Printers' Marks Part 7

Quam dulcia faucibus meis eloquia tua, super mel ori meo. Psal. 118.

Omnia probate, quod bonum fuerit tenete. 1. Thess. 5.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRAFT MuLLER.

Alma Spicifera Flaua CERES.

Ni purges & molas non comedes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEODOSIUS RIHEL, JOSIAS RIHEL (UND DEREN ERBEN).]

Wendelin Rihel was the founder of one of the longest-lived dynasties of Stra.s.sburg printers, who were issuing books from 1535 to 1639; their eighteen Marks have all the same subject, a winged figure of Sophrosyne, holding in one hand a rule, and in the other a bridle and halter. Of Thiebold Berger, who appears to have been in business from 1551-1584, very little is known, either of his books or his personality; his Mark is, however, pretty, and unique, so far as Stra.s.sburg is concerned.

Lazarus Zetzner and his successors, whose works date from 1586 to 1648, and whose Marks number nearly thirty, all variants of the example here given: it is a bust of Minerva supported on a short square pedestal, on which is inscribed the words "Scientia immutabilis." This family printed a large number of works, from a Lutheran Bible to Aretini's "Historiae Florentinae." As an example of a rare and distinct Mark we give one of two employed by Conrad Scher, 1603-31, which was subsequently used by Johannes Reppius, also of Stra.s.sburg. Curiosity is the only feature of the solitary example of David Hauth, 1635.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAZARUS ZETZNER.

SCIENTIA IMMUTABILIS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIEBOLD BERGER.

TIMETE DOMINVM OMNES SANCTI EIVS QVONIAM NON EST INOPIA TIMENTIBVS EVM. PS:34]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONRAD SCHER.

Prudentia Firma Et Simplex Spes]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID HAUTH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. R. DULSSECKER.

DOMINUS PROVIDEBIT]

But of all the Stra.s.sburg printers, there can be no doubt that, from a strictly pictorial point of view, the Marks of Johann Reinhold Dulssecker, 1696-1737, are by far the most beautiful. Indeed, in many respects they are the most charming examples to be found among the devices of any time or country. In some instances they partake much more of the character of a vignette than a tradesman's mark. His earliest device is composed of his monogram; and his first decorative Mark is the very beautiful little picture of an English garden, in the central pathway of which occurs his initials. This Mark appears to have been used in only one book, "M. Fabii Quinctiliani Declamationes ... ex recensione Ulrici Obrechti," 1698. A type of Mark very frequently used by him occurs in Schilter's "Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum," 1702, with his motto of "Dominus providebit," and of this Mark we give an excessively rare variant on p. 47. He had eleven Marks, his list includes books of all kinds, in Latin, German, and French.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHANN REINHOLD DULSSECKER.

FOECUNDANTE DEO IN VARIOS PRODUCIMUR USUS]

Of the other Alsatian printers we have only room to refer to two examples. Thomas Anshelm (or Anshelmi Badensis) is perhaps the most eminent of the early Hagenau printers, his books dating from 1488 to 1522, the earliest of which, however, were not printed at this place.

His Marks all carry the initials T A B, the Hebrew letters in the accompanying example representing the name Jehovah; in his most elegant Mark the same word is supported on a scroll by a cherub, whilst another cherub is supporting a second scroll on which is inscribed the word Jesus in Greek characters. The style and workmans.h.i.+p of this woodcut suggest the hand of Hans Schaufelein, and it is worth noting that in 1516 Anshelm produced "Doctrina Vita et Pa.s.sio Jesu Christi," some of the ill.u.s.trations of which were by Schaufelein. Anshelm issued a large number of books, including the works of Pliny, Melancthon, Erasmus, Cicero, etc. Valentin Kobian, 1532-42, inserted an exceedingly original and striking Mark in the edition of Erasmus' "Heroic.u.m Carmen," 1536, the Peac.o.c.k with one foot on a c.o.c.k and the other on a crouching Lion being highly effective.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS ANSHELM.

[[Hebrew]] ???? ?

T A B]

[Transcriber's Note: The superfluous word "Hebrew" was included to keep the text display from misbehaving.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VALENTIN KOBIAN.

Anno M.D. x.x.xVI.

mens: Septem:

Non Aquilae grandi sociatum turgide Pauum ' Galle premes tec.u.m mox Leo uictus erit]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A. THER h.o.e.rNEN.

-- Explicit presens vocabulorum materia. a perdocto eloquentissimo [que] viro. dno Gherardo de schueren Ccellario Ill.u.s.trissimi ducis Cli uensis ex diuersorum terministar[um]

voluminibus contexta. propriis[que]

eiusdem manibus labore ingenti c scripta ac correcta Colonie per me Arnoldu ther hoen? diligentissime impressa. finita sub annis domini.

M.cccc.lxxvij. die vltimo mensis maij. De quo cristo marie filio sit laus et gloria per seculorum secula Amen.]

Printing had not established itself at Cologne until four years later than at Stra.s.sburg. Ulric Zell, at the dispersal of the Mainz printers, settled himself in this city, where he was printing from about 1463 to nearly the end of the fifteenth century. He was clearly not an innovator, for he never printed a book in German, and did not adopt any of the improvements of his _confreres_ who had settled themselves in Italy; he "rigidly adhered to the severe style of Schoeffer, printing all his books from three sizes of a rude face of a round gothic type."

It is not to him therefore that we can look for anything in the way of Printers' Marks, the earliest Cologne printer to adopt which was apparently Arnold Ther h.o.e.rnen, whose colophons, of which we give an example, were often printed in red. His Mark is a triangle of which the two upright sides are prolonged with a crosslet; in the centre a star, and on either side the gothic letters T H, the whole being on a very small s.h.i.+eld hanging from a broken stump. Herman b.u.mgart, one of whose books bears the subscription "Gedruckt in Coelne up den Alden Mart tzo dem wilden manne," and who was in Cologne at the latter end of the fifteenth century, has a special interest to us from the probability that he was in some way connected with the early Scottish printers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERMAN b.u.mGART.

Impressu[m] Colonie sup[er] antiquu for[um] in Siluestri viro.]

Once started, the idea of the Mark was quickly taken up. Johann Koelhoff, 1470-1500, the first printer to use printed signatures (in his edition of Nyder, "Preceptorium divinae legis," 1472), came out with a large but roughly drawn example, the arms of Cologne, consisting of a knight's helmet, with peac.o.c.k feathers, crest, and elaborate mantles, surmounting a s.h.i.+eld with the three crowns in chief, the rest of the escutcheon blank, and rabbits in the foreground. Koelhoff (who describes himself "de Lubeck") was the printer of the "Cologne Chronicle," 1499, and of an edition of "Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus Rerum," 1481.

Several interesting Cologne Marks of the first years of the sixteenth century may be noted. For instance, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1517-36, used a caduceus on an ornamented s.h.i.+eld, and printed among other books what is believed to be the earliest edition of Maximilia.n.u.s Transylva.n.u.s' "De Moluccis Insulis," 1523, in which the discoveries of Ferdinand Magellan and the earliest circ.u.mnavigation of the globe were announced. Like Koelhoff, Nicolas Caesar, or Kaiser, who was established as a printer at Cologne in 1518, used the Cologne arms as a Mark, which is sufficiently distinct from the earlier example to be quoted here. Johann Soter, 1518-36, is another exceedingly interesting personality in the early history of Cologne printing. We give the more elaborate of the two marks used by him and reproduced by Berjeau: the s.h.i.+eld contains the Rosicrucian triple triangle on the threshold of a Renaissance door.

During the latter end of his career at Cologne, Soter had also an establishment at Solingen, where he printed "several works of a description which rendered too hazardous their publication in the former city." Arnold Birckmann and his successors, 1562-92, used the accompanying Mark of a hen under a tree. After Gunther Zainer, 1468-77, who introduced printing into Augsburg, the most notable typographer of this city is perhaps Erhart Ratdolt, to whom reference is made in the chapter on Italian Marks. We give the rather striking Mark--a white _fleur-de-lis_ on black ground springing from a globe--of Erhart Oglin, Augsburg, 1505-16, one of whose productions, by Conrad Reitter, 1508, is remarkable as having a series of Death-Dance pictures; Hans Holbein was eight years of age when it appeared, and was then living in his native town of Augsburg.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHANN KOELHOFF.

i k]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NICHOLAS CaeSAR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. SOTER.

??? S?t????]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARNOLD BIRCKMANN.

VTILIA SEMPER NOVA SAEPIVS PROFERO]

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 a.s.sumed 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+eld 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ERHARD OGLIN.

E O]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACOBUS DE PFORTZHEIM.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRICPETRI.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILHELM MORITZ ENDTER'S DAUGHTER.

OMNIA LVSTRAT]