[Illustration: COLARD MANSION.
Fait et jmprime
a bruges par colard
mansion lan et jour
dessusdis]
Colard Mansion, 1474-84, the first printer who worked at Bruges, for an
exhaustive account of whose connection with William Caxton the reader is
referred to Mr. Blades’s monograph, used several Marks, printed in red
and black, and similar to the example here given.
In many respects the “Clercs ou Frères de la vie Commune” (Fratres vitæ
communis), who were printing at Brussels from 1476 to 1487, form one of
the most interesting features in the early history of printing in the
Low Countries. The types which they used resemble very much those of
Arnold Ther Hoernen, Cologne; and the only book, “diligentia impresse in
famosa civitate Bruxellen,” to which they put their name, is entitled
“Legendæ Sanctorum Henrici Imperatoris et Kunegundis Imperatricis,”
etc., 1484, and this is their only illustrated book. “Their productions
illustrate the stage of transition between the ancient scribe and
printer by showing how naturally one succeeded to the other.” A full
bibliographical account of the Brothers will be found in M. Madden’s
“Lettres d’un Bibliophile.” The Mark here given is reproduced from the
above-named work: it consists of an Eagle crowned and displayed,
supporting a shield with the arms of Brabant quarterly, with river in
bend, and star. The first Deventer printer was Richard Paffroed (the
surname has about thirty variations) in 1477, who was either a pupil of
Ulric Zell or Ther Hoernen, and who continued there until the first year
of the sixteenth century, and was apparently succeeded by his youngest
son Albertus, who was printing there up to about 1530, and whose Mark we
give.
[Illustration: THE BROTHERS OF COMMON LIFE.
D vlieghende Eler zeer hoeghelike
Metter wapene me ghi hier tuent
Van linte hewpe keyserlike
Daer ghi uv met sijt ghenvent]
[Illustration: ALBERTUS PAFFRAEJ.
A P
ALBERTVS PAFFRAEJ]
So far as Gouda is concerned, Gheraert or Gerard Leeu and early printing
are synonymous. He was a native of this place, and established himself
here as a printer in 1477 and continued up to 1484, when he removed his
presses to Antwerp, where he was printing until the year of his death,
1493. His “Dialogus Creaturarum,” the first edition of which appeared in
1480, had run into over a dozen editions, in Latin or Dutch, by the
first year of the sixteenth century. Whilst at Gouda Leeu used several
marks, of which the smaller, given on p. 39, was printed in red and
black; at Antwerp he used a much more ambitious example, consisting of
the arms of the Castle of Antwerp: a battlement and a turreted gate,
with two smaller ones on either side; the two large flags bear the arms
of the German Empire and of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Nicolas
Leeu, who was printing at Antwerp in 1487-8, was possibly the brother of
the more famous typographer, and his Mark consists of the lion (a pun on
his surname, which is equivalent to lion) in a Gothic window holding two
shields, with the arms of Antwerp on the left and the monogram of
Gheraert Leeu on the right. Like Leeu and so many of the other early
Dutch printers, the first Delft typographer, Jacob Jacobzoon Van der
Meer, 1477-87, employed the arms of the town in which he printed on his
Mark, the right shield in the present instance carrying three water-lily
leaves. In 1477 he issued an edition of the Dutch Bible, and three years
later the first edition of the Psalter, “Die Duytsche Souter,” which had
been omitted from the Bible. The only other Delft printer to whom we
need refer is Christian Snellaert, 1495-7, the only book to which he has
placed both his name and his Mark being “Theobaldus Physiologus de
naturis duodecim animalium,” 1495. His most remarkable production,
however, is a “Missale secundum Ordinarium Trajactense,” issued about
1497; this Mark, given on p. 35, was also used by Henri Eckert van
Hombergh, who was printing at Antwerp from 1500 to 1519: the shield
carries the arms of Antwerp; in the arms of Snellaert this shield is
blank, and this constitutes the only difference between the two Marks.
[Illustration: GERARD LEEU.]
[Illustration: JACOB JACOBZOON VAN DER MEER.
delf in hollant]
[Illustration: MATHIAS VAN DER GOES.]
[Illustration: R. VAN DEN DORP.]
[Illustration: G. BACK.