[Illustration: FUST AND SCHOEFFER.]
From what has already been stated, it will be seen that the Printer’s
Mark plays a by no means unimportant part in the early history of
illustration,--whether the phase be serious or grotesque, sublime or
ridiculous, we find here manifold examples, crude as well as clever.
Although it cannot be said with truth that the Mark as an institution
reached, like typography itself, its highest degree of perfection at its
inception, some of the earlier examples, nevertheless, are also some of
the most perfect. The evolution from the small monogram, generally in
white on a black ground, to an elaborate picture occupying from a
quarter to a whole page, was much less gradual than is generally
supposed. The unambitious marks of the first printers were clearly
adopted in consonance with the traders’ or merchants’ marks which began
to be so generally employed during the latter part of the fifteenth
century.
The very natural question, Which was the first Printer’s Mark? admits of
an easy answer. It was employed for the first time in the form of the
coupled shield of Fust and Schoeffer, in the colophon of the famous
Psalter printed by these two men at Mainz in 1457. This book is
remarkable as being the costliest ever sold (a perfect copy is valued at
5,000 guineas by Mr. Quaritch): it is the third book printed, and the
first having a date, and probably only a dozen copies were struck off
for the use of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James at Mainz. It is,
however, quite as remarkable for the extraordinary beauty of its initial
letters, printed in red and blue ink, the letters being of one colour
and the ornamental portion of the other. The Mark of Fust and Schoeffer,
it may be mentioned, consists of two printer’s rules in saltaire, on two
shields, hanging from a stump, the two rules on the right shield forming
an angle of 45°: the adoption of a compositor’s setting-rule was very
appropriate. It was nearly twenty years before the introduction of
woodcuts into books became general, Gunther Zainer beginning it at
Augsburg in 1471-1475. The inception of this movement was naturally
followed by a general improvement, or at all events elaboration, of the
Printer’s Mark, which, moreover, now began to be printed in colours, as
is seen in the Fust and Schoeffer mark in red which appears beneath the
colophon of Turrecremata’s Commentary on the Psalms printed by Schoeffer
in 1474. Reverting for a moment to the Psalter which has been very
properly described as “the grandest book ever produced by Typography,”
a very curious fact not at all generally known may be here pointed out.
Although the few existing examples with two dates are of the same
edition, there are several very curious variations which are well worthy
of notice. It will be only necessary, however, in this place to refer to
the fact that the beautiful example in the Imperial Library at
Vienna--which, from its spotless purity, Heineken calls the “exemplaire
vierge”--differs from the others in being without the shield of Fust and
Schoeffer, a fact which points to the probability of this copy having
been the first struck off.
By the end of the fifteenth century the Printer’s Mark had assumed or
was rapidly assuming an importance of which its original introducers had
very little conception. Indeed, as early as 1539, a law, according to
Dupont, in his “Histoire de l’Imprimerie,” was passed by which these
marks or arms of printers and booksellers were protected. Unfortunately
the designs were very rarely signed, and it is now impossible to name
with any degree of certainty either the artist or engraver, both offices
probably in the majority of cases being performed by one man. There is
no doubt whatever that Hans Holbein designed some of the very graceful
borders and title-pages of Froben, at Basle, during the first quarter of
the sixteenth century, and in doing this he included the graceful
Caduceus which this famous printer employed. It does not necessarily
follow that he was the original designer, although he was in intimate
association with Froben when the latter first used this device. The
distinctive Mark of Cratander, or Cartander, which appears in the
edition of Plutarch’s “Opuscula,” Basel, 1530, has also been confidently
attributed to the same artist: if there is any foundation for this
statement Holbein was guilty of plagiarism, for this Mark is a very
slight modification on one used by the same printer in 1519, and not
only so dated but having the artist’s initials, I. F. Those who have the
opportunity of examining the “Noctes Atticæ” of Aulus Gellius, printed
by Cratander in 1519, will come upon several highly interesting features
in connection with this Mark, which is emblematical of Fortune: the
elaborately engraved title-page contains an almost exact miniature of
the same idea on either side, and it is repeated in a larger form in the
border which surrounds the first chapter. The Mark occurs in its full
size on the last page of all. The title-page, borders and Mark are all
by the same artist, I. F. In the earlier example the woman’s hair
completely hides her face, whilst in that of eleven years later it is as
seen on the opposite page, and the whole design is more carefully
finished. Dürer had dealt with the same subject. In reference to Froben,
however, it should be pointed out that his Marks, of which there were
several, show considerable variation in their attendant accessories, and
that Holbein could not possibly have had anything to do with the
majority of them.
[Illustration: J. FROBEN.
γίνεσθε φρόνιμοι ὥς ὁι ὄφεις,
Prudens simplicitas amor[que] recti.]
To attempt to identify the designers of even a selection of the best
Printers’ Marks would be but to embark on a wild sea of conjecture. The
initials of the engravers, which occur much more frequently than those
of the artists, are of very little assistance to the identification of
the latter. Many of them possess a vigour and an originality which would
at once stamp their designers as men of more than ordinary ability. For
picturesqueness, and for the care and attention paid to the minutest
details, it may be doubted if either B. Picart in France, or J. Pine in
this country, has ever been excelled. The examples of the former come
perhaps more in the category of vignettes than of Printers’ Marks,
although the charming little pictures on the title-pages of Stosch’s
“Pierres Antiques Gravées,” 1724, the “Impostures Innocentes,” 1734, and
the edition of Cicero’s “Epistolæ,” printed at the Hague by Isaac
Vaillant, 1725,--to mention only three of many--may be conveniently
regarded as Printers’ Marks. So far as we know, Pine only executed one
example,--representing a Lamb within a cleverly designed cartouche--and
this appears on the title-page of Dale’s Translation of Freind’s
“Emmenologia,” printed for T. Cox, “at the Lamb under the Royal
Exchange,” 1729: in its way it is unquestionably the most perfect Mark
that has ever been employed in this country. Any rule differentiating
the Printer’s Mark proper from a vignette is not likely to give general
satisfaction; for a writer on the subject of vignettes will unfailingly
appropriate many that are Marks, and _vice versa_. The present writer
has found it a fairly safe rule, to accept as a Mark a pictorial
embellishment (on a title-page) to which is appended a motto or
quotation. The temptation to persuade oneself that several of these
vignettes are Printers’ Marks needs a good deal of resisting, especially
when such an exquisite example as that of Daniel Bartholomæus and Son,
of Ulm, is in question. The same holds good with several of the dozen
used by J. Reinhold Dulssecker, Strassburg, about the latter part of the
seventeenth and earlier part of the eighteenth century; and very many
others that might be named.
[Illustration: CRATANDER’S MARK. (Attributed to Holbein.)]
[Illustration: T. COX.