FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS
Of provincial French towns after Lyons the most important as regards
the history of printing are Troyes and Rouen. In the former the chief
printers using initial letters were the Lerouges and J. Lecoq. The five
large letters, C, C, D, L, S, with Chinese-looking dragons and birds,
together with the B of an entirely different character representing
David and his harp, no doubt the initial letter of some Psalter, were
used in the impressions of the Lerouges, and were taken from one of
their finest books, _La thoison d’or_.
These printers worked for Paris publishers, particularly for Vérard,
and the calligraphic alphabet of the latter, given above, formed part
of their material.
Of Lecoq we give two sets. The specimens, with grotesque profiles, are
from a monumental _Graduale Trecense_ in which there are altogether
between twenty and thirty different varieties, from the _Vie de
Monseigneur St. Bernard_, printed for Macé Panthoul, and from a
_Statuta synodalia_ of the ‘State and Diocese of Troyes,’ printed by
order of the Reverend Bishop Odard Hennequin. The I, the Q with a
fool and his accoutrements, the S with a profile on each side and a
bird’s head and upper beak above, the larger F and the V also with two
profiles and a face with porcine snout on the top, are only to be found
in the _Statuta Synodalia_.
It may be here observed that it has been our constant practice to
reproduce our specimens exactly as they appear in the original, in
order to give them the documentary interest that they lose when
retouched. In this case these initials were too badly daubed over with
paint for gillotype reproduction, and the first nine were obtained by
photographing on wood and then engraving. They are good facsimiles of
the originals, but without what may be called their _patine_. It was
subsequently ascertained that the colour in most instances was easily
removable, and the other five letters were copied in the usual way. The
reader can compare the results of the two processes.
The smaller alphabet, engraved also on wood, is complete in the _Vie
de Monseigneur St. Bernard_, but occasional letters are to be met with
in many of Lecoq’s later impressions. Amongst these may be mentioned
an excessively rare little Latin primer on the plan of the Donatus,
with Lecoq’s _marque parlante_ on the title-page, and with the E of
this alphabet at the beginning of the title, which runs as follows:
_Epithoma sive breviarium octo partium orationis gramaticalis adiectis
grãmatice principiis ad completam grammaticam introductoriũ_.
Rouen was an important centre of printing at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, a great many publishers in other towns and countries
having the works which they edited printed in this city. This was
often the case with books apparently of Caen. We shall have to
speak of a _Histoire de Commines_, supposed to have been printed at
Paris, but really printed at Rouen. The earliest work from which we
have made reproductions is an exposition of the Psalms by Petrus de
Harentals, with a very long title beginning _Psalterii expositio Petri
de Harentals viri religione clarissimi_, etc.; at the end ‘Impressum
in officina Laurentii Hostingue et Jameti Loys,’ 1504. It is stated,
moreover, to be sold at Paris by J. Petit and Robert Macé, the large
mark of the latter occupying the verso of the last leaf. From this book
the series of letters with heads, curious little animals, and compound
monstrosities are taken. The large P with a man holding up his hand is
on the title-page. In another volume, the _Singularissimum et eximium
opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis Seraphici patris nostri
francisci_, etc., printed by Martin Morin in 1509, are the I with two
dragons, the H corresponding to it, and the second H with a woman in a
Norman bonnet such as the peasants wear to this day.
The only remaining initial we have met with of this style and size,
the P with a man with a pointed cap and tassel, is to be found on the
first page of the text of a _Coustumier de Normandie_, belonging to Mr.
Quaritch.
The large calligraphic M with the arms of Normandy adorns the
title-page of the missal of Arras, _Missale Atrebatense_, and also
that of the _Missale Noviomense_ of 1506, both of which were printed
by Martin Morin, and the twelve initials in red comprise most of the
ornamental letters distributed through the two volumes. There are
also some grotesque lettrines similar to those found in many Rouen
impressions, and such as have been given from the Psalterium of
Harentals.
Another large calligraphic initial, and nine smaller ones, are from a
Rouen edition of the _Propriétaire_, printed for Francis Regnault by
Jacques le Forestier, which, unlike the Lyons and Paris editions of the
same date, 1520-30, is without the series of twelve Zodiac letters that
precedes the paragraphs of the little treatise ‘On Men and Women’ at
the end of the volume.
The three smaller initials of the same size, A, B (David and his harp),
and R, the two somewhat larger--a D with a compound animal with a
long snaky neck, and a P with a grotesque, together with the P with
a schoolmaster armed with his birch and about to operate, are from
another edition of the _Coustumier de Normandie_ of 1523.
The A, surmounted by a crown with a saint below, with the D, a swan,
and the S with two animals, are met with also in other books, but were
reproduced from the _Opera Guilelmi Monachi Valladii_, without name of
printer or date, but printed at Rouen by Hostingue in 1505. The M is
the same as in the missals of M. Morin, and there is the same P as in
Harentals’ Psalter, but in very bad proofs.
Our last specimens are from the alphabet of Jacques Forestier, or
rather of Jacques le Gentil. Most of the letters are to be found in
a 1525 edition of _Commines_ which had always, on the authority of
Brunet, passed for having been printed at Paris. Claudin, however,
noticed that the verso of the last page had the arms of Rouen and the
mark of Jacques Forestier, and the recto says ‘Imprimé par J. G.’ This
J. G. was Jacques le Gentil, son-in-law to J. Forestier, to whose
business he succeeded, using for a time his father-in-law’s mark.
In the _Commines_ there are sixteen different initials, but neither of
the two with profiles, D and G. These, with some of the others, are to
be found in the _Grand Coustumier du Pays et Duché de Normandie_ of
1523, already mentioned, and in a book entitled _Divi Gregorii Magni
et ecclesie doctoris precipua opera_, printed at Rouen in 1521 at the
expense of that most honest man and most famous bookseller, Francis
Regnault of Paris.
From a typographical point of view Avignon is interesting on account
of the claim that has been made for it as the birthplace of printing
by the Abbé Requin. This is based upon notarial records of 1444, but
the invention, in the opinion of the late M. Claudin, was in reality a
primitive form of typewriting.
The chief printer there at the beginning of the sixteenth century was
Jean de Chauny, and our specimens of initials are from two volumes
printed by him for Jehan François de Saint Nazaire, otherwise called
De Ripa. The first is a small quarto with a curious ornamental
title-page, _De Peste libri tres_, dedicated by the ‘celeberrimus
atque acutissimus’ author to the citizens of Avignon; the other,
_Interpretationum et responsorum acutissimi atque clarissimi
jurisconsulti dōmi Joan francisci de Sancto Nazario cognomento de Ripa
libri tres_, is a very large quarto printed in 1527. Like most books
of the kind, both volumes commence by complimentary verses, the carmen
‘Jacobi Meigroni Novensis, ad studiosos legum juvenes,’ being a good
specimen of the punning panegyric of the period.
In a similar composition mentioned under the heading ‘Sienna,’ Dathus
is preferred to Cicero. According to Meigronus, De Ripa is more
reliable than the Delphic oracle.
Of the larger Avignon initials two only occur in the larger volume, the
F reproduced in the text at the beginning of the privilege, and an S at
the beginning of the third book, which is somewhat imperfectly printed.
The smaller letters are much more numerous, especially in the _Libri
Interpretationum et responsorum_.
A very important work[33] has been devoted to the early printing of
Poitiers, one volume of which consists chiefly of facsimiles. As a rule
the initials are devoid of interest, but there is a large grotesque
L from a _Costumier de Poitou_ printed by J. de Marnef, a P from a
missal, and a few with human faces, such as the one that we reproduce.
[33] _Monuments de l’Imprimerie à Poitiers_, par A. Claudin.
Later in the century a legal work was published with a nearly complete
alphabet representing the different occurrences that might happen to an
accused person, such as the stocks and the rack. They are, however, as
a rule, too poorly printed, and the copies we have seen are not worth
reproducing.
In books printed at other French towns we have discovered but few
initials. There is a large but uninteresting one at the beginning of a
Chambéry edition of the _Roy Modus_.
On the only leaf that has come down to the present time of a Limoges
missal, and which forms the subject of a memoir by M. Claudin, is an R,
with the Resurrection.
In an early Albi edition of Æsop, with cuts, in what is called the
_manière éraillée_, which look as if executed by scratching the block
with a rusty nail, there are some initials of which the N will give an
idea of the _éraillée_ manner. In a later tract, _La vie et légende de
Mme. Ste. Petroine_, there is an A, which may possibly have been used
first for a missal.
In the chapter about Basle, mention has been made of an alphabet which
is nearly complete, used by Furter in his _Liber Decretorum sive
Panormia_, and which also occurs in a much rarer book without date or
printer’s name, the _Decreta Consilii Basiliensis_. This alphabet, it
now seems, was used in 1488, at Besançon, in the _Speculum Humanae
Vitae_ of Rodoricus Zamorensis. Sotheby, in his _Typography of the
Fifteenth Century_, has given a reproduction of one of the pages on
which there is the very characteristic serpentine S, which is here
given with the T and the V.
Printers in the other towns would seem to have been supplied with the
worn-out initials of the Rouen and Lyons presses.
In the few books with ornaments printed at Caen, Rouen letters are
found; whilst in those published in the south of France, there are
chiefly the floral initials from the presses of Saccon, De Vingle, and
other Lyons printers.