[Illustration: F. ESTIENNE.
Πλίον ἐλαίου ἤ βίνου
Plus olei quàm vini.]
It is rather a curious fact, all things considered, that the
introduction of the printing-press into Paris should have only antedated
its appearance in this country by four years; such however is the case.
It was at the commencement of the year 1470, the tenth of the reign of
Louis XI., that Ulrich Gering, Martin Krantz, and Michel Friburger
commenced printing in one of the rooms of the College Sorbonne. They had
learnt their art at Mayence, and at the dispersal of the office of Fust
and Schoeffer had settled down at Basel. They were induced to take up
their residence at the Sorbonne by Jean Heinlin and Guillaume Fichet,
two distinguished professors of that place. The first book printed at
Paris was the “Letters” of Gasparin of Bergamo, 1470, which contains the
following quatrain at the end of the work:
“Primos ecce libros quos hæc industria finxit
Francorum in terris ædibus atque tuis;
Michael, Udalrichus, Martinusque magister
Hos impresserunt, ac facient alios.”
By the end of 1472 the three companions had issued thirty works,
apparently without indulging in the luxury of a Mark, but their patrons
separating they had to leave the Sorbonne. Their new quarters were at
the sign of the “Soleil d’Or” in the Rue St. Jacques--the Paternoster
Row of Paris. Here they remained until 1477, when Gering was the sole
proprietor. He was joined in 1480 by George Mainyal, and in 1494 by
Bertholt Rembolt, and died in August, 1510. Within thirty years of the
introduction of printing into Paris, there were nearly ninety printers,
who issued nearly 800 works between 1470 and 1500. Rembolt, who
succeeded Gering and preserved the sign of his office, was one of the
earliest, if not the first to adopt a Mark, of which indeed he used four
more or less distinct examples. We reproduce one of the rarest; his best
known is a highly decorative picture, and has a shield (carrying a cross
with the initials B. R. in the lower half of the circle which envelopes
the foot of the cross) suspended from a vine tree and supported by two
lions. Of this Mark there are at least two sizes; another of his Marks
consisted of an enlarged form of the cross to which we have referred.
[Illustration: B. REMBOLT.