueri mei feliciter effeci finitum, Anno 1465.” This statement,
that “I, Johann Fust, citizen of Mainz, completed the book by the labor
or instrumentality (manu) of my son Peter,” was repeated in the reprint
of February 4, 1466, and thenceforth the name of Fust disappears from the
annals of printing.
In 1467 we find the colophon attributed by Maittaire to some copies of
the “Sextus Decretalium” repeated (with the omission of Fust’s name) in
the “Secunda Secundae” of S. Thomas Aquinas and the second edition of
the Clementine Constitutions, and this became for some time Schoeffer’s
normal colophon. In 1470, however, he varied it in his edition of S.
Jerome’s Epistles in order to introduce a compliment paid by the saint
to the city of Mainz, which made it peculiarly appropriate that his work
should be popularized by a Mainz printer. This colophon runs:
[I]gitur Sophronii Eusebii Ieronimi orthodoxi, Ecclesie Christi
propugnatoris clarissimi, Liber Ieronimianus, aut si mauis,
quod et ipse velim, Liber Epistolaris explicit, ut dignitas
nominis Ieronimiani egregio viro Johanni Andree permaneat,
qui hoc ipsum zelo deuotionis erga virum sanctum affectus
tempore prisco vulgauit in orbem. Est autem presens opus arte
impressoria feliciter consummatum per Petrum schoiffer de
Gernsshem in ciuitate nobili Moguntina. Cuius nobilitati vir
beatus Ieronimus scribens ad Agerutiam de monogamia testimonium
perhibet sempiternum multis milibus incolarum eiusdem in
ecclesia pro fide catholica sanguine proprio laureatis.
Huic laudatori reddit moguntia vicem,
Tot sua scripta parans usibus ecclesie.
Anno domini M.cccc.lxx. Die septima mensis septembris que fuit
vigilia natiuitatis Marie. Da gloriam Deo.
[Illustration: S. Jerome’s Epistles. Mainz: P. Schoeffer,
1470.]
Thus of Sophronius Eusebius Hieronimus [_i.e._, S. Jerome], the
Orthodox, the most renowned champion of the Church of Christ,
there comes to an end the book called after him Hieronominian,
or if you prefer it the Book of his Epistles, the title I
myself should wish to give it in order that the honor of the
title Hieronimian may be reserved for the illustrious Johannes
Andreae, who in olden time published to the world this very
work from the zeal of his devotion to the holy man. Now the
present work by the printing art has been happily brought to
completion by Peter Schoiffer of Gernsheim in the noble city of
Mainz, as to whose nobility the blessed man Jerome, writing to
Agerutia concerning monogamy, bears eternal witness to the many
thousands of its inhabitants who with their own blood have won
crowns of laurel in the church for the catholic faith.
Printing the words of him who gave this praise,
Mainz helps the church the while her debt she pays.
In the year of the Lord 1470, on the seventh day of September,
which was the vigil of the Nativity of Mary. Give glory to God.
In 1472, in the “Decretum Gratiani cum glossis,” we get another variant
and an addition of some importance: