[Illustration: V. SCHUMANN.
V S
L D]
Several of the Marks of the early printers of Leipzig, into which
printing was introduced in 1480, are of great interest and possess quite
a character of their own. One of the earliest, for example, is that of
Melchior Lotter, who issued a large number of books from 1491 to 1536.
The word “Lotter” is equivalent to “vagabond” in English, and the Mark
herewith consists of an emblem of a mendicant in a half-suppliant
posture. Melchior Lotter junior was printing at Wittenberg from 1520 to
1524, where he printed anonymously the first edition of Luther’s Bible,
with illustrations by Lucas Cranach, 1522, which an enthusiastic
bibliopole has described as “one of the great works of the world.”
Valentin Schumann, 1502-34 (and probably much later), is another eminent
Leipzig printer, being the first to attempt printing in Hebrew
characters in a Hebrew grammar, 1520. The initials L D on his Mark are
taken to signify “Lipsiensis Demander” or Damander, a rude Latinization
of Schumann which he sometimes used. Sufficiently quaint also is the
Mark of Jacobus Thanner, 1501-21, which forms the initial to the present
chapter. By 1500 printing had reached to Olmütz, where Conrad Baumgarten
was issuing until 1502 works chiefly levelled against the Church of
Rome; from 1503 to 1505 the same printer had established himself in
Breslau, which he again changed for Frankfort-am-Oder, 1507-14, removing
again in the latter year to Leipzig. The W on one of the shields of his
Mark is the initial of Wratislau, the Polish name of Breslau, and the
female saint on the other shows the arms of the town. It appears to be
uncertain whether printing was introduced into Frankfort-am-Main in 1511
or 1530; but the only Mark which we need quote is that of Johann
Feyrabendt, whose chief interest to posterity lies in the fact that he
printed Jost Ammon’s “Künstliche wohlgerissene neu Figuren von allerley
Jagtkunst,” 1592: his Mark is emblematical of Fame, winged, blowing a
German horn, and enclosed in a cartouche. Andreas Wechel was printing at
Frankfort from 1573 to 1581, his Mark being the well-known one of the
Pegasus. Although Jacob Stadelberger, Heidelberg, was not by any means
an eminent printer, his Mark is well worthy of note: it consists of
three shields, the right of which bears the arms of Bavaria, the left a
lion rampant, the arms of Heidelberg, and that of the middle is supposed
to represent the arms of Zurich.
[Illustration: CONRAD BAUMGARTEN.