Next to the section of “punning” devices, perhaps the most entertaining
is that which deals with the question of mottoes. These are derived from
an infinite variety of sources, not infrequently from the fertile brains
of the printers themselves. Their application is not always clear, but
they are nearly always indicative of the virility which characterized
the old printers. It is neither desirable nor possible to exhaust this
somewhat intricate phase of the subject, but it will be necessary to
quote a few representative examples. Occasionally we get a snatch of
verse, as in the case of Michel Le Noir, whose motto runs thus:
“C’est mon désir
De Dieu servir
Pour acquérir
Son doux plaisir.”
Also in the instance of another early printer, Gilles De Gourmont, who
chants--
“Tost ou tard
Pres ou loing
A le Fort
Du feble besoing.”
Perhaps the greatest number of all are those in which the printer
proclaims his faith to God and his loyalty to his king. One of the early
Paris printers enjoins us--in verse--not only to honour the king and the
court, but claims our salutations for the University; and almost
precisely the same sentiment finds expression in the Mark of
J. Alexandre, another early printer of Paris. Robinet or Robert Macé,
Rouen, proclaims “Ung dieu, ung roy, ung foy, ung loy,” and the same
idea expressed in identical words is not uncommonly met with in
Printers’ Marks. Of a more definitely religious nature are those, for
example, of P. de Sartières, Bourges, “Tout se passe fors dieu”; of
J. Lambert, “A espoir en dieu”; of Prigent Calvarin, “Deum time,
pauperes sustine, finem respice”; and several from the Psalms, such as
that of C. Nourry, called Le Prince, “Cor contritum et humiliatum deus
non despicies”; of P. De Saincte-Lucie, also called Le Prince, “Oculi
mei semper ad dominum”; and of J. Temporal (all three Lyons printers),
“Tangit montes et fumigant,” in which the design is quite in keeping
with the motto; in one case at least, S. Nivelle, one of the
commandments is made use of, “Honora patrem tuum, et matrem tuam, ut sis
longævus super terram.” Here, too, we may include the mottoes of
B. Rigaud, “A foy entiere cœur volant”; S. De Colines, “Eripiam et
glorificabo eum”; and of Benoist Bounyn, Lyons, “Labores manum tuarum
quia manducabis beatus es et bene tibi erit.” Whilst as a few
illustrations of a general character we may quote Geoffrey Tory’s
exceedingly brief “Non plus,” which was contemporaneously used also by
Olivier Mallard; J. Longis, “Nihil in charitate violentia”; Denys Janot,
“Tout par amour, amour par tout, par tout amour, en tout bien”; the
French rendering of a very old proverb in the mottoes of B. Aubri and
D. Roce, “A l’aventure tout vient a point qui peut attendre”; J. Bignon,
“Repos sans fin, sans fin repos”; the motto used conjointly by
M. Fézandat and R. Granjon, “Ne la mort, ne le venin”; and the motto of
Etienne Dolet, “Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo, atque perfolio.”
Among the mottoes of early English printers, the most notable, partly
for its dual source, and as one of our earliest examples, is that of
William Faques; one sentence, “Melius est modicum justo super divitias
peccatorum multas,” is taken from Psalm xxxvii. verse 16; and the
second, “Melior est patiens viro forti, et qui dominat,” comes from
Proverbs xvi., verse 32. The motto of Richard Grafton has already been
quoted; that of John Reynes was “Redemptoris mundi arma”; and John
Wolfe, “Vbique floret.”
[Illustration: DENYS JANOT.
PARTOVT AMOVR
AMOR DEI OMNIA VINCIT
AMOVR PARTOVT
TOVT PAR AMOVR.
DENIS IANOT.
EN TOVT BIEN.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM FAQUES.
Melius est modicum iusto super divitias p[ecca]torum multas.
MELIOR EST PATIENS VIRO FORTI ET QVI DOMINAT
Guillam.]
The employment of mottoes in Greek and Hebrew characters is a not
unimportant feature in the earlier examples of Printers’ Marks, but it
must suffice us here to indicate a few of the leading printers who used
either one or the other, and sometimes both. B. Rembolt was one of the
earliest to incorporate a Greek phrase; De Salenson, Ghent, had a
Greco-Latin motto on an open bible, which is the _pièce de resistance_
of a pretty Mark, a similar idea occurring in the totally different
Marks of the brothers Treschel, Lyons; another Lyons firm of printers,
the brothers Huguetan, employed a Greek motto, and a phrase, also in
Greek characters, occurs in one of the Marks of Peter Vidoue. The more
notable Marks which contain Hebrew characters, which generally signify
Jehovah, are those of Joannes Knoblouchus, or Knoblouch, Strassburg, in
which we have not only Hebrew, but upper and lower case Greek, and a
Latin quotation--“Verum, quum latebris delituit diu, emergit”; and of
Wolfius Cæphalæus, also of Strassburg; and here again we have the Mark
environed by quotations in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. In a few instances
we have the unlucky letter of the Greek alphabet--_theta_--forming a
Mark with considerable originality, as in that of Guillaume Morel, where
this symbol of death is surrounded by two dragon serpents representing
immortality. The _theta_ was also employed by Etienne Prevosteau.
The subject of the sphere in Printers’ Marks might profitably occupy a
good deal of space in discussing. It is generally considered to be not
only the peculiar property of the Elzevirs, but that books possessing it
without having one or other of the real or assumed imprints of this
celebrated family of printers are impudent frauds. But as a matter of
fact, it was used by at least half-a-dozen printers many years before
the Elzevirs started printing. For example, it was employed during the
last decade of the fifteenth century by Gilles Hardouyn, and early in
the sixteenth by Huguetan brothers at Lyons, by P. Sergent and
L. Grandin at Paris, by J. Steels, or Steelsius of Antwerp, and
P. Lichtenstein of Venice. In these instances, however, it is endowed,
so to speak, with accessories. In the earliest Mark it plays only an
incidental part, but in the Huguetan example it forms the device itself:
it is held by a hand and is encircled by a ring on which the owner of
the hand is evidently trying to balance a ball; there is a Greek motto.
In a later and slightly different design of the same family, the motto
is altered in position, and is in Latin: “Vniversitas rerum, vt Pvlis,
in manv Iehovae.” Each of the two Paris examples is remarkable in its
peculiar way. In Grandin’s two Marks the same allegorical idea prevails,
viz., one person seizing a complete sphere from an angel out of the
clouds, apparently to exchange it for the broken one held by a second
person: in the cruder of the two examples of these there is a quotation
from the 117th Psalm. In Sergent’s bold and vigorous Mark, the sphere,
which incloses a figure of the crucified Christ, is fixed into the top
of a dead trunk of a tree. It may also be mentioned that this device was
frequently used by printers during the middle and latter part of the
seventeenth century in this country--it appears, for example, on several
books printed by R. Bentley, London, during that period. The sphere as
an Elzevir Mark will be referred to in the chapter dealing with Dutch
examples.
[Illustration: J. STEELS.
IO. STEELSIVS
Concordia res paruę crescunt.]
An element which may be generically termed religious plays no
unimportant part in this subject. It will not be necessary to enter
deeply into the motives which induced so many of the old printers and
booksellers to select either their devices or the illustrations of their
Marks from biblical sources; and it must suffice to say that, if the
object is frequently hidden to us to-day, the fact of the extent of
their employment cannot be controverted. The incident of the Brazen
Serpent (Numbers xxi.) was a very popular subject. One of the earliest
to use it was Conrad Neobar, Paris, 1538; it was adopted by Reginald
Wolfe, who commenced printing in this country about 1543, and its
possession was considered of sufficient importance to merit special
mention among the goods bequeathed by his widow to her son Robert. It
was also the Mark of Wolfe’s contemporaries, Martin Le Jeune, Paris,
Jean Bien-Né, of the same city, and of Jean Crespin, Geneva, the
last-named using it in several sizes, in which the foot of the cross is
“continued” into an anchor. Apart from crosses in an infinite variety of
forms, and to which reference will presently be made, by far the most
popular form of religious devices consisted of what may, for convenience
sake, be termed angelic. Pictorially they are nearly always failures,
and often ludicrously so. The same indeed might be said of the work of
most artists who have essayed the impossible in this direction. An
extraordinary solemnity of countenance, a painful sameness and extreme
ugliness, are the three dominant features of the angels of the Printers’
Mark. The subject offers but little scope for an artist’s ingenuity it
is true, and it is only in a very few exceptions that a tolerable
example presents itself. Their most frequent occurrence is in supporting
a shield with the national emblem of France, and in at least one
instance--that of André Bocard, Paris,--with the emblems of the city and
the University of Paris. This idea, without the two latter emblems,
occurs in the devices of Jehan Trepperel, Anthoine Denidel, and
J. Bouyer and G. Bouchet (who adopted it conjointly), who were printing
or selling books in Paris during the last decade of the fifteenth
century; whilst in the provinces in that period it was employed by
Jacques Le Forestier, at Rouen; and by Jehan De Gourmont, Paris,
J. Besson, Lyons, and J. Bouchet at Poitiers, early in the following
century. The angels nearly always occur in couples, as in the case of
Antoine Vérard, one of the earliest printers to adopt this form; but a
few exceptions may be mentioned where only one appears, namely, in the
Mark of Estienne Baland, Lyons (1515), in which an angel is represented
as confounding Balaam’s ass; and in that of Vincent Portunaris, of the
same place and of about the same time, in which an angel figures holding
an open book; in the four employed by G. Silvius, an Antwerp printer
(1562), in three of which the figure is also holding a book; in the
elaborate Mark of Philip Du Pré, Paris, 1595, and in the exceeding rough
Mark of Jannot de Campis, of Lyons, 1505. Curiously enough, the subject
of Christ on the cross was very rarely employed, an exception occurring
in the case of Schäffeler, of Constance, or Bodensee, Bavaria, 1505. The
same centre-piece, without the cross, was employed by Jehan Frellon,
Paris, 1508, and evidently copied by Jehan Burges, the younger, at
Rouen, 1521, whilst that of Guillaume Du Puy, Paris, 1504, has already
been referred to. The Virgin Mary occurs occasionally, the more notable
examples being the Marks of Guillaume Anabat, Paris, 1505-10, really a
careful piece of work; and the elder G. Ryverd, Paris, 1516, and in each
case with the infant Jesus. St. Christopher is a subject one sometimes
meets with in Printers’ Marks: in that of Gervais Chevallon, Paris,
1538, it however plays a comparatively subordinate part, and its merits
were only fully recognized by the Grosii, of Leipzig, who nearly always
used it for about two centuries, 1525-1732; the example bearing the last
date is by far one of the most absurd of its kind--the cowled monk with
a modern lantern lighting St. Christopher on his way through the river
is a choice piece of incongruity. Another phase of the religious element
capable of considerable expansion is that in relation to the part played
in Marks by saints and priests generally. Sometimes these are found
together with an effect not at all happy, notably the two Marks of Jehan
Olivier, Paris, 1518, which, with Jesus Christ on one side, a Pope on
the other, and an olive tree, are sufficiently crude to present an
appearance which seems to-day almost blasphemous. The last of the
several religious phases of Printers’ Marks to which we shall allude is
at the same time the most elaborate and complicated. We refer to that of
the Cross. The subject is sufficiently wide to occupy of itself a small
volume, but even after the most careful investigation, there are many
points which will for ever remain in the region of doubt and obscurity.
Tradition is proverbially difficult to eradicate; and all the glamour
which surrounds the history of the Cross, and which found expression in,
among other popular books, the “Legenda Aurea,” maintained all its
pristine force and attractiveness down to the end of the sixteenth
century. The invention of printing and the gradual enlightenment of
mankind did much in reducing these legends into their proper place; but
the process was gradual, and whatever may have been their private
opinions, the old printers found it discreet to fall into line with the
established order of things. Indeed, the religious sentiment was perhaps
never so alive as at the time of the invention of printing, in proof of
which some of the earliest and most magnificent typographical monuments
may be cited,--the Gutenberg Bible, the Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer,
for example. The accompanying plate will give the reader a faint idea of
the extraordinary variety of crosses to be found on Printers’ Marks used
chiefly by the Italian printers.
[Illustration: ANTOINE VÉRARD.