[Illustration: C. PLANTIN.
LABORE ET CONSTANTIA
I. C. I.]
Nearly every volume admittedly printed by the Elzevir family possessed a
Mark, of which this family, from Louis, in 1583, to Daniel, 1680, used
four distinct examples. The founder of the dynasty, Louis (1583-1617),
adopted as his sign or mark an Eagle on a cippus with a bundle of
arrows, accompanied with the motto, “Concordia res parvæ crescunt”--the
emblem of the device of the Batavian Republic--and as the year 1595
occurs on the primitive type of this Mark, it might be concluded to date
from that period. But Willems points out that no book published by Louis
in the years 1595 and 1596 carries this Mark, which (he says) figures
for the first time on the Meursius, “Ad Theocriti idyllia Spicelegium,”
1597. In 1612 Louis Elzevir reduced this Mark, and suppressed the date
above mentioned. For some time Isaac continued the use of the sign of
his grandfather, and even after 1620, when he adopted a new Mark--that
of the Sage or Hermit--he did not completely repudiate it. Bonaventure
and Abraham scarcely ever used it except for their catalogues.
[Illustration: THE SAGE.