[Illustration: PIERRE LE ROUGE.
.P. le Rouge]
[Illustration: PHILIPPE LE NOIR.
P N
PHILIPPE LE NOIR]
[Illustration: THIELMAN KERVER.
T K
THIELMAN KERVER]
In many respects Jean or Jehan Petit is one of the most remarkable of
the early French printers, whilst from the time he started to the final
extinction of his descendants as printers covers a space of 336
years--a record which is probably unrivalled in the history of
typography. Jehan Petit kept fifteen presses fully employed, and found a
great deal of work for fifteen others. The family as a whole makes a
good show with their marks, in which the founder is more extravagant
than any of the others, having used, at one time or another, at least
half-a-dozen more or less different examples. In addition to reproducing
one of the finest, we give, on p. 9, also a reduced facsimile of a
title-page of a book, the joint venture of Petit and Kerver; the
combination of the two names on one title-page is distinctly novel and
curious. He was on several occasions associated with others in producing
a book, his connection with Josse Bade extending from 1501 to 1536. Of
Bade or Badius it will be necessary to give a few particulars. He was
born at Asche, near Brussels, and was a scholar and a poet as well as a
printer. About 1495-7 he was engaged as a corrector of the press for
Treschel and De Vingle at Lyons. He left about 1500 for Paris, where he
started a press in 1502, which he called “Prelum Ascensianum.” In
reference to this term, “the Ascension Press,” the word “prelum” was
applied to the ancient wine presses, after which, in fact, the earliest
printing presses were modelled. His Mark, which he first used in 1507,
is the earliest picture of a printing-press. Thirteen years after, he
adopted another device with the same subject, but differing in many
important particulars. In the second, the composing-stick used by the
figure in the act of setting type is changed from the right to the left
hand; the press shows improved mechanical construction, indicating
greater solidity and strength. In the latter example also the figure
sitting at the case on the right side of the engraving is intended to
represent a woman, instead of a man as in the earlier illustration.
Contemporary with both Petit and Bade, Gilles or Gillet Hardouyn,
1491-1521, was both a printer and a bookseller, and used two Marks, of
which we give the more striking. Germain Hardouyn, possibly a son of the
preceding, confined himself more particularly to selling books during
the first forty years of the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: PHILIPPE PIGOUCHET.
pp.
PHILIPPE PIGOVCHET]
[Illustration: JEHAN PETIT.
I P
IEHAN PETIT]
[Illustration: J. BADE.
Prelũ Ascẽsianũ
I B]
[Illustration: GILLET HARDOUYN.]
[Illustration: GEOFFREY TORY.