[Illustration: E. DOLET.]
Two contemporary Lyonese firms of printers, the De Tournes and De la
Portes, appear to have rivalled one another in the number of their
Marks. Jean De Tournes, 1542-50, himself had no less than eleven Marks,
several of which are exceedingly graceful, one of the largest and best
of which represents a sower, and serves as an excellent pendant to the
reaper of Jacques Roffet, both of which appear in our first chapter. The
seven or eight members of the De la Porte family used at least half a
score Marks between them. The family, beginning with Aymé De la Porte in
the last decade of the fifteenth century, and ending with Sibylle De la
Porte, were in business first as printers, then as booksellers, for just
a century; and the punning device apparently originated, not with the
first member of the family, but with Jehan, who started a business in
Paris about 1508, and in his Mark the shield bears a castellated
doorway; the picture of the biblical Samson carrying off the gates was
apparently first used by Hugues De la Porte, who was a bookseller at
Lyons from 1530; this was superseded for the more pictorial and
considerably smaller example, here given, when he entered into
partnership with Antoine Vincent about 1559. Although the Du Prés were
Parisian printers, Jehan of that family issued several books at Lyons
during the last few years of the fifteenth century, and one of his three
Marks is given on p. 108. Sébastien Gryphe, or Gryphius, who printed and
published a large number of works during the second quarter of the
sixteenth century, was also extravagant in the way of Marks, of which
there are at least eight, all, however, of one common type--the Griffin,
sometimes quite without any sort of decorative attributes or motto, and
sometimes as in the example here given.
[Illustration: HUGUES DE LA PORTE AND A. VINCENT.
LIBERTATEM MEAM MECVM PORTO
VINCENTI]
[Illustration: SÉBASTIEN GRYPHE.]
[Illustration: JACQUES COLOMIES.
I C
IACQVES COLOMIES]
So far as regards the French cities and towns, we have only space to
refer briefly to a few of the more important. After Paris and Lyons,
Toulouse was one of the earliest places in France in which
a printing-press was set up. Although not the first, Jacques Colomies
was one of the first, as he was one of the most prolific of the early
printers of Toulouse, working from 1530 to 1572. Printing was
established at Caen in 1480; but Pierre Chandelier, whose punning Mark
we give, did not start work until eighty years after its first
introduction. A punning device (p. 7), also is that of Jehan Lecoq, who
was printing at Troyes from about 1509 to 1530. The only Rouen printer
to whom we shall refer is Martin Morin, who appears to have been at work
here as a printer from about 1484 to 1518, and of his Marks we give one
example; another is formed of a large initial M, decorated with a
variety of grotesque heads, with the surname Morin on the two central
strokes of the letter.
[Illustration: M. MORIN.
M M
IMPRIME A ROVEN DEVANT SAINCT LO]
[Illustration: PIERRE LE CHANDELIER.