For typographical purposes Switzerland may be regarded as an integral
portion of Germany, and it was to Basle that Berthold Rodt of Hanau, one
of Fust’s workmen, is assumed to have brought the art about the year
1467. One of the first Basle printers to adopt a Mark was Jacobus De
Pfortzheim, 1488-1518, who used two very distinct examples, of which we
give the more spirited, the left shield carrying the arms of the city in
which he was working. It appears for the first time in “Grammatica
P. Francisci nigri A. Veneti sacerdoti oratoris,” etc., 1500. The second
Mark is emblematical of the Swiss warrior. The most eminent of the Basle
printers was however Johann Froben, 1490-1527, who numbered among his
“readers” such men as Wolfgang Lachner, Heiland, Musculus,
Oecolampadius, and Erasmus. Very few, if any, German works were printed
by him; the first edition of the New Testament in Greek was printed by
him in 1516, Erasmus being the editor. Froben’s device (to which lengthy
reference has already been made, and into a discussion of the extremely
numerous variants of which we need not enter here) led Erasmus to think
that his learned friend did indeed unite the wisdom of the serpent to
the simplicity of the dove (see p. 43). Two other early Basle printers,
Michael Furter, 1490-1517, and Nicholas Lamparter, 1505-19, used Marks
one shield of each of which carried the arms of Basle. Henricpetri was a
celebrated printer of Basle, 1523-78, and had a Mark of quite a unique
character, representing Thor’s hammer, held by a hand issuing from the
clouds, striking fire on the rock, while a head, symbolizing wind, blows
upon it. To yet another distinguished Basle printer, Cratander,
reference is made, and his Mark given, in the second chapter.
[Illustration: ERHARD OGLIN.