Comment on peut en ce monde bien vivre
Et mal laisser: approchez, venez veoir
Et visiter ce present joyeux livre.
A tous estats bonne doctrine il livre
Notant les maux et vices des mondains.
Venez y tous et ne faictes dedains
Du dit livre nomme Des Fols la Nef
Si vous voulez vous en trouuerez maints
Au Pellican cheux Geoffroy de Marnef.
Mortal men who fain would know
How well to live in this world below,
And evil quit: come hither, see,
And with this book acquainted be.
To each estate good rede it gives,
Notes all the evils in men’s lives.
Come hither, all, and think no shame
Of this said book, which has to name
The Ship of Fools.
You’ll find good store if in you’ll drop
At honest Geoffroy Marnef’s shop,
Where the Pelican rules.
As to advertisements of cheapness, in addition to instances already
incidentally noted we may take as our example another colophon partly
in verse—that to the edition of the “Liber cibalis et medicinalis
pandectarum” of Matthaeus Silvaticus printed at Naples by Arnold of
Brussels in 1474.
Explicit liber Pandectarum quem Angelus Cato Supinas de
Beneuento philosophus et medicus magna cum diligentia et
emendate imprimendum curauit, et in clarissima et nobilissima
atque praestantissima dulcissimaque ciuitate Neapoli, regum,
ducum, procerumque matre, prima Aprilis M.cccc.Lxxiiii. Idcirco
excelso deo gratias agamus.
Noscere qui causas et certa uocabula rerum
Et medicas artes per breue queris iter,
Me lege: nec multo mercaberis: Angelus en me
Sic et diuitibus pauperibusque parat.
Cui tantum me nunc fas est debere, Salernum,
Urbs debet quantum, patria terra, mihi.
Here ends the book of the Pandects which Angelus Cato Supinas
of Benevento, a philosopher and physician, has procured to
be printed, with great diligence and correctly, in the most
illustrious, most noble, most excellent, and most delightful
city of Naples, mother of kings, dukes, and nobles, April 1,
1474. For which cause let us give thanks to God on high.
Who’d quickly learn each ill to diagnose,
The terms of art and all a doctor knows,
Let him read me, nor will the cost be great,
My Angel editor asks no monstrous rate.
To whom, Salernum, I as great thanks owe
As thou upon thy offspring canst bestow.
No doubt in this instance the book was much obliged to its editor for
his care in revising it, and the great medical school of Salerno might
justly be expected to be grateful for the publication of an important
medical work: the trouble of the situation was that there were so many of
these not wholly disinterested benefactors in the field at the same time.
Editions, it is true, were mostly small, owing to the slowness of the
presswork; and, no doubt, each several printer reckoned that he had all
literary Europe for his market. But when Rome was vying with Venice, and
the rest of Italy with both, and almost every important press was turning
out classical editions, the market quickly became overstocked, and great
printers like Wendelin of Speier at Venice and Sweynheym and Pannartz at
Rome found that they had burnt their fingers. Hence a commercial motive
reinforced that natural self-esteem which still causes every editor to
assume that his method of crossing a _t_ or dotting an _i_ gives his
edition a manifest superiority over every other. In the next chapter we
shall see how editors persistently depreciated their predecessors; but
we may note here how, even when he had Chardella to help his finances,
Ulrich Han could not help girding at rival firms. Thus in his edition of
the Decretals of Gregory IX he bids his readers buy his own text with a
light heart and reckon its rivals at a straw’s value.
Finiunt decretales correctissime: impresse alma urbe Roma
totius mundi regina per egregios uiros magistrum Udalricum
Gallum Alamanum et Symonem Nicolai de Luca: cum glosis
ordinariis Bernardi Parmensis et additionibus suis: que paucis
in libris habentur: summa diligentia et impresse ac correcte.
Quas, emptor, securo animo eme. Talia siquidem in hoc uolumine
reperies ut merito alias impressiones faciliter floccipendes.
Anno domini M.cccc.Lxxiiii. die xx mensis Septembris,
Pontificatus uero Sixti diuina prouidentia Pape quarti anno
quarto.
Here end the Decretals, most correctly printed in the bounteous
city of Rome, queen of the whole world, by those excellent
men Master Ulrich Han, a German, and Simon di Niccolo of
Lucca: with the ordinary glosses of Bernard of Parma and
his additions, which are found in few copies; both printed
and corrected with the greatest diligence. Purchase these,
book-buyer, with a light heart, for you will find such
excellence in this volume that you will be right in easily
reckoning other editions as worth no more than a straw. In the
year of our Lord 1474, September 20, in the fourth year of the
Pontificate of Sixtus IV, by divine providence Pope.
If Han relied on the superiority of his work to defeat his rivals, other
publishers preferred to have the advantage of coming earlier to market,
and we find Stephanus Corallus, at Parma, actually apologizing with a
very vivid metaphor for misprints in his edition of the “Achilleis”
of Statius on the ground that he had rushed it through the press to
forestall rivals. Of course, the rivals were envious and malevolent,—that
might be taken for granted,—but the assumption that a purchaser was to
acquiesce in bad work in order that Corallus might hurry his book out
quickly only for his own profit was merely impudent.
[Illustration: Statius. Achilleis. Parma: Steph. Corallus,
1473.]
Si quas, optime lector, hoc in opere lituras inueneris nasum
ponito; nam Stephanus Corallus Lugdunensis inuidorum quorundam
maliuolentia lacessitus, qui idem imprimere tentarunt, citius
quam asparagi coquantur id absoluit, ac summo studio emendatum
literarum studiosis legendum tradidit Parme M.cccc.lxxiii. x
Cal. April.
Should you find any blots in this work, excellent reader, lay
scorn aside; for Stephanus Corallus of Lyons, provoked by
the ill will of certain envious folk who tried to print the
same book, finished it more quickly than asparagus is cooked,
corrected it with the utmost zeal, and published it, for
students of literature to read, at Parma, March 23, 1473.
When publishers were as ready as this to forestall each other, a cry
for some kind of regulation of the industry was sure to be raised, and
at Venice, the greatest book-mart in the world, regulation came in
the form of the privilege and spread thence to various countries of
Europe. I do not at all agree with the opinion which Mr. Gordon Duff
has expressed so strongly, that the power of freely importing books
given by Richard III was by any means an unmixed blessing, or that its
revocation by Henry VIII fifty years later had disastrous effects on
English printing. Printing started late in England and was handicapped by
the impoverishment wrought by the Wars of the Roses. The facility with
which all learned books were supplied from abroad quickened the growth
of English learning, but restricted the English printers to printing
and reprinting a few vernacular books of some literary pretensions and
an endless stream of works of popular devotion and catch-penny trifles.
Neither Oxford nor Cambridge could support a permanent printer, and
English scholars were obliged to have their books printed abroad.
Nevertheless, free trade, however hardly it might press on a backward
industry, was infinitely better than the privilege system, which was
altogether haphazard and liable to gross abuse. For the story of its
introduction and development at Venice, the reader must be referred to
Mr. Horatio Brown’s “The Venetian Printing Press” (Nimmo, 1891), a book
which leaves a good deal to be desired on its purely typographical side,
but which is quite admirable as regards the regulation of the industry.
Our concern here is only with the privileges in so far as they make
their appearance in colophons. The earliest colophon in which I have
found allusion to them is six years later than the first grant which Mr.
Brown records, that to Marc’ Antonio Sabellico in September, 1486, for
his “Decades rerum Venetarum,” printed by Andrea de Torresani in 1487
(Hain *14053). By 1492 the system must have been in full swing, as is
shown by this colophon to the “Liber Regalis” of Albohazen Haly, printed
by Bernardinus Ricius:
Impressum Venetiis die 25 Septembris, 1492, opera Bernardini
Ricii de Nouaria, impensa vero excellentissimi artium et
medicine doctoris domini magistri Ioannis dominici de Nigro,
qui obtinuit ex speciali gratia ab illustrissimo ducali
dominio Venetorum Quod nemini, quicumque fuerit, liceat tam
Venetiis quam in universa ditione Veneto dominio subiecta,
imprimere seu imprimi facere hunc librum, aut alibi impressum
in predicta ditione vendere, per X annos, sub pena immediate et
irremissibilis omnium librorum, et librarum quinquaginta pro
quolibet volumine. Que quidem pena applicetur recuperationi
Montis Noui.
Printed at Venice on September 25, 1492, by the pains of
Bernardinus Ricius of Novara, at the expense of the most
excellent doctor of arts and medicine, Master Giovanni
Dominico di Nigro, who obtained, by special grace, from the
most illustrious dogal government of the Venetians that no
one soever should be allowed, either at Venice or in the
entire dominion subject to the Venetian government, himself to
print this book or cause it to be printed, or to sell in the
aforesaid dominion a copy printed elsewhere, for ten years,
under the penalty of the immediate and irremissible forfeiture
of all the books, and a fine of fifty lire for any volume, the
penalty to be applied to the restoration of the Monte Novo.
The three points as to the duration of the privilege, the amount of the
fine, and the charity to which it was to be applied are here stated
quite plainly, but many publishers preferred to leave the amount of the
penalty mysterious by substituting a reference to the grace itself, as
for instance is the case in the edition of Hugo de S. Caro’s “Postilla
super Psalterium,” printed by the brothers Gregorii in 1496.
Et sic est finis huius utilis et suauis postille super totum
psalterium. Impressa autem fuit Venetiis per Iohannem et
Gregorium de Gregoriis fratres, impensis Stefani et Bernardini
de Nallis fratrum, suasu reuerendissimi patris et predicatoris
egregii fratris Dominici Ponzoni. Habita tamen gratia ab
excelso Venetorum dominio ne quis per decennium primum
imprimere possit aut imprimi facere seu alibi impressam vendere
per totum dominium &c. sub penis &c. prout in ipsa gratia
plenius continetur. Completa uero fuit die 12 Nouembris, 1496.
Thus ends this useful and delightful lecture on the whole
Psalter. And it was printed at Venice by the brothers Giovanni
and Gregorio dei Gregorii, at the expense of the brothers
Stefano and Bernardino dei Nalli, on the persuasion of the
most reverend father and preacher, the noble brother Dominico
Ponzoni. Grace was granted by the exalted government of the
Venetians that no one for the first ten years should print it,
or cause it to be printed, or sell a copy printed elsewhere,
throughout the whole dominion, &c., under penalty, &c., as is
more fully contained in the grace itself. And it was finished
on November 12, 1496.
The Gregorii followed the same course, in their 1498 edition of S.
Jerome’s Commentary on the Bible, a work (rather condescendingly praised
by the printers) which it is amazing to find on the privileged list at
all.
Habes itaque, studiosissime lector, Ioannis et Graegorii de
Gregoriis fretus officio, ea nouiter impraessa commentaria:
Vnde totius ueteris et noui testamenti ueritatem rectumque
sensum quam facillime appraehendere possis: quae si tuae
omnino bibliotecae ascripseris magnam consequeris uoluptatem,
maioresque in dies fructus suscipies. Venetiis per praefatos
fratres Ioannem et Gregorium de Gregoriis, Anno domini 1498,
die 25 Augusti. Cum priuilegio quod nullus citra decem annos ea
imprimere ualeat nec alibi impressa in terras excellentissimo
uenetorum dominio subditas uenalia afferre possit sub poenis in
ipso contentis.
Thus you have, most studious reader, thanks to the good offices
of Giovanni and Gregorio dei Gregorii, these commentaries
newly printed, whence you can very easily apprehend the truth
and right meaning of all the Old and New Testament, and by
adding these to your library you will obtain a great pleasure
and receive daily greater profit. At Venice by the aforesaid
brothers Giovanni and Gregorio dei Gregorii. With a privilege
that no one within ten years may print them or bring for sale
copies printed elsewhere into territories subject to the most
excellent government of the Venetians, under the penalties
therein contained.
The instances we have quoted so far are of references in colophons to
privileges granted to the printer-publishers. They were granted also
(as in the case of Sabellico) to authors, and from his translation of
Seneca’s plays we learn that Evangelio Fossa obtained from the Senate
protection for all his writings.
Finisse la nona Tragedia di Senecha ditta Agamemnone in uulgare
composta per el uenerabile Frate Euangelista Fossa da Cremona.
Impressa in Venesia per Maestro piero bergamascho a le spese de
zuan antonio de Monsera. Nel anno M.cccc.lxxxxvii. adi xxviii
zenaro. El Venerabile Frate Euangelista Fossa compositore de la
presente opera a Impetrado gratia che nesuno possa imprimere
ne far imprimere opera chel compona hic per anni x. poi che la
hara data fora, sotto pena da ducati x. per ogni uolume come
apare nella gratia. Amen.
Here ends the ninth Tragedy of Seneca, called Agamemnon,
composed in the vulgar tongue by the venerable Brother
Evangelista Fossa of Cremona. Printed in Venice by Master Piero
Bergamascho at the expense of Juan Antonio of Monsera. In the
year 1497 on the twenty-eighth day of January. The venerable
Brother Evangelista Fossa, the composer of the present work,
has obtained a grace that no one may print or cause to be
printed a work of his composition for ten years after his
publication of it, under penalty of ten ducats for every
volume, as appears in the grace. Amen.
Privileges were obtainable not only by publishers in Venice itself, but
also by those in the towns under Venetian rule, and the two following
examples are taken respectively from a Quadragesimale printed by Angelus
Britannicus at Brescia in 1497, and a Martianus Capella printed by
Henricus de Sancto Urso at Vicenza in 1499.
Explicit quadragesimale quod dicitur lima vitiorum. Diuino huic
operi Angelus Britannicus ciuis Brixianus optimo fauente deo:
eiusque genetrice Maria: finem optatum imposuit: cuius fidem
solertiamque principes veneti charipendentes: ne quis alius
opus ipsum infra sex annos imprimat: aut impressum vendat in
ditione sua: preter ipsius angeli nutum: Senatusconsulto pena
promulgata cauerunt: anno domini M.cccc.lxxxxvii. die xviii
Aprilis.
Here ends the Quadragesimal which is called the File of Vices.
To this divine work by the favor of God the Most High, and
of his Mother Mary, the desired end has been put by Angelo
Britannico, a citizen of Brescia, whose loyalty and skill the
Venetian princes held so dear that by a decree of the Senate
and by the promulgation of a penalty they gave warning that
no one else should print this work within six years, or sell
it, if printed elsewhere, in their dominion, against the will
of the said Angelo. In the year of the Lord 1497, on the
eighteenth day of April.
Martiani Capellae Liber finit: Impressus Vicentiae Anno Salutis
M.cccc.xcix. xvii Kalendas Ianuarias per Henricum de Sancto
Vrso. Cum gratia et priuilegio decem annorum: ne imprimatur
neque cum commentariis: neque sine: & cetera: quae in ipso
priuilegio continentur. Laus deo & beatae Virgini.
Here ends the book of Martianus Capella, printed at Vicenza in
the year of salvation 1499, on December 16th, by Henricus de
Sancto Urso. With a grace and privilege for ten years, that it
be not printed either with commentaries or without, and the
other particulars which are contained in the privilege itself.
Praise be to God and the Blessed Virgin.
As publishers went on applying for these privileges, it is to be
presumed that they found them profitable; but they were certainly
sometimes contravened, and the fines do not appear to have been enforced.
Nevertheless they soon spread beyond the Venetian dominions. Thus in
1496, for instance, we find Scinzenzeler obtaining one at Milan, and
warning other booksellers, with effusive friendliness, not to incur these
dreadful penalties by ignorant piracy.
Famosissimi iureconsulti Francisci Curtii ex proprio
exemplari exceptum Consiliorum volumen primum per Iohannem
Vinzalium Turrianum summa cum diligentia reuisum, ac
Ulderici Scinzenzeler artificio operoso impressum Mediolani
M.cccc.lxxxxvi die xx Decembris.
Ne in penam non paruam imprudenter incurras, O bibliopola
au[i]dissime, scias obtentum esse ab Illustrissimo et
Sapientissimo Mediolani principe rescriptum ne Curtiana
Consilia ad decimum usque annum, aut imprimi possint, aut
alibi impressa importari venalia in eius districtum sub poena
indignationis Caesaree et eris in eo contenta. Itaque ne
ignarus erres te admonitum esse voluit Iohannes Vinzalius.
[Illustration: Franciscus Curtius. Consilia. Milan: U.
Scinzenzeler, 1496.]
The first volume of the Opinions of the most famous jurist
Franciscus Curtius, taken from his own copy, revised with the
greatest diligence by Giovanni Vinzalio Turriano, and by the
busy skill of Ulrich Scinzenzeler printed at Milan on December
20, 1496. To save you from rashly incurring no small penalty,
most greedy bookseller, you are to know that a decree has
been obtained from the most illustrious and most wise prince
of Milan, that until the tenth year from now no copies of the
Opinions of Curtius may be printed, or if printed elsewhere
may be imported for sale into his district, under the penalty
of his royal indignation and a fine, as there expressed.
Therefore, lest you should err in ignorance, Giovanni Vinzalio
wished you to be informed.
Without attempting to follow the subject of Privileges all over Europe,
it may be worth while to note a few other instances of them in different
countries. Thus they begin to make their appearance in Vérard’s colophons
at Paris in 1508, the earliest I can find set forth in Mr. Macfarlane’s
Bibliography being that in the “Epistres Saint Pol” of 17th January of
that year, called 1507 because of the Paris custom of reckoning from
Easter. This reads:
Ce present liure a este acheue dimprimer par ledit Verard le
xviiᵉ iour de ianuier mil cinq cens et sept. Et a le roy nostre
sire donne audit Verard lectres de priuilege et terme de trois
ans pour vendre et distribuer ledit pour soy rembourser des
fraiz et mises par luy faictes. Et deffend le roy nostredit
seigneur a tous inprimeurs libraires et autres du royaulme de
france de non imprimer ledit liure de trois ans sur paine de
confiscation desditz liures.
This present book has been finished printing by the said Vérard
the 17th day of January, 1507. And the king our master has
given to the said Vérard letters of privilege and a term of
three years to sell and distribute the said book to recoup
himself for the costs and charges he has been at. And the king
our said lord forbids all printers, booksellers, and others of
the kingdom of France to print the said book under pain of the
confiscation of the copies.
From this date onwards an allusion to a privilege is found in most
of Vérard’s books, but it will be noted that its term is the very
moderate one of three years. In England, in the earliest instance I have
noted,—Pynson’s edition of the Oration of Richard Pace in 1518,—it is
shorter still. The colophon here reads:
Impressa Londini anno verbi incarnati M.D.xviii. idibus
Nouembris per Richardum Pynson regium impressorem, cum
priuilegio a rege indulto, ne quis hanc orationem intra
biennium in regno Angliae imprimat aut alibi impressam et
importatam in eodem regno Angliae vendat.
Printed at London in the year of the Incarnate Word 1518, on
November 13th, by Richard Pynson, the royal printer, with a
privilege granted by the king that no one is to print this
speech within two years in the kingdom of England, or to sell
it, if printed elsewhere and imported, in the same kingdom of
England.
Herbert notes of this book, “this is the first dated book, wholly in the
Roman or white letter, that I have seen of his [Pynson’s] printing, or
indeed printed in England.” The foreign custom of privileges seems to
have made its appearance with the foreign type.
In Spain the duration of the earliest privilege I have found (in an
edition of the “Capitulos de governadores” printed in June, 1500, with
the types of Pegnitzer and Herbst of Seville) is the same as in those
granted to Vérard in France, and the benevolent Spanish government
accompanies it by a stipulation as to the price to be charged to
purchasers.
Por quanto maestre Garcia de la Torre librero vezino de Toledo
& Alonso Lorenço librero vezino de Seuilla se obligaron de dar
los dichos capitulos a precio de xvi [_sic_] mrs: manda su
alteza & los del su muy alto consejo que ninguno no sea osado
de los empremir ni vender en todos sus reynos & señorios desde
el dia dela fecha destos capitulos fasta tres años primeros
siguientes sin licencia d’los dichos maestre Garcia de la Torre
& Alonso Lorenço libreros: so pena que el que los emprimiere
[o] vendiere sin su licencia pague diez mill marauedis para la
camara de sus altezas.
Forasmuch as Master Garcia de la Torre, bookseller, of Toledo,
and Alonso Lorenço, bookseller, of Seville, bind themselves to
offer the said Ordinances at the price of sixteen maravedis,
His Highness, with those of his illustrious Council, commands
that no one presume to print nor to sell copies in all his
kingdoms and dominions from the day of the ratification of the
said Ordinances for the first three years following, without
the license of the said Master Garcia de la Torre and Alonso
Lorenço, booksellers, under penalty that the unlicensed printer
or vendor shall pay ten thousand maravedis for the Chamber of
their Highnesses.
In Germany, on the other hand, the longer period favored in Italy seems
to have been adopted. Here the earliest privileges I have come across are
those granted to the Sodalitas Celtica of Nuremberg—_i.e._, to Conrad
Celtes and his partners or friends—for printing books in which he was
interested. In the first of these privileges—that for the Comedies of
the nun Hroswitha—the period for which it held good is not specified;[9]
but in that granted to Celtes in the following year for his own “Quatuor
Libri Amorum” it is distinctly stated, “ut nullus haec in decem annis in
Imperii urbibus imprimat”; _i.e._, that under the terms of the privilege
no one might print the book in any town of the Empire for ten years.
The instances of privileges here quoted may not be the very earliest in
their several countries, but they at least show how quickly the demand
for this form of protection spread from one country of Europe to another.
It seems to me a little remarkable that while publishers were at the
pains to obtain such legal monopolies (which presumably cost money),
and advertised all the other attractions of their books so freely, they
should have said so little about the illustrations which often form so
pleasant a feature in the editions of this period. In the colophon, as on
the title-page, of the “Meditationes” of Cardinal Turrecremata printed by
Ulrich Han at Rome we are informed where the woodcuts were copied from:
Contemplaciones deuotissime per reuerendissimum dominum dominum
Iohannem de Turrecremata cardinalem quondam Sancti Sixti edite,
atque in parietibus circuitus Marie Minerue nedum litterarum
caracteribus verum eciam ymaginum figuris ornatissime descripte
atque depicte, feliciter finiunt Anno salutis M.cccc.lxxii.
die uero uigesima quarta mensis decembris sedente Sixto quarta
[_sic_] pontifice magno, etc.