[Illustration: ANDREW HESTER.
S
E AH R]
[Illustration: THOMAS BERTHELET.
LVCRECIA ROMANA
THOMAS BERTHELETVS]
One of the most prolific of the printers of the first half of the
sixteenth century was Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded Pynson in the
office of King’s Printer, at a salary of £4 yearly, and who (or his
immediate successors, for he died at the end of 1555) issued books from
1528 to 1568, of which nearly 150 are known to bibliographers, sixty
being in the British Museum. His shop was at the sign of the “Lucretia
Romana,” a charming engraving--the most carefully executed of its kind
used in this country up to that time--of which, with his own name on a
scroll, he used as a Mark. Several of his books were printed in Paris.
He issued a large number of works in classical literature, and among the
more notable of his publications were Chaloner’s translation of
Erasmus’s “Praise of Folly,” 1549, Gower’s “De Confessione Amantis,” and
the “Institution of a Christen Man,” with a woodcut border to the title
by Holbein. John Byddell, otherwise Salisbury, 1533-44, was another
printer whose Mark was derived from the sign of the shop in which he
carried on business, namely, “Our Lady of Pity,” next Fleet Bridge, but
he afterwards removed to the Sun near the Conduit, which was probably
the old residence of Wynkyn de Worde, for whom he was an executor. The
Lady of Pity is personified as an angel with outstretched wings, holding
two elegant horns or torches, the left of which is pouring out a kind of
stream terminating in drops, and is marked on the side with the word
“Gratia”; that on the right contains fire and is lettered “Charitas”:
the lower ends of these horns are rested by the angel upon two rude
heater shields, on the left of which is inscribed “Johan Byddell,
Printer,” and on the other is a mark which includes the printer’s
initials; round the head of the figure are the words, “Virtus beatos
efficit.” This is merely a copy of one of the Marks used by J. Sacon,
a Lyonese printer, 1498-1522. Byddell’s books were distinctly in keeping
with the seriousness of his sign, and among others we find such titles
as “News out of Hell,” 1536, “Olde God and the Newe,” 1534, “Common
Places of Scripture,” 1538, etc., besides two “Primers.” Thomas
Vautrollier, who printed books at Edinburgh and London from about 1566
to 1605, had four Marks, in all of which an anchor is suspended from the
clouds, and two leafy boughs twined, with the motto “Anchora Spei,” and
with a framework which is identical with that of Guarinus, of Basle.
Vautrollier was a native of France; nearly all his books were in Latin.
In 1584 he printed an edition of Giordano Bruno’s “Spaccio de la Bestia
Trionfante,” with a dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, and for which he
had to flee the country, for the imprint, “Stampato in Parigi,” was an
obvious and unsuccessful attempt to hoodwink the authorities. In the
following year he printed at Edinburgh “A Declaration of the Kings
Majesties intention and meaning toward the lait Actis of Parliament.”
J. Norton, 1593-1610, also used the same Mark.
[Illustration: JOHN BYDDELL.
I B
¶ IOHAN BYDDELL.]
[Illustration: THOMAS VAUTROLLIER.