should contain the imprint just as it is to be used, and on important
large orders, where there is any doubt, permission should be obtained.
There are instances where customers have refused to accept printed work
for the reason that an imprint was placed on it.
It is only necessary to have printing-office patrons become accustomed
to the new order of things.
John Dunlap, who printed the Declaration of Independence for Congress,
placed his imprint on it (see frontispiece of this volume). If some
friend had suggested to John Gutenberg that he imprint his name on his
work, the discussion that has since arisen as to whether or not he
printed the “Bible of Forty-two Lines” would not have taken place.
The commercial printer’s imprint should be unassuming and placed
inconspicuously. Decorative imprints could be used on booklet and
catalog work, and in addition the decorative device should find place on
every piece of the printer’s own stationery and advertising matter, even
on the office door.
* * * * *
The use by printers of decorative devices dates back to one of the first
printed books, the famous Psalter of 1457. For a great many hundred
years previous, pictures and devices in various forms had been relied
upon to convey information and to act as distinguishing marks for
various purposes. Figures such as the white horse and the red lion, hung
as signs in front of taverns and public houses during the last two
centuries, were outgrowths of the coats-of-arms of titled folk who in
ancient times hung the family device in front of their estates as
emblems of hospitality to the weary traveler.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 531
The most popular imprint-device as early used by printers, and modern
interpretations
]
Emblems and devices seem always to have had place in human history. The
sign of the Cross in the eleventh century led the Crusaders against the
followers of the Crescent. The cross of St. George (+) furnished
inspiration for the English in their warfare with the Scots, who rallied
around the cross of St. Andrew (❌), and the combined crosses of St.
George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick now inspire the patriotic Britisher.
It would seem that printers could do better work if they were to select
some device which would represent an ideal, and then attempt to live up
to it.
While the Gutenberg Bible of Forty-two Lines, generally accepted as the
first book printed with separate metal types, contained neither device
nor printer’s name, the Book of Psalms, or Psalter, of 1457, not only
has the names of Fust and Schœffer and the date, but an imprint device
which has the distinction of being the first ever used on a book
typographically printed. This famous Psalter was the product of Johann
Fust and Peter Schœffer, who succeeded to Gutenberg’s printing office.
At the end of the book, printed in red ink, is the colophon of the
printers (Example 528-A), a translation of which follows: “This book of
Psalms, decorated with antique initials, and sufficiently emphasized
with rubricated letters, has been thus made by the masterly invention of
printing and also of type-making, without the writing of a pen, and is
consummated to the service of God, thru the industry of Johann Fust,
citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, in the year of our
Lord 1457, on the eve of the Assumption.”
The colophon contains a typographic error, perhaps the first to be made
by a typesetter, the second word showing “spalm-” for “psalm-.” On
several of the Psalters still in existence (one is without it) the
colophon is accompanied by the decorative device shown in Example 529,
consisting of a pair of shields suspended from the limb of a tree. The
significance of the characters on the shields is not definitely known.
Humphreys, in his “History,” asserts that the shields contain the arms
of Fust and those of Schœffer. It is conceded that the shield on the
left is Fust’s and the shield on the right Schœffer’s. In Rietstap it is
found that one branch of the old German family of Faust bore a
coat-of-arms containing on a shield two crampons in saltire (crossed).
Bullen claims the character in the Fust shield is the Greek letter Chi
(Χ) and that in Schœffer’s shield the Greek letter Lambda (Λ), and that
they had some connection with secret societies to which Fust and his
son-in-law Schœffer belonged.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 532
Arms supposedly granted the Typothetæ, a society of master printers,
by Frederick III
]
Schœffer’s device was used for many years by his descendants, Example
529 showing its use as late as 1747 by Peter Schœffer, of Bois-le-Duc,
in the Netherlands.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 533
The imprint-device of England’s first printer, its probable
derivation, and two notable devices evolved from it
]
This device of Fust and Schœffer furnished inspiration to several
printers of the same century, chief among whom were Michael Furter and
Nicolas Kessler, whose devices are shown in Example 529. Furter, who
printed at Basel, Switzerland, in 1490, was once credited with being the
inventor of printing, thru an error in a book, the date of which was
made to read 1444 (M.CCCC.XLIIII), instead of 1494 (M.CCCC.XCIIII).
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 534
Two modern designs with ancient motifs
]
What is considered to be the most classic of all imprint-devices
(Example 530) is that used by Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian
printer, who introduced the italic face of type. The device, an anchor,
around which is twisted a dolphin, is said to be symbolic of the proverb
“Hasten slowly.” The anchor represents stability and the dolphin
swiftness. The mark was taken by him from a book he had printed,
“Reveries of Polyphilus,” and was used as the Aldus device for the first
time in an edition of Dante of 1502.
In a spirit of affection and regard for the famous Venetian, the device
of Aldus has been adopted or adapted by several well-known printers.
There is a nice sentiment connected with the use of this mark by William
Pickering, the noted English publisher. In place of the “AL-DVS” of the
original, Pickering’s adaptation contained a motto in which he announced
himself as the English disciple of Aldus. The reproduction of the
Pickering device shown is from a book published by Pickering and printed
by Whittingham in 1840.
By 1892 we find a lion added to this device, as used by the Chiswick
Press.
The McClure Publications of New York have a conventionalized
interpretation which shows the dolphin and anchor in white upon a black
circular background (Example 530).
Bruce Rogers, at the Riverside Press, has most interestingly adapted the
Aldus device. It seems that he always had a fondness for the thistle,
the national flower of Scotland, and when seeking a motif for his mark,
naturally turned to it. When the time came for putting it into use, the
first requirement happened to be for an Aldine page, so it was cast in a
form that would distinctly suggest the Aldus anchor and dolphin.
(Compare the two designs in Example 530.) While on the subject of Bruce
Rogers’s device it may be interesting to relate that later, when he
desired to use it on a book modeled on French sixteenth-century work, he
reshaped it as shown in Example 540, which carries a suggestion of one
of Robert Estienne’s marks shown with it. Rogers redrew his personal
device, or that of the Riverside Press, to blend with the motif of the
book on which it was to be used, a practice that embodies the highest
use of the printer’s mark.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 535
The pun, as found in two printers’ marks
]
* * * * *
One of the most famous imprint-devices is that adopted by the Society of
Printers of Venice in 1481 (Example 531), about the time of the death of
Nicholas Jenson, who is supposed to have originated the design. Various
explanations have been given of the significance of this device, the
most reasonable being that the globe and cross refers to the millennium,
when, according to prophecy, God shall reign upon earth. The
globe-and-cross symbol was frequently embellished with supplementary
characters having other religious significance. The mark of Androw
Myllar (Example 535) contains a figure 4, which denoted the Supreme
Being. People of antiquity frequently composed the name of the Deity in
four letters. The globe in the Venetian device probably represented the
earth, altho the fact that the earth was round was not common knowledge
in the early days. The theory, however, was accepted by the educated
priest and layman long before Columbus sailed, as he thought, for India.
The double-cross in the Roman church today is associated with the
authority of an archbishop, and as a decorative form of the cross,
extends back many centuries. The ornamental double-cross pictured in
this connection was once the property of St. Waudru of Belgium, who died
in 670. The double cross or Lorraine cross was used by Geofroy Tory as a
small mark on his wood engravings (see lower left corner of the Tory
mark in Example 536).
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 536
Devices used by notable printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 537
A colophon-imprint by D. B. Updike, from “Petrarch and His Masters,”
1907
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 538
The Lion of St. Mark appropriately adapted by Bruce Rogers to a book
on Venetian life
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 539-A
The Lion of St. Mark as a printshop device
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 539-B
The Oswald Press mark designed by T. M. Cleland
]
In further consideration of the cross-and-globe device it may be well to
mention that an astronomical sign consisting of a circle with a cross
above it (♁) was used by the Egyptians many years before the Christian
era. Such a sign is yet used astronomically and also to indicate the
male in botany. Another astronomical sign bearing on the subject is that
of a cross within a circle (⨁), by which the earth is indicated.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 540
Robert Estienne’s mark, and Bruce Rogers’s adaptation of it
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 541
An appropriate mark for a printer to adopt
]
The cross-and-globe device of the Venetian Society of Printers has
proved the most popular of any of the old imprints. When Elbert Hubbard
established the Roycroft Shop at East Aurora, N. Y., in 1896, he adopted
it as a work-mark, placing an “R” in the lower half of the circle in
place of the dot. Fra Elbertus’s interpretation of the device
established the circle as “the emblem of the perfect (the complete), and
the lines puncturing the circle the attempt to make a perfect article,
to do perfect work.”
When the advertising manager of the National Biscuit Company was looking
about for a trademark this old device of the Lorraine cross and circle
must have appealed to him strongly, and such is the power of advertising
that printers may some day be accused of copying the design from this
biscuit house.
The remarkable adaptability of the device is also demonstrated by the
Griffith-Stillings imprint, in which it forms a part of a clever modern
decorative design (Example 547).
Frederic W. Goudy incorporated the Venetian printers’ device most
interestingly in the decorative mark of the Village Press (Example 531).
The imprint-device of the Gould Press (Example 543) may have originated
with the Venetian printers’ design. It is an interesting variant.
These numerous uses by printers and others of the old circle-and-cross
design suggest a paraphrase of an ancient proverb: “A good device lives
forever.”
* * * * *
William Caxton, England’s first printer, used an imprint-device (Example
533) that in appearance resembles a rug, which it may have been intended
to represent, as Caxton is supposed to have used this mark when he was a
merchant at Bruges in Belgium. The characters contained in the design
have caused much discussion. The “W” on the left and the “C” on the
right are generally accepted as the initials of Caxton. The center
characters have been claimed by some to be the figures “74,” but the
most reasonable explanation is that they form a trade device used by the
merchants of Bruges. This explanation is seemingly confirmed by the
discovery of a memorial plate to one John Felde, containing his
trademark as a merchant, which trademark is very similar to the
characters in the center of Caxton’s imprint-device. The reproduction of
the Felde design shows that if the top stroke were taken away and a loop
added the result would be Caxton’s characters.
Wynkyn de Worde, when he succeeded Caxton as England’s printer, adopted
Caxton’s characters (probably a sentimental act) and in the device shown
added his own name at the foot.
William Morris, in planning an imprint-device for the Kelmscott Press,
evidently made a study of de Worde’s design, for there is resemblance in
shape and in the placing of the name at the foot.
T. C. Hansard, on the title-page of his “Typographia” (1825), uses a
device which tradition tells us was granted by Emperor Frederick III of
Germany to a corporation of master printers known as the Typothetæ. (See
Example 532.) References by writers to the origin of this design are
generally contradictory. The United Typothetæ and Franklin Clubs of
America, an association of employing printers, has adopted the device
and uses it in the conventionalized form shown. The design in its
original form tends to heraldic elaborateness. There is represented an
eagle holding a copy guide in one claw and a composing stick in the
other. Surmounting the design is a griffin (eagle-lion) grasping two ink
balls. The Winthrop Press mark (Example 543) and other printers’ devices
have been inspired by this emblem, as the griffin copyholder and ink
balls are familiar decorative forms.
* * * * *
In Great Britain the printer whose name would allow a pun has always
been considered fortunate. John Daye, a London printer of 1560, had an
elaborate device, paneled, in the center of which is a picture of a
reclining man being aroused by a figure which, pointing to the sun,
says, “Arise, for it is day.” (Example 535.)
Androw Myllar, who printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1510, used a
device which portrayed a miller climbing to his mill (Example 535). The
arrangement of his name in the lower part of the design suggests de
Worde’s, and the characters in the shields have meanings that may be
determined by a study of the religious symbolism of the Middle Ages.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 536-A
The printer’s device and imprint here occupies two-thirds of the
title-page. From a book by Robert Estienne, Paris, France, 1544
]
The imprints of some of the notable printers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are interesting. The first mark in Example 536
shows one of the devices of Geofroy Tory of Paris from his “Champ
Fleury” of 1529. It consists of a broken pot filled with instruments and
the Latin phrase _Non plus_ (nothing more). The Lorraine cross in the
lower left corner is interesting in connection with the use made of it
by the Venetian Society of Printers (Example 531). Tory, an accomplished
scholar and noted wood engraver and printer, was, according to an
epitaph written by a compatriot, “the first man to discuss seriously the
art of printing,” and “taught Garamond, chief of engravers.” His work on
the derivation and formation of Latin characters had considerable
renown. He claimed, according to Fournier, that all the letters are
formed of I and O. Proportions are arrived at by dividing a square into
ten lines, perpendicular and horizontal, forming one hundred squares
completely filled with circles, the whole giving form and figure to the
letters.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 542
Use of the oval shape in the designing of printers’ marks
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 543
Modern imprints suggested by ancient forms
]
The troublous times of the Reformation, during which John Bebel was
imprisoned, may have had some influence on his selection of a device. It
consisted of a tree, in the branches of which was a prostrate man, and
over him was a large flat thing representing the platen of a printing
press (Example 536). On the platen were words meaning “Do not press poor
me to death.”
Christopher Plantin, printer and publisher of Antwerp, Belgium, whose
famous printing office, preserved as a museum, was one of the shrines of
worshiping printer-pilgrims up to the beginning of the European war,
employed a device which is emblematic of the saying of Jesus, “I am the
vine.”
A device used by the Elzevirs at Leyden, Holland, in 1620, shows a tree
with spreading branches. On one side of the trunk is the figure of a man
and on the other a scroll with the words _Non solus_ (not alone).
Robert Estienne had a similar device in 1544 (Example 536-A). This
device as shown is slightly reduced from the original, while those
previously mentioned are greatly reduced in size.
John Froben of Basel, Switzerland, who was a close friend of Erasmus,
the philosopher and patron of learning, in 1520 used a device containing
a staff surmounted by a dove and entwined by two serpents. (Example
542.) The legend, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves,”
occasionally accompanied the design.
Sometimes these printers’ marks were so large as to leave little room
for the title-page proper, in contrast to which is the extreme modesty
of Ulrich Zell of Cologne, Prussia, whose works are numerous and who is
credited with starting the story of the invention of printing by Coster.
Zell scarcely ever placed even his name on a book, yet his work may
easily be identified.
* * * * *
The Heintzemann Press device in Example 534 has an antique appearance
and its designer evidently received inspiration for his anchor, foliage
and scroll from such devices as those of Aldus and Plantin. The
Rogers-Riverside Press mark, too, has ancient motifs. The anchor-shaped
thistle, as already stated, is based upon Aldus’s device, and the frame
suggests old designs in metal.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 545
A mark that has to do with mythology
]
There is a suggestion of the pot device of Tory in the decorative
portion of the Merrymount Press imprint shown as Example 537. This
appeared at the end of the book as a colophon, the style in which the
imprint is written fitting it for that position. It will be remembered
that the printers of Italy usually had the beginning and ending set in
capitals to differentiate them from the body of the book. Elbert Hubbard
used the idea commercially on his advertising booklets, as in Example
550.
Perhaps the device shown as Example 541 is a bit too suggestive for
practical use by printers of the present day. Stephen Dolet’s name, in
its literal meaning, has something to do with an ax, hewing and cutting.
Dolet was a scholarly printer of the sixteenth century who suffered
martyrdom at the stake in 1546.
The oval shape for imprint designs is not unpleasant, as will be seen by
Example 542.
The Fezandat device was designed by Tory. The pheasant is a pun on the
printer’s name. The device as a whole is pleasing.
The Riverside Press device is classically Greek in motif. Pan and his
pipes appear on many of the marks of this press in various designs. The
one shown is from “Pan’s Pipes,” a Riverside Press publication.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 544
Printers’ marks based on architectural motifs
]
The winged ball, torch and other symbolic decorative devices are blended
pleasingly on the mark (Example 542), which appeared on the title-pages
of the famous Eliot six-foot shelf of books, “The Harvard Classics,”
1909.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 546
The monogram is an attractive form for printers’ devices
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 547
Representative of the large variety of devices in use by American
printers and publishers
]
An interesting feature of some early Venetian books is the use by
printers of decorative devices designed upon the winged Lion of St.
Mark. Recent adaptations of this device are the Oswald Press imprints
(Examples 539-A and 539-B) and the ornament on a title by Bruce Rogers
(Example 538). The Lion of St. Mark is interesting in its significance.
Tradition has it that long ago, when John Mark, the missionary companion
of Paul, was traveling by way of Aquileia (Roman Secunda) for the
purpose of preaching the gospel of Jesus, he found himself, after a
violent storm, on one of the Rialto Islands that now form the city of
Venice. In a dream an angel appeared saluting him (_Pax tibi Marce
Evangelista meus_) and announcing that on those islands his bones would
some day find peace. In fulfilment of this prophecy, in the year 829,
several Venetians went to Alexandria, where the body of Mark had been
buried, removed it surreptitiously, and took it to Venice. Such was the
enthusiasm caused by this event that St. Mark supplanted St. Theodore as
the patron saint of the city. “_Viva San Marco_” was heard as the battle
cry of the Venetians, and the winged lion, symbolic of St. Mark, became
the glorious sign of the republic. In Venice today there are numerous
statuary reproductions of the winged Lion of St. Mark, holding with one
claw a book of the gospels. The exposed pages of the book usually
contain the salutation of the angel. The story of St. Mark’s vision and
of the bringing of the body to Venice is pictured in mosaic work in St.
Mark’s Church, Venice, where his bones rest.
The four-winged beasts mentioned in the fourth chapter of Revelations
are accepted as symbolic of the four evangelists, the winged lion
typifying St. Mark.
* * * * *
Example 543 shows four designs with motifs taken from ancient sources.
The Matthews-Northrup device of the mythical phœnix rising from the fire
is emblematic of immortality; the torch probably signifies the
intellectual light resulting from the invention of printing. The
Winthrop Press imprint has already been mentioned as having relation to
the ancient Typothetæ arms. The Binner-Wells design suggests that of
Froben, by the shape and lettering between lines. The possible
derivation of the Gould Press device from the Venetian master printers’
emblem has been suggested.
The unique mark of the De Vinne Press (Example 545) probably pictures a
page from a manuscript book. The legend connected with the Greek
lettering is mythical and has to do with one Prometheus, who, while
chained to a rock, tells of the benefits he conferred on mankind. A
literal translation of the Greek at this point reveals the
appropriateness of the quotation as used: “And further, I discovered for
them numeration, most striking of inventions; and composition, nurse of
the arts, producer of the record of all things.”
Three imprint-devices, based upon architectural motifs, are shown in
Example 544. In the Rogers design the architectural panel is surmounted
by a silhouetted heraldic figure that adds much to the attractiveness of
the device. A Colonial architectural panel frames the title of the
Bartlett-Orr Press. The Egyptian winged ball, asps and open book are
well blended with the monogram circle that fits the Roman arch in the
Trow imprint.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 548
Decorative imprints constructed with typefounders’ ornaments and
suitable type-faces
]
Initials in monogram form are frequently adopted by printers, and three
such devices are shown in Example 546. Reversing one of the initials is
a favorite method when the nature of the letter allows it, as in the
Patteson Press device. Fitting the initials to a general shape calls for
clever work, as in the shield shape of the Corday & Gross design.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 549
Type imprints, and the various interesting effects possible with them
]
Of the large variety of devices in use by other publishers and printers,
those shown in Example 547 are representative.
The Griffith-Stillings device, as has already been mentioned, includes
elements of the mark of the Society of Printers of Venice.
The _American Printer_ mark shows an American eagle standing on books,
and the initials A. P. used decoratively in the upper right corner. The
dimensions of this oblong and the background are borrowed from the
Venetian mark.
Unusual in shape and in wording is the Stillson device, which develops
attractiveness when printed in several colors and embossed.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 550