producer and master of this volume of the printing art, learn
that the craftsman’s name is Master Jan Veldener. Your eyes
will tell you what industry he possesses, how sure his hand
in cutting, engraving, pressing and stamping, add also in
designing and fashioning and whatever secret in the art is more
closely hid; how keen-eyed, again, is the diligence of his
trusty comrades, so that the shapes of all the letters are
pleasantly clear and harmonious, hanging together, with all
faults corrected, in a delightful mass, and with such skilful
arrangement that the parts are in agreement both with each
other and with their whole, so that both by choice of material
and splendor of form everything is strikingly distinct, while
by his method of inking and joining the letters there is a
great increase in the charm of beautiful polish and shining
clearness. All this the appearance of the book sufficiently
shows, and the multiplying of this in a mass of great number
by the gentle spreading of ink, leaving the pen despised, the
first day of April, 1476, began, and the last completed. Should
you have been anxious to find this master of the commemorated
art in this aforesaid month of April, you could easily have
found him at Louvain, with leisure for printing, on Flint-hill.
This I am anxious to say lest, if haply you are in doubt, you
should remain ignorant of the fact. “Where he works there will
be his wealth,” says Ovid. There also he lives so content with
his lot and craft, under such happy auspices, and with so much
favor of fortune, that I cannot be induced to believe that any
impulse to depart, or even to think about it, can have come
to him. I would also add that by which you may recognize what
you will be able to do as well as what you could have done.
Farewell.
As Veldener’s device is here added, the meaning of the last cryptic
sentence appears to be either that authors with books to print who had
not found his shop in April might find it by its sign in May, or that
readers would be able to recognize the printer’s handiwork in the future
books they would have a chance of purchasing, as well as in those already
sold out. What Conrad of Westphalia made of it is doubtful, since,
without affixing his own mark, he cribbed this sentence with all the rest
of the colophon, only substituting his own name and address (“in platea
Sancti Quintini”—“in St. Quentin’s Street”) for Veldener’s, altering the
date of the inception of the book from April to December, and saying
nothing as to when it was completed. A more disgraceful trick for one
printer to play another living in the same town can hardly be imagined,
and Holtrop may be right in considering it a deliberate attempt to annoy
Veldener and the cause of his leaving Louvain the next year. Strange to
say, however, the history of the colophon does not stop here. M. Claudin
has shown, in the first volume of his “Histoire de l’imprimerie en
France,” that a copy of Maneken’s “Formulae” exists printed in the types
of Guillaume Balsarin of Lyons, but with the name of the Paris printer
Caesaris substituted for that of Veldener in the colophon. It is clear,
therefore, that in an edition now lost to us Caesaris must have played
Veldener the same trick as Conrad of Westphalia had already played him,
and that this Paris edition must have been reprinted by Balsarin at Lyons
without troubling to alter the colophon. Truly there are pitfalls for the
unwary in dealing with early books!
Perhaps one reason why colophons were sometimes reprinted as they stood
was that a printer without a scholarly “corrector” to aid him had a
wholesome dread of plunging into the middle of a Latin sentence. Those
who rushed in hastily sometimes left very obvious footprints in the wrong
places. Thus Ulrich Han, in printing from one of Schoeffer’s editions
of the “Liber sextus decretalium,” changed his well-known “Alma in
urbe Maguntina inclyte nacionis germanice quam dei clemencia tam alti
ingenii lumine donoque gratuito ceteris terrarum nacionibus preferre
illustrareque dignatus est” (see Chapter II), into “Alma in urbe Roma
Totius mundi regina et dignissima Imperatrix [_sic_] que sicut pre
ceteris urbibus dignitate preest ita ingeniosis uiris est referta.”
To call Rome “the Queen and most worthy Empress of all the world, which,
as it takes precedence of all other cities in dignity, so is it filled
with men of wit,” was quite a pleasing variation on Schoeffer’s tune.
Unluckily Han did not note that his Queen and Empress ought to be in
the ablative, and thus printed “Imperatrix” instead of “Imperatrice.”
So again, when we look at the colophon to the third and fourth parts of
the “Speculum” of Durandus printed at Venice in 1488, we find reason for
suspicion:
Explicit tertia et quarta pars Speculi Guilhelmi Duranti
cum additionibus Ioannis Andree et Baldi suis in locis
ubique positis. Impressa Venetiis per Magistrum Paganinum de
Paganinis Brixiensis, ac Georgium de Arriuabene de Caneto qui
salua omnium pace est inter ceteros amandus ac uenerandus
propter ipsius in hac arte curam in corrigendis operibus ac
in imprimendo charactere. Anno domini M.cccc.lxxxviii. vi die
Septembris.
Here ends the third and fourth part of the Speculum of
Gulielmus Durandus, with the additions of Joannes Andreae and
Baldus inserted everywhere in their proper places. Printed
at Venice by Master Paganinus de Paganinis of Brescia, and
Georgius de Arrivabene de Caneto, who, with due respect to
every one, is, among all others, to be loved and revered for
his care in this art both in correcting works and in printing
them in type. In the year of our Lord 1488, on September 6th.
The slip of “Brixiensis” for “Brixiensem” is not reproducible in English,
but the reader who notes how the two partners are treated as singular
instead of plural will easily see that this colophon could not have
been written for them. It appears, indeed, to have been borrowed from
Bernardinus de Tridino.
Sometimes the inaccuracies introduced are not of a merely verbal kind.
Thus at the end of an edition of the “Fasciculus Temporum” printed by
Heinrich Wirzburg at the Cluniac monastery at Rougemont in 1481 we have
the following colophon:
Chronica que dicitur fasciculus temporum edita in alma
Universitate Colonie Agrippinae super Renum, a quodam deuoto
Cartusiensi finit feliciter. Sepius quidem iam impressa sed
negligentia Correctorum in diuersis locis a uero originali
minus iuste emendata. Nunc uero non sine magno labore ad
pristinum statum reducta cum quibusdam additionibus per humilem
uirum fratrem Heinricum Wirczburg de Vach, monachum in prioratu
Rubei Montis, ordinis cluniacensis, sub Lodouico Gruerie comite
magnifico anno domini M.cccc.lxxxi. Et anno precedenti fuerunt
aquarum inundationes maxime, ventusque [_sic_] horribiles multa
edificia subuertentes.
The Chronicle which is called Fasciculus Temporum, set forth
in the bountiful University of Cologne on the Rhine by a
certain devout Carthusian, ends happily. Often enough has it
been printed already, but by the carelessness of correctors
in various places it has not been amended as justly as it
ought from the true original. Now, however, not without great
labor, it has been restored to its pristine state, with certain
additions, by a humble brother, Heinrich Wirzburg of Vach, a
monk in the priory of Rougemont, of the Cluniac order, under
Count Lodovico Gruerie the Magnificent, in the year of the Lord
1481. And in the preceding year there were the greatest floods
and horrible winds, overthrowing many buildings.
Save that he substituted the address, “by the humble Bernhard Richel,
citizen of Basel, in the year of the Lord 1482, on February 20,” this
colophon was taken over in its entirety the following year by Richel. To
us, until we compare it with the Rougemont version, there may seem no
reason for suspicion. But if any one in those days remembered that the
year of the great floods was 1480, and not 1481, his doubts may easily
have been awakened. A Genevese printer was much more wise, for, while he
doubtless kept the Rougemont colophon in his mind, he adapted its local
coloring very skilfully, informing us that the book was:
Imprime a Genesue lan mille cccc.xcv auquel an fist si tres
grand vent le ix iour de ianuier qu’il fit remonter le Rosne
dedans le lac bien ung quart de lieue au-dedans de Geneue.
Printed at Geneva the year 1495, in which year there was so
great wind on January 9th that it made the Rhone mount back
into the lake a full quarter of a league above Geneva.
Even when a colophon was in verse it was not safe from emendation,
for when Giovanni da Reno of Vicenza in 1478 reprinted the Valdarfer
Boccaccio we find him substituting for the line and a half, “Christofal
Valdarfer Indi minprese Che naque in Ratispona,” the variant, “Giovanne
da Reno quindi minprese Cum mirabile stampa.”
For other instances of more than one printer following the same leader we
may note how Koberger in 1496, and Pierre Levet in 1497, both adopt the
colophon[11] of the 1485 Cologne edition of the “Destructorium Vitiorum,”
with its curious phrase “ad laudem summe Monadis”; how Han in his
editions of the Clementine Constitutions in 1473 and 1476, and Wenssler
in those of 1476 and 1478, copy the colophon of Schoeffer’s editions,
substituting the praises of Rome and Basel for those of Mainz; and how in
editions of the Gregorian Decretals Paganinus de Paganinis in 1489, and
Johann Hamann de Landoia in 1491, adopted the favorite tag of Jenson and
John of Cologne:
Qui non tantum summam curam adhibuere ut sint hec et sua queque
sine uicio et menda, uerum etiam ut bene sint elaborata atque
iucundissimo litterarum caractere confecta: ut unicuique et
prodesse et oblectare possint.
Who not only have taken the greatest pains that these and all
their works may be free from fault and blot, but also that they
may be well finished off and composed with the most pleasing
type, so that they may at once profit and delight every one.
Not to be able to boast with originality is sad indeed, but to the
students of early types and of the manners of the men who used them these
traces of borrowing may at any point of an investigation prove useful.
A printer who borrowed the wording of a colophon probably borrowed
something else as well. In most cases this was the text, with which
students of early printing seldom concern themselves as much as they
should, but sometimes also typographical peculiarities which may be worth
some attention.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VIII
DATES IN COLOPHONS
Dates form such an important feature in colophons that this essay cannot
be brought to a close without some attempt to explain the difficulties
which arise in connection with them. As regards the method of expressing
the year there is very little to say. Theodoric Rood (see page 61)
preferred to speak of 1485 as the 297th Olympiad from the birth of
Christ, being under the impression that Olympiads consisted of five
years instead of four. Other printers showed great ingenuity in finding
elaborate synonyms for what we are now content to express in the two
words “Anno Domini,” and among other phrases employed “Olympiades
Dominicae” (see page 79), but without any attempt to introduce the
intervals between the Olympic Games into the Christian reckoning.
As an additional method of dating we occasionally find a reference to
the year of the indiction, a method of dating by cycles of fifteen years,
instituted by the Emperor Constantine in 312. To find the indictional
year, 312 must be subtracted from the year of the Lord (the same
results will be obtained by adding 3), and then after dividing by 15,
the remainder will give the number of the year in the indiction. Thus
(1488-312)/15 or (1488+3)/15 in each case leaves a remainder of six, and
A.D. 1488 was thus the sixth indiction.
According to different methods of reckoning, indictions began in
September or October, at Christmas or on January 1st. In colophons,
I believe, they are always used in conjunction with years of the
Lord reckoned from January 1st, and they have only the effect of a
chronological flourish.
A much more important supplementary method of dating is that by the
names of ruling popes, emperors, sovereigns, or princes, or still better
by their regnal years. I have long cherished an ambition to compile
a kind of “Bibliographer’s Vade-mecum,” one section of which would
be devoted to exhaustive lists of the smaller as well as the greater
sovereigns of Europe during the period when their names in old books are
of chronological value. Here, however, it must suffice to offer lists of
popes, kings of England and France, and doges of Venice, for the periods
which concern us, and to use these as illustrations of the way in which
such information can be brought to bear on the dating of early books.
POPES
Pius II. 19 Aug. 1458 - 15 Aug. 1464.
Paul II. 31 Aug. 1464 - 28 July 1471.
Sixtus IV. 9 Aug. 1471 - 13 Aug. 1484.
Innocent VIII. 29 Aug. 1484 - 25 July 1492.
Alexander VI. 11 Aug. 1492 - 18 Aug. 1503.
Pius III. 22 Sept. 1503 - 18 Oct. 1503.
Julius II. 1 Nov. 1503 - 21 Feb. 1513.
Leo X. 11 March 1513 - 1 Dec. 1521.
Adrian VI. 2 Jan. 1522 - 24 Sept. 1523.
Clement VII. 19 Nov. 1523 - 26 Sept. 1534.
KINGS OF ENGLAND
Edward IV. 4 March 1461 - 9 April 1483.
Edward V. 9 April 1483 - 22 June 1483.
Richard III. 26 June 1483 - 22 Aug. 1485.
Henry VII. 22 Aug. 1485 - 21 April 1509.
Henry VIII. 22 April 1509 - 28 Jan. 1547.
Edward VI. 28 Jan. 1547 - 6 July 1553.
Mary, 6 July 1553 - 24 July 1554.
Philip and Mary,[12] 25 July 1554 - 17 Nov. 1558.
Elizabeth, 17 Nov. 1558 - 24 March 1603.
KINGS OF FRANCE
Louis XI. 22 July 1461 - 30 Aug. 1483.
Charles VIII. 30 Aug. 1483 - 7 April 1498.
Louis XII. 7 April 1498 - 1 Jan. 1515.
François I. 1 Jan. 1515 - 31 March 1547.
Henri II. 31 March 1547 - 10 July 1559.
François II. 10 July 1559 - 5 Dec. 1560.
Charles IX. 5 Dec. 1560 - 30 May 1574.
Henri III. 30 May 1574 - 2 Aug. 1589.
Henri IV. 2 Aug. 1589 - 14 May 1610.
DOGES OF VENICE
Cristoforo Moro, 12 May 1462 - 9 Nov. 1471.
Nicolò Tron, 23 Nov. 1471 - 28 July 1473.
Nicolò Marcello, 13 Aug. 1473 - 1 Dec. 1474.
Pietro Mocenigo, 14 Dec. 1474 - 23 Feb. 1476.
Andrea Vendramino, 6 March 1476 - 6 May 1478.
Giovanni Mocenigo, 18 May 1478 - 4 Nov. 1485.
Marco Barbarigo, 19 Nov. 1485 - 14 Aug. 1486.
Agostino Barbarigo, 30 Aug. 1486 - 24 Sept. 1501.
Leonardo Loredano, 2 Oct. 1501 - 26 June 1521.
Antonio Grimani, 6 July 1521 - 7 May 1523.
Andrea Gritti, 20 May 1523 - 28 Dec. 1538.
As our first example of how these tables may be used we will take a
colophon where no year of the Lord is given, and sovereigns are mentioned
without their regnal years. We shall find that even the mere names may
help us to a close approximate date. Our instance shall be Wendelin
of Speier’s edition of the “Supplementum” of Nicolaus de Auximo, the
colophon to which ends:
Vendelinus opus pressit Spireus utrunque:
Labe repurgatum (crede) uolumen emis.
Impressum est Sixto sacrorum antistite quarto,
Et Veneto Troni principis imperio.
Sixtus IV became pope early in August, 1471, Nicolò Tron was elected doge
on November 23d of the same year, and died in July, 1473. We can thus
date the book as “about 1472” with absolute confidence.
Writers of poetical colophons are naturally more inclined to use regnal
dates than the year of the Lord, which it is seldom easy to get into a
verse. In the “Moral Prouerbes of Cristyne” Caxton gives us the month,
the day, and the regnal year, together making a precise date. This
colophon runs:
Of these sayynges Cristyne was the aucturesse,
Whiche in makyn[g] hadde suche intelligence,
That thereof she was mireur and maistresse;
Hire werkes testifie thexperience;
In Frenssh languaige was writen this sentence,
And thus englished doth hit reherse
Antoin Wideuylle, therle Ryuers.
Go thou litil quayer and recommaund me
Unto the good grace of my special lorde
Therle Ryueris, for I haue emprinted the
At his commandement, following eury worde
His copye, as his secretarie can recorde,
At Westmestre, of Feuerer the xx daye
And of Kyng Edward the xvij yere veraye.
Emprinted by Caxton
In Feuerer the colde season.
The seventeenth year of Edward IV ran from 4th March, 1477, to 3d March,
1478, so that the “Moral Proverbs” were finished on February 20th of the
latter year.
When a change of sovereigns occurred in the year in which a book was
printed, the mere name of the earlier or the later of the two shows in
which part of the year the colophon was written, and regnal dates supply
the same information for years in which no change of sovereigns took
place. Thus the colophon to Wynkyn de Worde’s edition of the “Vitas
Patrum” ends: “Enprynted in the sayd towne of Westmynstre by me Wynken de
Worde, the yere of our lorde M.cccc.lxxxxv. and the tenthe yere of our
souerayne lorde Kyng Henry the seuenth.” As Henry VII’s reign began 22d
August, 1485, its tenth year would cover the twelvemonth, August, 1494,
to August, 1495, and we are thus told not only that the book was issued
in 1495, but that it was printed before August 21st of that year.
A subsidiary date, of course, as a rule loses its usefulness when the
printer explicitly mentions also the month and day on which the book was
completed. It may, however, have a special value as furnishing a means of
fixing the day from which the printer reckoned his year. In the fifteenth
century the year could be reckoned as beginning on Christmas day, on
January 1st, on March 1st, on March 25th, or at Easter. In arranging
the books issued from any press in chronological order, it is of vital
importance to know which reckoning the printer followed, and we may now
give some examples to show how regnal years can be used to settle this.
Finiunt Petri de Abano remedia uenenorum. Rome in domo nobilis
uiri Iohannis Philippi de Lignamine Messanensis, S. D. N.
familiaris, hic tractatus impressus est. Anno domini Mcccclxxv.
die xxvii Mensis Ianuarii, Pontificatu Syxti IIII, Anno eius
quarto.
End the remedies of Petrus de Abano against poisons. At Rome in
the house of the noble gentleman Ioannes Philippus de Lignamine
of Messina, servant of our holy Lord, this tract was printed.
In the year of the Lord 1475, on the 27th day of the month
January, in the pontificate of Sixtus IV, in his fourth year.
The fourth year of Sixtus IV began on 9th August, 1474, and ended
8th August, 1475; therefore January, 1475, in his fourth year must
be January, 1475, according to our modern reckoning, not January,
1476, as it would be had the year been calculated from March 25th or
Easter day—two similar examples will be found in Hain’s “Repertorium
Bibliographicum” under the numbers 255* and 2050*.
On the other hand, Caxton’s colophon to the “Mirrour of the World” ends:
whiche book I began first to translate the second day of
Ianyuer the yer of our lord M.cccc.lxxx. And fynysshed the viij
day of Marche the same yere, and the xxj yere of the Regne
of the most Crysten kyng, Kynge Edward the fourth. Vnder the
shadowe of whos noble proteccion I have emprysed and fynysshed
this sayd lytyl werke and boke. Besechynge Almyghty god to be
his protectour and defender agayn alle his enemyes and gyue
hym grace to subdue them, And inespeciall them that haue late
enterpraysed agayn ryght & reson to make warre wythin his
Royamme. And also to preserue and mayntene hym in longe lyf and
prosperous helthe. And after this short and transytorye lyf he
brynge hym and vs in to his celestyal blysse in heuene. Amen.
Caxton me fieri fecit.
As the twenty-first year of Edward IV ran from 4th March, 1481, to 3d
March, 1482, Caxton’s 8th March, 1480, must clearly be 1480, old style,
or 1481 of our reckoning, and Caxton is thus shown to have begun his year
on March 25th.
So again the long colophon or epilogue to the “Cordyale” tells us that
the book “was deliuered to me William Caxton by my saide noble lorde
Ryuiers on the day of purificacion of our blissid lady, fallyng the
tewsday the secund day of the moneth of feuerer. In the yere of our lord
M. cccc. lxxviij for to be enprinted.… Whiche werke present I begann the
morn after the saide Purification of our blissid Lady, whiche was the
daye of Seint Blase Bisshop and Martir, And finisshed on the euen of
thannunciacion of our said blissid Lady, fallyng on the Wednesday the
xxiiij. daye of Marche in the xix yere of Kyng Edwarde the fourthe.”
Earlier bibliographers got very confused over this book and made absurd
mistakes as to the time which Caxton took to print it. But Mr. Blades
had no difficulty in showing that the different dates follow closely on
each other. Caxton received the book on February 2d, began printing it on
February 3d, and finished it on March 24th, all in the same year 1479. We
have a double method of proving this, by the two week-days mentioned and
by the regnal year, which covered the period March 4, 1479, to March 3,
1480. The only March 24th in this twelvemonth was that in 1479, and in
1479 March 24th, as Caxton says, fell on a Wednesday. In 1479, moreover,
February 2d fell on a Tuesday, in 1478 on a Sunday. It is thus clear that
the Tuesday, February 2, 1478, of the colophon must be an old-style date,
answering to 1479 of our reckoning.
The occasional mention of the day both of the week and the month in
German colophons offers us, in the absence of regnal years, almost the
only proof we can obtain that German printers began their year either
at Christmas or on January 1st,—I am not prepared to say which. Thus
the colophon of an edition of the “De remediis utriusque fortunae” of
Adrianus Carthusiensis reads:
Explicit liber de remediis fortuitorum casuum nouiter
compilatus et impressus Colonie per Arnoldum therhoernen,
finitus Anno domini Mºccccºlxxiº die veneris octaua mensis
Februarii. Deo Gracias.
Ends the book of the remedies of casual haps, lately compiled
and printed at Cologne by Arnold therhoernen. Finished in the
year of the Lord 1471, on Friday, February 8th. Thanks be to
God.
In 1471 February 8th fell on a Friday, in 1472 on a Saturday. Therefore
it is clear that in therhoernen’s reckoning January and February were
the first months of the year, as they are with us.
Before inquiring as to what printers reckoned the year as beginning at
Easter, we must give the following table:
EASTER DAY, 1470-1521
1470 April 22
1471 April 14
1472 March 29
1473 April 18
1474 April 10
1475 March 26
1476 April 14
1477 April 6
1478 March 22
1479 April 11
1480 April 2
1481 April 22
1482 April 7
1483 March 30
1484 April 18
1485 April 3
1486 March 26
1487 April 15
1488 April 6
1489 April 19
1490 April 11
1491 April 3
1492 April 22
1493 April 7
1494 March 30
1495 April 19
1496 April 3
1497 March 26
1498 April 15
1499 March 31
1500 April 19
1501 April 11
1502 March 27
1503 April 16
1504 April 7
1505 March 23
1506 April 12
1507 April 4
1508 April 23
1509 April 8
1510 March 31
1511 April 20
1512 April 11
1513 March 27
1514 April 16
1515 April 8
1516 March 23
1517 April 12
1518 April 4
1519 April 24
1520 April 8
1521 March 31
That Pierre Gerard and Jean Dupré at Abbeville reckoned the year
from Easter to Easter, we get a broad hint in the colophon to their
magnificent edition of Augustine’s “De Ciuitate Dei” in French. This is
in two volumes, the colophon to the first of which is dated “le xxiiii
jour de Nouembre l’an mil quatre cens quatre vingt et six,” while the
second runs:
Cy fine le second volume contenant les xii derreniers liures de
monseigneur saint augustin de la cité de dieu. Imprime en la
ville dabbeuille, par Iehan du pre et pierre gerard marchans
libraires: Et icelluy acheue le xii iour dauril lan mil quatre
cens quatre vingtz et six auant pasques.
Here ends the second volume containing the last twelve books of
my lord Saint Augustin of the City of God. Printed in the town
of Abbeville by Jean Dupré and Pierre Gerard, booksellers: and
it was finished the twelfth day of April, the year 1486, before
Easter.
That the second volume of so large a work must have been printed after
the first is so nearly certain that this alone might have caused us to
look out for a means of making April 12, 1486, later than November 24th
of the same year. The words “auant pasques” put the matter beyond doubt,
for Easter in 1486 of our reckoning fell on March 26th, but in 1487 on
April 15th. Clearly, therefore, the book was finished on Holy Thursday,
1487, and Easter was the date from which Dupré and Gerard reckoned their
year.
We can obtain an equally neat proof of the French year beginning at
Easter from a copy of Pierre Gringore’s “Chasteau de Labour,” in which,
underneath the name of Philippe Pigouchet, appears the colophon:
Le chasteau de labour auec aucunes balades et addicions
nouuellement composees a este acheue le dernier iour de Mars
Lan Mil Cinq cens. Pour Simon Vostre libraire demourant a
Paris en la rue neuue nostre dame a lenseigne sainct iehan
leuangeliste.