Once started, the idea of the Mark was quickly taken up. Johann
Koelhoff, 1470-1500, the first printer to use printed signatures (in his
edition of Nyder, “Preceptorium divinæ legis,” 1472), came out with a
large but roughly drawn example, the arms of Cologne, consisting of a
knight’s helmet, with peacock feathers, crest, and elaborate mantles,
surmounting a shield with the three crowns in chief, the rest of the
escutcheon blank, and rabbits in the foreground. Koelhoff (who describes
himself “de Lubeck”) was the printer of the “Cologne Chronicle,” 1499,
and of an edition of “Bartholomæus de Proprietatibus Rerum,” 1481.
Several interesting Cologne Marks of the first years of the sixteenth
century may be noted. For instance, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1517-36, used
a caduceus on an ornamented shield, and printed among other books what
is believed to be the earliest edition of Maximilianus Transylvanus’ “De
Moluccis Insulis,” 1523, in which the discoveries of Ferdinand Magellan
and the earliest circumnavigation of the globe were announced. Like
Koelhoff, Nicolas Cæsar, or Kaiser, who was established as a printer at
Cologne in 1518, used the Cologne arms as a Mark, which is sufficiently
distinct from the earlier example to be quoted here. Johann Soter,
1518-36, is another exceedingly interesting personality in the early
history of Cologne printing. We give the more elaborate of the two marks
used by him and reproduced by Berjeau: the shield contains the
Rosicrucian triple triangle on the threshold of a Renaissance door.
During the latter end of his career at Cologne, Soter had also an
establishment at Solingen, where he printed “several works of a
description which rendered too hazardous their publication in the former
city.” Arnold Birckmann and his successors, 1562-92, used the
accompanying Mark of a hen under a tree. After Günther Zainer, 1468-77,
who introduced printing into Augsburg, the most notable typographer of
this city is perhaps Erhart Ratdolt, to whom reference is made in the
chapter on Italian Marks. We give the rather striking Mark--a white
_fleur-de-lis_ on black ground springing from a globe--of Erhart Oglin,
Augsburg, 1505-16, one of whose productions, by Conrad Reitter, 1508, is
remarkable as having a series of Death-Dance pictures; Hans Holbein was
eight years of age when it appeared, and was then living in his native
town of Augsburg.
[Illustration: JOHANN KOELHOFF.
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[Illustration: NICHOLAS CÆSAR.]
[Illustration: J. SOTER.
Του Σωτῆρος]
[Illustration: ARNOLD BIRCKMANN.