colophons here grouped together are separated by any hard line from those
already considered, only that they deal with the publishers’ side of
book-making, the praises by which the printers and publishers recommended
their wares, the financial help by which the issue of expensive and
slow-selling books was made possible, the growth of competition, and the
endeavors to secure artificially protected markets.
If colophons could be implicitly believed, the early printers would have
to be reckoned as the most devout and altruistic of men. As a matter of
fact, books of devotion and popular theology were probably the safest and
most profitable which they could take up. Yet we need not doubt that the
thought that they were engaged on a pious work, and so “accumulating
merit,” gave them genuine satisfaction, and that colophons like this of
Arnold therhoernen’s were prompted by real religious feeling:
Ad laudem et gloriam individue trinitatis ac gloriose virginis
marie et ad utilitatem ecclesie impressi ac consummati sunt
sermones magistri alberti ordinis predicatorum in colonia per
me Arnoldum therhurnen sub annis domini M.cccc. Lxxiiii ipso
die gloriosi ac sancti profesti nativitatis domini nostri Iesu
Christi.
To the praise and glory of the undivided Trinity and of the
glorious Virgin Mary, and to the profit of the church, the
sermons of Master Albert of the order of Preachers were printed
and finished in Cologne by me, Arnold therhoernen, in the year
of our Lord 1474, on the very day of the glorious and holy
vigil of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Examples of colophons in this vein could be multiplied almost
indefinitely. That appended by the Brothers of the Common Life, at their
convent of Hortus Viridis (Green Garden) at Rostock, to an edition of
the “Sermones de Tempore” of Johannes Herolt is much more distinctive.
Herolt’s name is duly recorded in editions printed at Reutlingen and
Nuremberg, but his work was usually quoted as the “Sermones Discipuli,”
and the good brothers begin by commenting on his modesty.
Humilibus placent humilia. Huius gratia rei Doctor hic
precellens supresso proprio nomini uocabulo Sermones hos
prehabitos Discipuli prenotatosque alias maluit nuncupari.
Quique tamen, ut luce clarius patet, de sub manibus euasit
Doctor magistri. Huic applaudere, hunc efferre laudibus, hunc
predicatum iri, miretur nemo, cum certissime constat inter
modernos sermonistas eum in uulgi scientia tenere principatum.
Huius igitur zeli cupientes fore consortes nos fratres
presbiteri et clerici Viridis Horti in Rostock ad sanctum
Michaelem, non uerbo sed scripto predicantes, virum hunc
preclarum apud paucos in conclauis iactitantem foras eduximus
Arte impressoria, artium omnium ecclesie sancte commodo
magistra, in notitiam plurimorum ad laudem cunctipotentis Dei.
Anno incarnationis Dominice M.cccc.Lxxvi. tercio Kalendas
Novembris.
Humble courses please the humble. For which cause this eminent
Doctor preferred to suppress his own name and have these
Sermons, already delivered and set down elsewhere, announced
as the Sermons of a Disciple. And yet he, as is clearer than
day, has passed as a Doctor from the rule of his master. Let no
one wonder that he should be applauded, that men should extol
him with their praises, that he should be preached, since it
is most assuredly true that among modern sermon-writers he,
in knowledge of the people, holds the first place. Desiring,
therefore, to be partners of this zeal, we, the brothers,
priests, and clergy of Green Garden in Rostock attached to S.
Michael, preaching not orally but from manuscript, have thought
that this admirable book, which was lurking in the hands of a
few in their cells, should be published abroad by the printing
art, chief of all arts for the advantage of holy church, that
it may become known to many, to the praise of Almighty God. In
the year of the Lord’s incarnation 1476, on October 30th.
Of the dated editions of the Sermons this of Rostock is the earliest,
so that the claim of the brothers to have rescued it from neglect was
apparently justified. Their praise of printing as “chief of all arts for
the advantage of holy church” is very notable, though quite in accordance
with German feeling. In the sixteenth century the doctors of the Sorbonne
were much more doubtful on the subject. The brothers printed a few
secular works at Rostock, _e.g._ the Metamorphoses of Ovid and Guido
delle Colonne’s History of the Destruction of Troy. But the bulk of their
work was theological or devotional, and their desire to improve their
own sermons seems touchingly genuine and by no means commercial.
In the same year as the Rostock brothers printed the “Sermones
Discipuli,” Leonardus Achates of Basel issued at Vicenza a Latin Bible
to which was appended a lengthy colophon in praise of the study of the
Scriptures, almost the only eulogy of the kind with which I have met.
[Illustration: Latin Bible. Vicenza: Leonardus Achates, 1476.]
Lector quisquis es, si christiane sentis, te non pigeat hoc
opus sanctissimum, que biblia inscribitur, magna cum animi
voluptate degustare, degustandumque aliis persuadere: nuper
impressum a Leonardo Basileensi magna cum diligentia. In
eo enim fidei nostre fundamentum situm est: et christiane
religionis decus ac radix. Ex eo tibi cognitionem rerum omnium
in quibus salus nostra consistit legendo comparabis: quod eo
libentius facere debes quo in tam felici seculo codex hic
preciosissimus in lucem emendatissimus uenit, pontificatus
uidelicet sanctissimi domini nostri pape domini Xisti [Sixti]
quarti anno quinto, et imperii christianissimi Frederici
tertii anno uigesimo sexto, et Andree Vendramini ducis inclyti
uenetorum anno primo. MCCCCLXXVI sexto ydus maias.
Reader, whoever you are, if you have Christian feelings let it
not annoy you to acquaint yourself with great pleasure of mind
with this most sacred work which is entitled the Bible, and
to persuade others to acquaint themselves with it, as it has
lately been printed by Leonard of Basel with great diligence.
For in it is seated the foundation of our faith, and the glory
and root of the Christian religion. From reading it you will
provide yourself with knowledge of all the things in which our
salvation consists, and you should do this the more willingly
because this most precious manuscript has been published in
a most correct form at so happy an epoch, in the fifth year
namely of the pontificate of our most holy lord Pope Sixtus IV,
the twenty-sixth of the imperial rule of the most Christian
Frederick III, and the first of the noble doge of Venice Andrea
Vendramini. May 10, 1476.
As a rule, the books chosen for praise were of less self-evident merit,
notably grammatical works by which a royal road was promised to the
mysteries of Latin. Thus an unidentified Strassburg printer (possibly
Husner, but known only as the “Printer of the 1493 Casus breues
Decretalium”) recommended his “Exercitium Puerorum Grammaticale” not only
to boys, but to friars, nuns, merchants, and every one else who needed
Latin, in these glowing terms:
Finit tractatus secundus exercitii puerorum grammaticalis, in
quo de regimine et constructione omnium dictionum secundum
ordinem octo partium orationis processum est per regulas et
questiunculas adeo lucidas faciles atque breues, doctissimorum
virorum exemplis creberrimis roboratas, ut quisque sine
preceptore eas discere, scire et intelligere possit. In quo si
qui grammatici studiosi, cuiuscunque status fuerint, pueri,
fratres, sorores, mercatores, ceterique seculares aut religiosi
legerint, studuerint atque se oblectauerint, Finem grammatice
ausim dicere breuissime sine magno labore consequentur.
Impressum Argentine et finitus Anno &c M.cccc.xciiij.
Here ends the second treatise of the boys’ grammatical
exercise, in which a course is given on the government and
construction of all phrases according to the order of the
eight parts of speech, by rules and little questions so clear,
easy, and short, and confirmed by very numerous examples from
the works of most learned men, that any one without a teacher
can learn, know, and understand them. If any grammatical
students, of whatever rank they be, whether boys, friars, nuns,
merchants, or any one else, secular or religious, have read,
studied, and delighted themselves in this, I make bold to say
that very shortly and without much labor they will quickly
reach the end of grammar. Printed at Strassburg and finished in
the year, &c., 1494.
So, again, Arnold Pannartz, one of the prototypographers at Rome, vaunted
the “De Elegantia Linguae Latinae” of Laurentius Valla as affording
diligent students (they are warned that they must bring care and zeal to
the task) a chance of making rapid progress.
[Illustration: Laurentius Valla. Elegantiae. Rome: Arnold
Pannartz, 1475.]
Laurentii Vallae uiri eruditissimi et oratoris clarissimi de
Elegantia linguae latinae Liber Sextus et ultimus diligenti
emendatione finitus ab incarnatione domini anno M.CCCC.LXXV.
die uero secunda mensis Iulii: sedente Sixto IIII Pon.
Max. Anno eius quarto. Hos uero libros impressit Clarus ac
diligentissimus artifex Arnoldus Pannartz, Natione Germanus,
in domo nobilis uiri Petri de maximis, ciuis Romani. Tu qui
Latine loqui cupis hos tibi eme libros, in quibus legendis si
curam studiumque adhibueris, breui te haud parum profecisse
intelliges.
The sixth and last book of Laurentius Valla, a man of the
greatest learning and a most distinguished orator, on the
Elegance of the Latin Tongue, after diligent correction, has
been completed in the year from the Lord’s incarnation 1475,
on July 2d, in the fourth year of the papacy of Sixtus IV. Now
these books were printed by a distinguished and most diligent
craftsman, Arnold Pannartz, a German, in the house of the
noble Pietro dei Massimi, a Roman citizen. You who desire to
speak Latin buy yourself these books, for in reading them, if
you bring care and zeal to the task, in a short time you will
understand that you have made no small progress.
Perhaps the eulogies of their own wares by publishers reaches its climax
in the praises by Paulus Johannis de Puzbach of his edition of the
“Expositio Problematum Aristotelis,” of which it is said that it will be
useful to every creature in the universal world, though with the wise
proviso that the said creature must use great diligence in its study
(cuius utilitas erit omni creature in universo orbe que apponet huic
operi studium summa cum diligentia).
Publishers who offered their readers a chance of buying books like
these naturally posed as public benefactors, and in the colophon to
a collection of the works of various illustrious men (Diui Athanasii
contra Arium, etc.) printed at Paris in 1500 the reader is informed
categorically that he owes four several debts of gratitude which
apparently no such trifling consideration as the price demanded for the
book could affect.
Finis. Habes, lector candidissime, sex opuscula, etc. Reliquum
est igitur vt iis qui hec peperere grati animi significationem
feceritis. Atque adeo in primis prestantissimo viro domino
Simoni Radin, qui hec situ victa in lucem edenda curauit.
Deinde F. Cypriano Beneti: qui castigatrices manus apposuit.
Tum iohanni paruo bibliopolarum optimo qui suo ere imprimenda
tradidit. Nec minus M. Andree Bocard calcographo solertissimo
qui tam terse atque ad amussim castigata compressit: Ad quartum
Calendas Iulias. Anno Millesimoquingentesimo. Deo sit laus et
gloria.
Here you have, most honest reader, six works, etc. It remains,
therefore, for you to make grateful acknowledgment to those
who have produced them: in the first place to that eminent
man Master Simon Radin, who saw to their being brought to
light from the obscurity in which they were buried; next
to F. Cyprian Beneti for his editorial care; then to Jean
Petit, best of booksellers, who caused them to be printed
at his expense; nor less than these to Andrieu Bocard, the
skilful chalcographer, who printed them so elegantly and with
scrupulous correctness, June 28, 1500. Praise and glory to God.
In this book, printed at the very end of the century in Paris, where the
book trade had for centuries been highly organized, it is natural to find
printer and publisher clearly separated, both being tradesmen working for
gain. The lines for such a distinction already existed in the days of
manuscripts, the scribes and the stationers belonging to quite separate
classes, though they might assume each other’s functions. In the earliest
days of printing the craftsmen were, as a rule, their own publishers; but
the system of patronage and the desire of well-to-do persons in various
ranks of society to get special books printed led to divers bargains and
agreements. We find the Earl of Arundel encouraging Caxton to proceed
with his translation of the “Golden Legend,” not only by the promise of a
buck in summer and a doe in winter by way of yearly fee, but by agreeing
to take “a reasonable quantity” of copies when the work was finished.
The “Mirrour of the World” was paid for by Hugh Brice, afterward Lord
Mayor of London. Whether William Pratt, who on his death-bed bade Caxton
publish the “Book of Good Manners,” or William Daubeney, Treasurer of the
King’s Jewels, who urged him to issue the “Charles the Great,” offered
any money help, we are not told. Caxton was probably a man of some wealth
when he began printing, and could doubtless afford to take his own risks;
but other printers were less fortunate, and references in colophons to
patrons, and to men of various ranks who gave commissions for books, are
sufficiently numerous. Thus at Pescia we find two brothers, Sebastian and
Raphael dei Orlandi, who subsidized works printed at two, if not three or
even four, different presses. Most of the books they helped to finance
were legal treatises, as for instance the Commentaries of Accoltus on
Acquiring Possession, printed by Franciscus and Laurentius de Cennis,
1486.
Finiunt Commentaria singularia et admiranda super titulo de
acquirenda possessione, quem titulum mirabiliter prefatus
dominus Franciscus novissime commentatus est in studio Pisano,
Anno Redentionis domini nostri Iesu cristi, M.cccc Lxxx. ultima
Iulii. Impressa vero Piscie et ex proprio auctoris exemplari
sumpta Anno M.cccc Lxxxvi. die Iovis. IIII. ianuarii. Impensis
nobilium iuvenum Bastiani et Raphaelis fratres [_sic_] filiorum
Ser Iacobi Gerardi de Orlandis de Piscia. Opera venerabilis
religiosi Presbiteri Laurentii et Francisci Fratrum et filiorum
Cennis Florentinorum ad gloriam omnipotentis Dei.
Here end the singular and wonderful Commentaries on the title
Of Acquiring Possession, which title the aforesaid Master
Franciscus lately lectured on marvellously in the University of
Pisa, in the year of the Redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ
1480, on the last day of July. Printed at Pescia and taken
from the author’s own copy, Thursday, January 4, 1486, at the
charges of the noble youths the brothers Bastian and Raphael,
sons of Ser Jacopo Gerardo dei Orlandi of Pescia, with the help
of the venerable religious priest Lorenzo de Cennis and Francis
his brother, Florentines, to the glory of Almighty God.
Another law-book was printed for them by the same firm also in 1486, and
three others in that year and in 1489 by firms not yet identified. But
their interests though mainly were not entirely legal, and in 1488, from
the press of Sigismund Rodt, there appeared an edition of Vegetius, in
the colophon to which their views on the physical degeneration question
of the day were very vigorously set forth.
Non sunt passi diutius situ et squalore delitescere illustrem
Vegetium De militari disciplina loquentem, uirum omni laude
dignissimum, ingenui adolescentes Sebastianus et Raphael de
Orlandis. Quem ob eam maxime causam imprimi curauerunt ut
et antique uirtutis exemplo Italici iuuenes, longa desidia
ignauiaque torpentes, tandem expergiscerentur: cum preter
singularem de arte doctrinam ita in omni genere uirtutum
consummatum iudicamus: ut non solum illius artis meditatione
tyro optimus miles fiat, sed omnis etas solertior, omnis
spiritus uigilantior omne denique humanum ingenium prestantius
efficiatur. Piscie, iiii Nonas Aprilis. M. cccc.lxxxviii.
Sigismondo Rodt de Bitsche operis architecto.
The noble youths Sebastian and Raphael dei Orlandi have not
suffered the illustrious Vegetius (a man most worthy of every
praise), in his speech On Military Discipline, any longer to
lurk in neglect and squalor. And especially for this cause they
have concerned themselves that he should be printed, that the
youths of Italy, drowsy with long sloth and cowardice, moved by
the example of ancient virtue, might at length awake, since,
besides his remarkable teaching on his art, we hold him so
perfect in virtues of every kind, that not only by meditating
on his art may a tyro become an excellent soldier, but that
every age may be made more expert, every spirit more watchful,
finally every human character more excellent. At Pescia, April
2d, 1488, Sigismund Rodt being the architect of the work.
Between 1471 and 1474 Ulrich Han printed a dozen or more books at Rome
with Simon Chardella, a merchant of Lucca, whose help, if we may trust
the colophon to the Commentary of Antonio de Butrio on the Decretals, was
given from the purest philanthropy.
Finis est huius secundi libri eximii ac celeberrimi utriusque
iuris doctoris domini Anthonii de Butrio super primo
decretalium in duobus voluminibus: quem quidem et nonnullos
diuersorum electorumque librorum a domino Vdalrico Gallo almano
feliciter impressos a prudenti equidem uiro Simone Nicholai
chardella de lucha merchatore fide dignissimo: sua facultate
cura diligentia amplexos: quia pauperum census diuitumque
auariciam miseratus, ab egregiis uero uiris emendatos, in lucem
reddidit anno salutis M.cccc.lxxiii. die xv nouembris III anno
pontificatus Sixti IV.
Here ends this second book of the distinguished and most
renowned doctor of both laws, Master Antonio de Butrio, on the
first of the Decretals, in two volumes. And this and some of
the divers selected books successfully printed by Master Ulrich
Han, a German, have been financed and diligently supervised,
in his compassion for the means of the poor and the avarice of
the rich, by the prudent Simone di Niccolo Chardella of Lucca,
a merchant of the highest credit; corrected by noble scholars
and published in the year of salvation 1473, on November 15th,
in the third year of the pontificate of Sixtus IV.
Single books, of course, were financed by people of many classes and
ranks, from kings, princesses, and archbishops down to the Spanish
bell-ringer who paid for a Lerida Breviary, as its colophon very
explicitly sets forth.
Breuiarii opus secundum Illerdensis ecclesie consuetudinem
ex noua regula editum clareque emendatum per dominum
Laurentium Fornes, virum doctum, eiusdem ecclesie presbiterum
succentoremque, prehabita tamen ab egregio Decano ceterisque
Canonicis eiusdem ecclesie licentia, Anthonius Palares
campanarum eiusdem ecclesie pulsator propriis expensis fieri
fecit. Impressitque venerabilis magister Henricus Botel de
Saxonia alamanus, vir eruditus, qui huic clarissimo operi in
urbe Illerde xvi Augusti anno incarnationis dominice millesimo
quadringentesimo lxxixº finem fecit. Amen.
A Breviary according to the use of the church of Lerida, edited
in accordance with the new rule and clearly corrected by Master
Lourenço Fornes, a man of learning, priest and sub-cantor of
the said church, with allowance previously obtained from the
illustrious Dean and the rest of the Canons, published at his
own cost by Antonio Palares the bell-ringer. Printed by the
venerable master Heinrich Botel, a German of Saxony, an erudite
man, who brought this glorious work to an end in the town of
Lerida on August 16th, in the year of the Lord’s incarnation
1479. Amen.
We might have imagined that, a bell-ringer being sometimes equivalent
to a sacristan, and the sacristan being often responsible for the
choir-books, the commission to print this Breviary was given by Palares
only in the name of the chapter. We are, however, so distinctly informed
that he caused the book to be printed “propriis expensis” (at his own
cost), that no such explanation is tenable, and we must imagine either
that the bell-ringer was actuated by very creditable motives, or else
that he saw his way to dispose of the books. On either view of the case,
this bell-ringer’s edition may, perhaps, rank for strangeness with that
of the poems of Gasparo Visconti, printed to the number of a thousand
copies by Franciscus Corniger, a Milanese poet, to whom he presumably
stood in the relation of a patron.
[Illustration: Gasparo Visconti. Rithmi. Milan: Ant. Zarotus,
1493.]
Ne elegantissimi operis lepos mellifluus temporis edacis
iniuria tibi, lector optime, aliquando periret, aut
illustrissimi auctoris inclyta memoria aeuo obliteraretur,
ne etiam posteritas, hac delectatione defraudata, cupidineis
lusibus careret, Franciscus Tantius Corniger, poeta
Mediolanensis, hos rithmos Gasparis Vicecomitis lingua
uernacula compositos, quanquam inuito domino, in mille exempla
imprimi iussit, Mediolani anno a salutifero Virginis partu
M.cccc.lxxxxiii. Quarto Calendas Martias. Finis.
Lest to your loss, excellent reader, the honeyed grace of a
most elegant book should some day perish by the wrongs of
devouring time, or the noble memory of the most illustrious
author be blotted out by age, lest also posterity, defrauded
of their pleasure, should lack amorous toys, Franciscus
Tantius Corniger, a Milanese poet, ordered these Rhythms
of Gasparo Visconti, written in the vernacular tongue, to
be printed, against their master’s will, in an edition of
a thousand copies, at Milan, in the year from the Virgin’s
salvation-bringing delivery 1493, on February 26th. Finis.
No doubt Gasparo Visconti duly repaid the admiration thus shown for his
poems; but though the admiring friend or patron was not without his uses
in the fifteenth century, and even now is occasionally indispensable,
when all is said and done the success of a book depends on the reception
it meets from an unbiased public, and it is to the public, therefore,
that its appeal must finally be made. Colophons recognize this in
different ways—sometimes, as we have seen, by praising the book,
sometimes by drawing attention to its cheapness, very often by the care
with which they give the exact address of the publisher at whose shop
it can be bought. Vérard’s colophons are particularly notable in this
respect. What could be more precise than the oft-repeated directions
which we may quote from his edition of “Le Journal Spirituel” because of
the careful arrangement of its lines?
[Illustration: Journal Spirituel. Paris: Vérard, 1505.]
Cy finist le Journal spirituel Imprime a paris
pour honnorable homme Anthoine Verard
bourgoys marchant et libraire demorant
a paris deuant la Rue neufue
notre dame a lymage sainct
Jehan leuangeliste
ou au palais deuant la cha-
pelle ou lon chante la messe de mes-
seigneurs les presidentz. Lan mil cinq
cens et cinq le seziesme iour de decembre.
Here ends the Spiritual Journal printed at Paris
for an estimable man Antoine Vérard
burgess, shopkeeper, and bookseller dwelling
at Paris before the New Street
of Our Lady at the image of Saint
John the Evangelist
or at the palace before the cha-
pel where is chanted the Mass of the Lords
Presidents. In the year one thousand five
hundred and five, the sixteenth day of December.
Occasionally a verse colophon would be employed to tempt a purchaser to
come to the publisher’s shop, as in the case of the French translation of
the “Ship of Fools” by Jodocus Badius from the German of Sebastian Brant,
printed by Geoffroy de Marnef in 1497. This ends: