Chapter III: Part 3

The Doctrinale of Alexander of Villedieu (God be praised!)
comes to a happy end. It has been printed amid enough
inconveniences, since of several things which belong to this
art the printer, in making a beginning with it, could obtain no
proper supply, owing to the plague raging at Genoa, Asti, and
elsewhere. Now this same work has been corrected by the prior
Venturinus, a distinguished grammarian, and that so diligently
that whereas previously the Doctrinale in many places seemed
by the fault of booksellers too little corrected, now by the
application of his care and diligence it will reach men’s hands
in the most correct form possible. After this date books will
be printed in type of another kind, and elegantly, I think;
for both artificers and a sufficiency of other things of which
hitherto the putter forth has been in need he now possesses
by the gift of God, who disposes all things according to the
judgment of his will. Amen.

All these promises may have been carried out, but we know of no other book from this press, and it is more than likely that no other was issued. Nor was this the only press which was inconvenienced by the plague, since two years later the disease interrupted Conrad Kachelofen in the pious task of printing a missal at Leipzig, and caused him to become the first exponent of the art at Freiberg, as we duly learn from the colophon:

Quanquam alias codices librorum missalium iuxta rubricam
ecclesie Misnensis per Reuerendissimum in christo patrem
et dominum dominum Iohannem f[elicis] r[ecordationis] olim
episcopum Misnensem imprimi satis exacta diligentia procurati
sunt: tamen quia predicti codices multa necessaria que
presentes in lucem dedere omiserunt et eorum numerus Misnensis
diocesis latitudini ac personarum inibi deo famulantium & pro
libris huiusmodi sepenumero auide inquirentium multitudini non
satisfacit Ideo Reuerendissimus in cristo pater et dominus
dominus Iohannes de Salhusen modernus misnensis ecclesie
episcopus, his aliisque penuriis et defectibus succurrere
uolens, presens missalium opus iuxta rubricam iam dicte sue
Misnensis diocesis diligenti opera castigatum atque distinctum
per industrium Conradum Kachelofen huius impressorie artis
magistrum oppidique lipsensis conciuem in oppido eodem
inchoari: atque grassante pestifero morbo in oppido Freiberg
perfici et foeliciter finiri procurauit. Quod quidem opus
ad nouarum etiam festiuitatum, pro diuini cultus augmento,
institutiones aptissimum erit: quarum historie in prioribus
codicibus minime habentur et in presentibus cum multis aliis
specialibus uotiuis missis suo ordine annotantur ita ut hec
noua uolumina cum precedentibus conferentes necessaria potius
quam superuacanea fuisse animaduertant. Anno salutis quinto et
nonagesimo supra quadringentesimum et millesimum, Die uero lune
mensis nouembris nona.

IOANNIS CUBITENSIS EPIGRAMMA

Gallicus hoc nostro Conradus muneris euo
Attulit: ingenio dedalicaque manu.
Antistes Misne, plenus bonitate fideque,
Dux erat. Auctorem lector opusque tenes.

Although copies of the missal-books according to the rubric of
the diocese of Meissen have been caused by the most reverend
Father in Christ and lord, the lord John of happy memory,
formerly Bishop of Meissen, to be printed elsewhere with
sufficiently exact diligence, yet inasmuch as the aforesaid
copies omitted many necessary things which the present ones
have published, and the number of them does not suffice for
so wide a diocese as Meissen and for the multitude of persons
of the household of God in it who ofttimes eagerly seek for
books of this kind, Therefore, the most reverend Father in
Christ and lord, the lord Johann von Salhusen, the Bishop,
that now is, of the Church of Meissen, wishing to come to the
aid of these and other wants and defects, caused the present
missal-book, according to the rubric of his aforesaid diocese
of Meissen, diligently corrected and arranged, to be begun
by the industrious Conrad Kachelofen, a master of this art
of printing and citizen of the town of Leipzig, in that same
town, and on the approach of the plague to be accomplished and
happily finished in the town of Freiberg. The which missal-book
will be found most suitable for the institutions also of new
festivals for the increase of the divine worship, the lessons
for these being very defective in the former copies, while in
the present ones they are noted with many other special votive
masses in their proper order, so that those who compare these
volumes with the preceding ones will count them as necessary
rather than superfluous. In the year of salvation 1495, on
Monday, November 9th.

EPIGRAM OF JOHANNES CUBITENSIS

This gift French Conrad brought unto our age;
His wit and skilful hand achieved the task.
Meissen’s good, faithful bishop blessed the page:
Of book or author need none further ask.

From Hain 10425 we learn that a Machasor, or Compendium of Prayers, for the use of the Italian synagogues was begun at Soncino in September, 1485, and finished at Casal Maggiore in August, 1486; but to what this change of scene was due the colophon does not say. One would have thought that in the fifteenth century war as well as pestilence must often have interrupted the printer at his work; and indeed the sack of Mainz in 1462 was a very notable event in the history of printing. Yet the only two references to war I can remember in contemporary colophons hardly view it as an interruption—the first Paris printers (Gering, Krantz, and Friburger), indeed, tried to use it as an advertisement for their Sallust, where the verses at the end run:

Nunc parat arma uirosque simul rex maximus orbis,
Hostibus antiquis exitium minitans.
Nunc igitur bello studeas gens Pariseorum,
Cui Martis quondam gloria magna fuit.
Exemplo tibi sint nunc fortia facta uirorum,
Quae digne memorat Crispus in hoc opere.
Armigerisque tuis alemannos adnumeres, qui
Hos pressere libros, arma futura tibi.

The King of France his armaments and men is mustering,
Upon his ancient enemies destruction threatening.
Now therefore, men of Paris, show your ardor for the wars,
Who erst won mighty glory in the service of great Mars.
Set before you as examples each brave, heroic deed
Of which in Sallust’s pages due record you may read;
And count us German printers as adding to your store
Of fighters, since this history will stir up many more.

The other allusion takes the form of sympathy with the sufferers from Turkish oppression and invasion, and comes at the end of an edition of the story of Attila, in a colophon which leads up to the statement that the book was printed at Venice by showing how it was the fear caused by Attila which brought about the foundation of the island city.

Atila persecutore de la Christiana fede. Primamente vene verso
aquilegia nel tempo de papa Leone e de odopio imperatore de li
christiani. Laqual cita insembre con molte altre cita castelli
e forteze nela fertile e bella Italia destrusse. Li habitatori
de li dicti luoghi fugiendo la sua canina rabia ad modo che nel
presente tempo, cioe del summo pontifice papa Innocentio, e di
Federico imperatore e del Inclyto duce Augustino Barbadico in
Venetia imperante neli anni del signore del M.cccc lxxxxi se
fuge la crudele ed abhominabile persecutione del perfido cane
turcho il qual come e ditto de sopra abandonando le lor dolce
patrie perueneno a le prenominate isole: nelequale fu edificata
la potentissima famosa e nobile cita de Venetia laqual Idio per
la sua pieta mantenga felice e prospera e victoriosa per mare e
per terra longo tempo.

FINIS. Impressum Venetiis.

Attila, the persecutor of the Christian faith, first came to
Aquilegia in the time of Pope Leo and of Odopius, Emperor
of the Christians. The which city, together with many other
cities, castles, and strong places in fertile and beautiful
Italy, he destroyed. The inhabitants of the said places fled
from his dog-like rage just as in the present time (that
is, the time of the most high pontiff Pope Innocent, and of
the Emperor Frederick, and of the renowned doge Agostino
Barbadico, holding rule in Venice, in the year of our Lord
1491) people are flying the cruel and abominable persecution
of the treacherous dog of a Turk. Abandoning their sweet
fatherlands, as was said above, they came to the afore-named
islands, in the which was built the most potent, famous, and
noble city of Venice, the which for its piety may God long
preserve in happiness and prosperity, victorious by sea and
land. Finis. Printed at Venice.

Printers—though Pynson’s head was broken in a street riot, and Pierre le Dru took part in a Paris brawl during his prentice days—have usually been men of peace; but despite this and any care they may have taken in avoiding the plague, they died like other men, and several colophons record the death of the master craftsman while engaged on the work. We have already seen the rather businesslike lamentation of Wendelin of Speier for his brother John. In the edition of Boccaccio’s “Genealogiae Deorum gentilium” printed at Reggio in 1481, Bartholomeus Bruschus (or Bottonus) mourns rather more effusively for Laurentius:

Dum tua, Boccacci, propriis Laurentius auget
Sumptibus et reddit nomina clara magis,
Hoc opus aere notans, tunc stirps bottona uirentem
Et quem flet Regium mors inopina rapit.
Post lachrymas tandem frater uirtutis amore
Tam pulchrum exegit Bartholomeus opus.

Impressum Regii anno salutis M.cccc.Lxxxi. pridie Nonas
Octobris.

Boccaccio, while at his proper cost
Lorenzo toiled your honor to increase,
Printing this book, the Bruschian clan him lost;
And Reggio, in his prime, mourns his decease.
Tears dried, Bartolommeo undertook,
With emulous love, to end his brother’s book.

Printed at Reggio in the year of salvation 1481. October 4th.

But neither do these verses come anywhere near the simple pathos of the colophon to the “Cronycles of the londe of England,” printed at Antwerp in 1493, which records the death of the famous printer Gerard Leeu.

Here ben endyd the Cronycles of the Reame of Englond, with
their apperteignaunces. Enprentyd In the Duchye of Braband in
the towne of Andewarpe In the yere of our Lord M.cccc.xciij. By
maistir Gerard de leew a man of grete wysedom in all maner of
kunnyng: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is
grete harme for many of poure man. On whos sowle God almyghty
for hys hygh grace haue mercy. Amen.

A man whose death is great harm for many a poor man must needs have been a good master, and a king need want no finer epitaph, though the phrase is full of the one thought which makes the prospect of death terrible.[5] One rather wonders what the workmen of Plato de Benedictis had to say about _him_ when he died; for, if the colophon to his edition of “Bononia illustrata” (Bologna, 1494) was worded with his consent, he had a nasty readiness to take all the credit to himself and leave all the blame for his workmen.

Ad lectorem.

Bononiae: anno salutis .M.cccc.lxxxx.iiii. Ex officina Platonis
de Benedictis huiusce artis exactoris probatissimi Libellus
quam pulcherrimis caractheribus impressus. In quo Origo,
situsque Bononiae. Hinc uiri illustres: qui ingenio claruerint
tam domestici quam externi. Templa quoque ac corpora sanctorum
ibidem consepulta. Postmodum oppida, uicus, factiones: quae
quondam hic uiguere. Gestaque Bononiensium sub breuitate
contenta: una cum illustri Bentiuolorum genologia [_sic_]
connumerantur. Si quid tamen in eo mendae et erroris insertum
fuerit: non impressoris negligentia sed potius famulorum
incuria pretermissum putes. Nam ille ingenio litteraturaque
non mediocri dotatus: et tali exercitio inter caeteros
excultissimus est.

To the Reader. At Bologna: in the year of salvation 1494, from
the workshop of Plato de Benedictis, a most skilled master of
this art, a book printed with very beautiful types, in which
the origin and position of Bologna, its illustrious men, both
native and foreign, who have become famous for their ability,
its temples also and the bodies of the saints there buried,
moreover the towns, villages, and parties which formerly
flourished here, and the exploits of the Bolognese, briefly set
forth, together with the illustrious descent of the Bentivogli,
are all enumerated. Should anything faulty or erroneous have
been inserted in it, you must think it was overlooked, not by
any neglect of the printer, but rather by the carelessness of
his workmen. For he himself is endowed with exceptional ability
and literary gifts, and in such practices is preëminent among
the rest.

Better than this is the frank plea that misprints in a learned book are very hard to avoid, put forward by Anima Mia at the end of a book by Raphael Regius containing discussions on a letter of Pliny’s and on passages in Persius and Quintilian:

Si quid forte litterarum immutatione: transpositione:
inuersione omissione offenderis studiose lector: id non ulli
negligentiae sed correctionis difficultati ascribas: quoniam
nihil verborum praetermissum esse depraehendis: rogat Gulielmus
Tridinensis cognomento Anima Mia: cuius opera hoc opusculum
Venetiis fuit descriptum. Principe Augustino Barbadico decimo
Calendas Iunias. M.cccc.lxxxx.

Studious reader, if by chance you find a stumbling-block in
any alteration, transposal, inversion, or omission of letters,
ascribe it not to any carelessness, but to the difficulty of
correction, since you find that none of the words have been
omitted. This is the prayer of Guglielmo of Tridino, called
Anima Mia, by whose exertion this little work has been set
forth at Venice, when Agostino Barbadico was doge, on May 23,
1490.

From the colophon of the Lecture of Antonius de Alexandro “super secundo codicis Iustiniani,” printed at Naples by Sixtus Riessinger in 1473-74, we learn, though only by mysterious hints, that at least some printers had other enemies besides war and pestilence to contend against. This colophon appears to have been written by the literary partner in the firm, Francesco Tuppo, since no one but himself would have used the Chinese humility of the phrase “inter trecentos studentes minimus.” From the books which he took up, Tuppo must have been a man of some culture; but his Latin, if we may judge by this colophon, was not his strong point.

Finis huius utilissime lecture ordinarie codicis Iustiniani
Almani In florenti studio Neapolitano impresse per
expertissimum ac clarum Sixtum Riessinger Almanum, qui inter
sua aduersa floret uiret atque claret Nec perfidos maliuolos ac
uersutos existimat maiora perficiet [_sic_] ad gloriam eterni
Dei et felicitatem Ferdinandi Regis patrie. Et licet non miniis
apparet ornata Attamen claret decisionibus et singularibus
iurium ciuilis et poli ut lector studendo doctissimus perfici
poterit mendisque caret. Nam summis uigiliis et laboribus
fideliter correcta est per Franciscum Tuppi Partenopensem
tanti clarissimi utriusque iuris interpretis Antonii de
Alexandro legum perule [_sic_][6] inter trecentos studentes
minimus [_sic_]. Qui una cum fido sodali Sixto hanc preclaram
et lucidam lecturam de propriis sumptibus sumpserunt [_sic_]
Finieruntque xxi. die mensis Februarii Anni .M.cccc.lxxiiii.
Feliciter. Amen.

The end of this very useful ordinary exposition of the Codex
of Justinian the German, printed in the flourishing University
of Naples by the most expert and renowned Sixtus Riessinger,
a German, who, amid his obstacles, flourishes, thrives, and
wins renown, nor thinks that traitors, malignants, and shifty
rogues will accomplish more for the glory of Eternal God and
the welfare of the country of King Ferdinand. And although it
appears unadorned by red printing, yet it is clearly set forth
with decisions and single points of the civil and heavenly
laws, so that a reader by studying it may be able to become
very learned. Moreover, it is free from errors, for it has
been faithfully corrected with the utmost watchfulness and
toil by Francesco Tuppo of Naples, the least among the three
hundred students of that so renowned interpreter of both codes,
Antonius de Alexandro. He and his trusty partner, Sixtus, at
their own cost have taken up this noble and lucid exposition
and have brought it successfully to an end on the twenty-first
day of February, 1474.

One would like to hear something more about the traitors, malignants, and shifty rogues (perfidos, maliuolos ac versutos) against whom the colophon declaims; but I have failed to discover any other references to them. The phrase “cum fido sodali,” used of Tuppo’s relations to Riessinger, raises the question as to whether any real partnership existed between them. In the colophons to three other books their names appear conjointly; three more of later date (1480-89), of which Riessinger appears to have been the actual printer, are stated to have been printed by Tuppo. The point is of some little interest as possibly throwing some light on the vext question of who were the “fidelissimi Germani” who printed Tuppo’s Aesop in 1485, and also in the same year the account of the process of King Ferdinand against his rebellious nobles. As to this Mr. Proctor wavered between the claims of Johann Tresser and Martin of Amsterdam on the one hand, and “Matthias of Olmutz and his German workmen” on the other. (See his Index, p. 450, and “CCC Notable Books,” pp. 107 _sq._) But Riessinger also was a German, and from his relations both to Tuppo and to the king (of whom he calls himself, in the “Super feudis” of Andreas de Ysernia in 1477, the “devotus atque fidelis servus”) seems to have some claim to consideration. The phrase “fidelissimi Germani” is in itself a very curious one, as it leaves us wondering whether they were “fidelissimi” in the abstract, or to one another, or to the king. If to one another, we may find a parallel in the frequency with which John of Cologne and Manthen of Gerretzem proclaim their loyalty to each other. Thus in their first dated book, the Sallust of 23d March, 1474, we find them writing:

Haec Crispi Sallustii opera quam optime emendata Venetiis fuere
impressa, ductu et impensa Iohannis Colonie Agripinensis,
necnon Iohannis Manthen de Gherretsem, qui una fideliter
uiuunt. Anno a natali Christi M.cccc.lxxiiii. die xxiii Martii.

These works of Crispus Sallustius, most excellently corrected,
were printed at Venice under the guidance and at the expense of
Johann of Köln and also of Johann Manthen of Gherretsem, who
loyally live together. In the year from the birth of Christ
1474, on the twenty-third day of March.

As another example we may take their Bartolus of 1476, where a phrase of the same kind is followed by another of some interest:

Finis partis prime Bartholi super ff. nouum que peroptime
emendata Venetiis impressionem habuit impensis Iohannis de
Colonia sociique eius Iohannis manthen de Gerretzem: qui
vna fideliter degentes ipsius laboratores conduxerunt. Anno
M.CCCC.LXXVI.

The end of the first part of Bartolus on the New Digest, which
has been very excellently corrected and printed at Venice
at the expense of John of Cologne and of his partner Johann
Manthen of Gerretzheim, who, loyally living together, have
hired the workmen engaged on it. In the year 1476.

While many publishers pure and simple took to themselves the credit of being their own printers, these careful statements on the part of the loyal partners, that their function has been that of superintendence and finance (ductu et impensa), and as to the hiring of the workmen (laboratores conduxerunt), are rather notable. When John of Cologne joined with Jenson and others as publishers in employing Johann Herbort of Seligenstadt to print for them, he still carried with him one of his old phrases—witness this typical colophon from the “Super Decretis” of Guido de Baysio, 1481:

Exactum insigne hoc atque preclarum opus ductu auspitiis
optimorum Iohannis de Colonia, Nicolai ienson sociorumue. Qui
non tantum summam curam adhibuere ut sint hec et sua queque
sine uicio et menda, verumetiam ut bene sint elaborata atque
iucundissimo litterarum caractere confecta, ut unicuique
prodesse possint et oblectare, more poetico, et prodesse uolunt
et delectare poete. Huiusce autem operis artifex extitit
summus in hac arte magister Ioannes de Selgenstat alemanus,
qui sua solertia ac uigiliis diuoque imprimendi caractere
facile supereminet omnes. Olympiadibus dominicis Anno uero
millesimo.cccc.lxxxi. tertias nonas Apriles.

This noble and distinguished work was finished under the
guidance and auspices of the most excellent John of Cologne,
Nicolas Jenson, and their partners, who have applied the
greatest care not only that this and all their works might be
free from fault and stain, but also that they might be well
finished and set up in a most pleasant style of letter, for
general profit and delight, according to the fashion of the
poets, who desire both to profit and please. And of this work
the craftsman is the distinguished master in this art, John of
Seligenstadt, a German, who in his skill and watchfulness and
in the divine character of his printing easily surpasses all.
In the Olympiads of the Lord and the year 1481, on April 3d.

Herbort was fond both of the phrase about the Olympiads (which might be more idiomatically translated by “in the Christian era”) and also of his eulogy on himself, and several others of his colophons run on the same lines. The pride which many of the early printers took in their work was indeed immense. Of some of its manifestations we have already had more than enough; but we may stop to note two colophons which show that they sometimes expected their customers to recognize the origin of a book by its types, though they can certainly never have anticipated the scientific investigations of Mr. Proctor in this field. The first of these is from Hain *10614, a Mandeville, of which I have never seen a copy.

Explicit Itinerarius a terra Anglie in partes Ierosolimitanas
et in ulteriores transmarinas, editus primo in lingua gallicana
a domino Iohanne de Mandeuille milite, suo auctore, Anno
incarnacionis domini Mccclv. in ciuitate Leodiensi et paulo
post in eadem ciuitate translatus in dictam formam latinam.
Quod opus ubi inceptum simul et completum sit ipsa elementa,
seu singularum seorsum caracteres litterarum quibus impressum,
vides venetica, monstrant manifeste.

Here ends the Itinerary from the land of England to the parts
of Jerusalem and to those further off beyond the sea, published
first in French by Sir John de Mandeville, Knight, its author,
in the year of the incarnation of the Lord 1355, in the city
of Liège, and shortly after in the same city translated into
the said Latin form. And as to where this work has been both
begun and completed, its very elements, the characters of the
single letters with which it has been printed,—Venetian, as you
see,—plainly tell its tale.

A good many literary mistakes, and the investigations needed to correct them, would have been spared if this quite accurate statement of the supremacy of the French Mandeville as compared with the Latin (and also the English) had been generally accepted. What we are here concerned with is the attention called to the fact that it is printed in the Venetian letter. Of course, even before the invention of printing a school of handwriting would have grown up at Venice sufficiently distinct for experts to distinguish it; but this expectation that any buyer of the book would recognize at once where it was printed is interesting, and would be made much more so if a copy of the edition could be found and the press identified. In our next colophon the printer expects his capital letters to serve his readers instead of his name. This is from the first Augsburg edition of the “Catholicon” of Joannes Balbus, about the Mainz edition of which we have already had to speak. The Augsburg colophon runs:

Grammatice partes et vocum proprietates
Verius inuenies hoc codice: si quoque queres
Nomen qui libro scripturam impressit in illo,
Tunc cito comperies per litterulas capitales:
Hinc poteris certe cognomen noscere aperte.
Ex Reutling Zainer hic dicitur esse magister,
Recte presentis artis doctissimus ipsus.
Vt pateat nomen libri qui dicitur esse,
Sumptus de varijs autoribus atque poetis
Katholicon, fertur quem collegisse Iohannes,
Cui nomen patrium dat ianua, iuncta sit ensis.
Hoc compleuit opus lux vltima mensis aprilis,
Dum currunt anni nati factoris in orbem,
Mille quadringenti, quis sexaginta nouemque
Adijce. Vindelica finitur in vrbe serena,
Quam schowenberg tenuit qui libro preludia dedit
Titulo cardineus praeses vbique coruscus.
Terminat sed diuus presul ex Werdemberg altus.
Cum paulo secundo papa, imperante fridrico.
Deo Gratias.

The parts of grammar and the proper meanings of vocables you
will truly find in this codex. If you also ask his name who
printed the text in the book, you will quickly discover it by
the capital letters. Hence you will be able for certain to know
openly his surname. He is called Zainer of Reutling, in truth a
most learned master of the present art. To reveal the name of
the book, as it is taken from various authors and poets it is
called Catholicon, and it is said to have been compiled by the
John whose place-name is given by _Janua_ with _Ensis_ joined
to it. The last day of April completed the work, while fourteen
hundred, to which you must add sixty-nine, years are running
since the Creator was born into the world. It is finished in
the town of the Wendels (Augusta Vindelicorum=Augsburg), where
resided he who gave the book its prologue, Schowenberg, called
Cardineus, a distinguished moderator; and it is finished by a
divine president who comes from Werdenberg, Paul II being pope
and Frederick emperor. Thanks be to God.

Not every one could be expected, even at a time when interest in the new art must have been very keen, to identify the printer of a book from the type or initials used in it; and, as has already been noted, the whole reason for the existence of printers’ colophons was to identify the master-craftsman with any book of which he was proud, and so to advertise his firm. To make this advertisement more conspicuous many printers add their device at the end of the colophon, and five or six of them call special attention to this in their colophons, Peter Schoeffer leading the way in this, as already noted. _Suis consignando scutis_ and _cujus arma signantur_ are the phrases Schoeffer used (see Hain, 7885, 7999, 8006), and Wenssler of Basel, who was often on the lookout to follow Schoeffer’s leads, followed him also in this. The elaborate praise of his own work, which we find in his 1477 edition of the Sixth Book of the Decretals by Boniface VIII, is of a piece with this desire to hall-mark it as his own by affixing his device:

Pressos sepe vides lector studiose libellos
Quos etiam gaudes connumerare tuis.
Si fuerint nitidi, tersi, si dogmata digna
Contineant et sit litera vera bona.
Dispeream nisi inuenias hec omnia in istis
Quos pressit Wenszlers ingeniosa manus.
Nam quecunque fuit hoc toto codice pressa
Litera solicito lecta labore fuit.

Insigne et celebratissimum opus Bonifacii octaui quod sextum
decretalium appellant In preclarissima vrbe Basiliensi ingenio
et arte Michaelis Wenszlers Impressum, glorioso fauente deo
suis consignando scutis, feliciter est finitum Anno domini
septuagesimo septimo post millesimum et quadringentesimum
quarto ydus Decembris.

Student, you oft must see a printed book
And think how well upon your shelves ’twould look:
The print of shining black, the page pulled clean,
A worthy text, and misprints nowhere seen!
Where Wenssler’s skilful hand the work has printed
I’ll die for it if of these charms you’re stinted;
For throughout all this book no single letter
Has ’scaped his reader’s care to make it better.

The notable and most celebrated work of Boniface VIII, which
is called the Sixth of the Decretals, printed in the renowned
city of Basel by the skill and art of Michael Wenssler, by the
favor of the glorious God, marked with the printer’s shields,
has come happily to an end, in the year of the Lord 1477, on
December 12.

So, in 1475, Sensenschmidt and Frisner at Nuremberg issued their Latin Bible “suis signis annotatis”; and at Cologne, in 1476, Conrad Winters ends an edition of the “Fasciculus Temporum”: “Impressum per me Conradum de Hoemberch meoque signeto signatum” (printed by me, Conrad de Hoemberch, and signed with my signet); and in the same year we find Veldener at Louvain using nearly the same phrase (proprio signeto signata) in his edition of the “Fasciculus Temporum.”[7] As an amusing variation on this we have the custom adopted by John and Conrad of Westphalia, in some of the books they printed at Louvain, of placing their own portraits after their colophons and referring to them as their “solitum signum.” Thus in an edition of Laet’s “Pronosticationes euentuum futurorum anni lxxvi” John of Westphalia writes in this very interesting fashion:

Hec ego Ioannes de Paderborne in Westfalia, florentissima
in uniuersitate Louaniensi residens, ut in manus uenerunt
imprimere curaui: nonnullorum egregiorum uirorum desideriis
obsecutus, qui prenominatum pronosticantem futura uere, inculto
quamuis stilo, compluribus annis prenunciasse ferunt. Non
reuera quo utilitatem magnam ipse consequerer (utilius enim
opus eam ob rem suspendi) sed quo simul plurimorum comodis ac
uoluptati pariter inseruiens, stilum meum nouum, quo posthac
maiori et minori in uolumine uti propono, signi mei testimonio
curiosis ac bonarum rerum studiosis palam facerem.

These things have I, John of Paderborn in Westphalia, residing
in the most flourishing University of Louvain, caused to be
printed as they came to hand, following the desires of some
noble gentlemen who say that the aforesaid prognosticator
has in many years truly foretold future things, though in an
uncultivated style. Of a truth my object was not to obtain
any great advantage for myself (for I held over, on account
of this, a more profitable work), but that, while at the same
time serving alike the convenience and pleasure of many, I
might make publicly known to the curious and connoisseurs my
new style which hereafter, both in greater and smaller size, I
propose to use as a witness of my sign.

Laet’s Prognostications were the Moore’s Almanacs of the fifteenth century, and by putting his new device (which he used again about the same time in the “Breviarium super codice” of Iohannes Faber) on such a publication John of Westphalia secured a wide advertisement.

The arts of advertisement must assuredly have been needed by the early printers when they came as strangers and aliens to a new town and began issuing books at their own risk. Even with the help of Latin as a universal language, and with the guidance of native patrons and scholars, pushing their wares must have been a difficult matter. Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome tried to make their names known, and to express at the same time their obligations to their patron, by a set of verses which recur frequently in their books:

Aspicis illustris lector quicunque libellos
Si cupis artificum nomina nosse lege.
Aspera ridebis cognomina Teutona: forsan
Mitiget ars musis inscia uerba uirum.
Conradus Suueynheym Arnoldus pannartzque magistri
Rome impresserunt talia multa simul.
Petrus cum fratre Francisco Maximus ambo
Huic operi aptatam contribuere domum.

.M.CCCC.LXXI.

Illustrious reader, whoever you are, who see these books, if
you would know the names of their craftsmen, read on. You will
smile at the rough Teutonic surnames: perhaps this art the
Muses knew not will soften them. Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold
Pannartz have printed many such books together at Rome. Pietro
da Massimi and his brother Francis have lent a house fitted[8]
for the work.

1471.

Ulrich Han, another German printer at Rome, advertised himself in many of his books in another set of verses, perhaps the only instance of a colophon deliberately intended to raise a laugh, which recall the part played by the Sacred Geese in defending the Capitol against the Gauls (Galli), Gallus being also the Latinized form of Han’s name (Cock).

(and in several other of Han’s books).]

Anser Tarpeii custos Iouis: unde quod alis
Constreperes: Gallus decidit: ultor adest.
Udalricus Gallus, ne quem poscantur in usum
Edocuit pennis nil opus esse tuis.
Imprimit ille die quantum non scribitur anno
Ingenio: haud noceas: omnia vincit homo.

Bird of Tarpeian Jove, though died the Gaul
’Gainst whom thou flap’dst thy wings, see vengeance fall.
Another Gallus comes and thy pen-feather
Goes out of fashion, beaten altogether.
For what a quill can write the whole year through,
This in a day, and more, his press will do.
So, Goose, give over: there’s no other plan;
Own yourself beaten by all-conquering man.

In addition to their colophons, the printers, at least in Germany, used many modern forms of advertisement. When he returned to Augsburg from Venice, Ratdolt issued a splendid type-sheet with specimens of all his different founts. Schoeffer, the Brothers of the Common Life, Koberger, and other firms printed lists of their new books as broadsides, and gave their travellers similar sheets in which purchasers were promised “bonum venditorem” (a kindly seller), and a space was left for the name of the inn at which he displayed his wares, to be filled in by hand. We have all heard of Caxton’s advertisement of his Sarum Directory (most indigestible of “Pies”) and its final prayer, “Please don’t tear down the bill.” In 1474 Johann Müller of Königsberg (Iohannes Regiomontanus), the mathematician-printer, issued what I take to be the first fully developed publisher’s announcement, with a list of books “now ready” (haec duo explicita sunt), “shortly” (haec duo opera iam prope absoluta sunt), and those he hoped to undertake. Its last sentence is not strictly a colophon, but I am sure that I shall be forgiven for quoting it. “Postremo omnium,” it runs, “artem illam mirificam litterarum formatricem monimentis stabilibus mandare decretum est (deus bone faueas) qua re explicita si mox obdormierit opifex mors acerba non erit, quom tantum munus posteris in haereditate reliquerit, quo ipsi se ab inopia librorum perpetuo poterunt vindicare.”—“Lastly it has been determined to commit to abiding monuments that wondrous art of putting letters together (God of thy goodness be favorable!), and when this is done if the craftsman presently fall asleep death will not be bitter, in the assurance that he has left as a legacy to posterity this great gift by which they will forever be able to free themselves from lack of books.” Shortly after writing these words Müller was called to Rome by Sixtus IV to give his help in reforming the calendar, but his foreboding was not unfulfilled, for death came to him in 1476, only two years after this announcement was written.

V

PUBLISHERS’ COLOPHONS

The heading adopted for this chapter is not intended to imply that the colophons here grouped together are separated by any hard line from those already considered, only that they deal with the publishers’ side of book-making, the praises by which the printers and publishers recommended their wares, the financial help by which the issue of expensive and slow-selling books was made possible, the growth of competition, and the endeavors to secure artificially protected markets.

If colophons could be implicitly believed, the early printers would have to be reckoned as the most devout and altruistic of men. As a matter of fact, books of devotion and popular theology were probably the safest and most profitable which they could take up. Yet we need not doubt that the thought that they were engaged on a pious work, and so “accumulating merit,” gave them genuine satisfaction, and that colophons like this of Arnold therhoernen’s were prompted by real religious feeling:

Ad laudem et gloriam individue trinitatis ac gloriose virginis
marie et ad utilitatem ecclesie impressi ac consummati sunt
sermones magistri alberti ordinis predicatorum in colonia per
me Arnoldum therhurnen sub annis domini M.cccc. Lxxiiii ipso
die gloriosi ac sancti profesti nativitatis domini nostri Iesu
Christi.

To the praise and glory of the undivided Trinity and of the
glorious Virgin Mary, and to the profit of the church, the
sermons of Master Albert of the order of Preachers were printed
and finished in Cologne by me, Arnold therhoernen, in the year
of our Lord 1474, on the very day of the glorious and holy
vigil of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Examples of colophons in this vein could be multiplied almost indefinitely. That appended by the Brothers of the Common Life, at their convent of Hortus Viridis (Green Garden) at Rostock, to an edition of the “Sermones de Tempore” of Johannes Herolt is much more distinctive. Herolt’s name is duly recorded in editions printed at Reutlingen and Nuremberg, but his work was usually quoted as the “Sermones Discipuli,” and the good brothers begin by commenting on his modesty.

Humilibus placent humilia. Huius gratia rei Doctor hic
precellens supresso proprio nomini uocabulo Sermones hos
prehabitos Discipuli prenotatosque alias maluit nuncupari.
Quique tamen, ut luce clarius patet, de sub manibus euasit
Doctor magistri. Huic applaudere, hunc efferre laudibus, hunc
predicatum iri, miretur nemo, cum certissime constat inter
modernos sermonistas eum in uulgi scientia tenere principatum.
Huius igitur zeli cupientes fore consortes nos fratres
presbiteri et clerici Viridis Horti in Rostock ad sanctum
Michaelem, non uerbo sed scripto predicantes, virum hunc
preclarum apud paucos in conclauis iactitantem foras eduximus
Arte impressoria, artium omnium ecclesie sancte commodo
magistra, in notitiam plurimorum ad laudem cunctipotentis Dei.
Anno incarnationis Dominice M.cccc.Lxxvi. tercio Kalendas
Novembris.

Humble courses please the humble. For which cause this eminent
Doctor preferred to suppress his own name and have these
Sermons, already delivered and set down elsewhere, announced
as the Sermons of a Disciple. And yet he, as is clearer than
day, has passed as a Doctor from the rule of his master. Let no
one wonder that he should be applauded, that men should extol
him with their praises, that he should be preached, since it
is most assuredly true that among modern sermon-writers he,
in knowledge of the people, holds the first place. Desiring,
therefore, to be partners of this zeal, we, the brothers,
priests, and clergy of Green Garden in Rostock attached to S.
Michael, preaching not orally but from manuscript, have thought
that this admirable book, which was lurking in the hands of a
few in their cells, should be published abroad by the printing
art, chief of all arts for the advantage of holy church, that
it may become known to many, to the praise of Almighty God. In
the year of the Lord’s incarnation 1476, on October 30th.

Of the dated editions of the Sermons this of Rostock is the earliest, so that the claim of the brothers to have rescued it from neglect was apparently justified. Their praise of printing as “chief of all arts for the advantage of holy church” is very notable, though quite in accordance with German feeling. In the sixteenth century the doctors of the Sorbonne were much more doubtful on the subject. The brothers printed a few secular works at Rostock, _e.g._ the Metamorphoses of Ovid and Guido delle Colonne’s History of the Destruction of Troy. But the bulk of their work was theological or devotional, and their desire to improve their own sermons seems touchingly genuine and by no means commercial.

In the same year as the Rostock brothers printed the “Sermones Discipuli,” Leonardus Achates of Basel issued at Vicenza a Latin Bible to which was appended a lengthy colophon in praise of the study of the Scriptures, almost the only eulogy of the kind with which I have met.

Lector quisquis es, si christiane sentis, te non pigeat hoc
opus sanctissimum, que biblia inscribitur, magna cum animi
voluptate degustare, degustandumque aliis persuadere: nuper
impressum a Leonardo Basileensi magna cum diligentia. In
eo enim fidei nostre fundamentum situm est: et christiane
religionis decus ac radix. Ex eo tibi cognitionem rerum omnium
in quibus salus nostra consistit legendo comparabis: quod eo
libentius facere debes quo in tam felici seculo codex hic
preciosissimus in lucem emendatissimus uenit, pontificatus
uidelicet sanctissimi domini nostri pape domini Xisti [Sixti]
quarti anno quinto, et imperii christianissimi Frederici
tertii anno uigesimo sexto, et Andree Vendramini ducis inclyti
uenetorum anno primo. MCCCCLXXVI sexto ydus maias.

Reader, whoever you are, if you have Christian feelings let it
not annoy you to acquaint yourself with great pleasure of mind
with this most sacred work which is entitled the Bible, and
to persuade others to acquaint themselves with it, as it has
lately been printed by Leonard of Basel with great diligence.
For in it is seated the foundation of our faith, and the glory
and root of the Christian religion. From reading it you will
provide yourself with knowledge of all the things in which our
salvation consists, and you should do this the more willingly
because this most precious manuscript has been published in
a most correct form at so happy an epoch, in the fifth year
namely of the pontificate of our most holy lord Pope Sixtus IV,
the twenty-sixth of the imperial rule of the most Christian
Frederick III, and the first of the noble doge of Venice Andrea
Vendramini. May 10, 1476.

As a rule, the books chosen for praise were of less self-evident merit, notably grammatical works by which a royal road was promised to the mysteries of Latin. Thus an unidentified Strassburg printer (possibly Husner, but known only as the “Printer of the 1493 Casus breues Decretalium”) recommended his “Exercitium Puerorum Grammaticale” not only to boys, but to friars, nuns, merchants, and every one else who needed Latin, in these glowing terms:

Finit tractatus secundus exercitii puerorum grammaticalis, in
quo de regimine et constructione omnium dictionum secundum
ordinem octo partium orationis processum est per regulas et
questiunculas adeo lucidas faciles atque breues, doctissimorum
virorum exemplis creberrimis roboratas, ut quisque sine
preceptore eas discere, scire et intelligere possit. In quo si
qui grammatici studiosi, cuiuscunque status fuerint, pueri,
fratres, sorores, mercatores, ceterique seculares aut religiosi
legerint, studuerint atque se oblectauerint, Finem grammatice
ausim dicere breuissime sine magno labore consequentur.
Impressum Argentine et finitus Anno &c M.cccc.xciiij.

Here ends the second treatise of the boys’ grammatical
exercise, in which a course is given on the government and
construction of all phrases according to the order of the
eight parts of speech, by rules and little questions so clear,
easy, and short, and confirmed by very numerous examples from
the works of most learned men, that any one without a teacher
can learn, know, and understand them. If any grammatical
students, of whatever rank they be, whether boys, friars, nuns,
merchants, or any one else, secular or religious, have read,
studied, and delighted themselves in this, I make bold to say
that very shortly and without much labor they will quickly
reach the end of grammar. Printed at Strassburg and finished in
the year, &c., 1494.

So, again, Arnold Pannartz, one of the prototypographers at Rome, vaunted the “De Elegantia Linguae Latinae” of Laurentius Valla as affording diligent students (they are warned that they must bring care and zeal to the task) a chance of making rapid progress.

Laurentii Vallae uiri eruditissimi et oratoris clarissimi de
Elegantia linguae latinae Liber Sextus et ultimus diligenti
emendatione finitus ab incarnatione domini anno M.CCCC.LXXV.
die uero secunda mensis Iulii: sedente Sixto IIII Pon.
Max. Anno eius quarto. Hos uero libros impressit Clarus ac
diligentissimus artifex Arnoldus Pannartz, Natione Germanus,
in domo nobilis uiri Petri de maximis, ciuis Romani. Tu qui
Latine loqui cupis hos tibi eme libros, in quibus legendis si
curam studiumque adhibueris, breui te haud parum profecisse
intelliges.

The sixth and last book of Laurentius Valla, a man of the
greatest learning and a most distinguished orator, on the
Elegance of the Latin Tongue, after diligent correction, has
been completed in the year from the Lord’s incarnation 1475,
on July 2d, in the fourth year of the papacy of Sixtus IV. Now
these books were printed by a distinguished and most diligent
craftsman, Arnold Pannartz, a German, in the house of the
noble Pietro dei Massimi, a Roman citizen. You who desire to
speak Latin buy yourself these books, for in reading them, if
you bring care and zeal to the task, in a short time you will
understand that you have made no small progress.

Perhaps the eulogies of their own wares by publishers reaches its climax in the praises by Paulus Johannis de Puzbach of his edition of the “Expositio Problematum Aristotelis,” of which it is said that it will be useful to every creature in the universal world, though with the wise proviso that the said creature must use great diligence in its study (cuius utilitas erit omni creature in universo orbe que apponet huic operi studium summa cum diligentia).

Publishers who offered their readers a chance of buying books like these naturally posed as public benefactors, and in the colophon to a collection of the works of various illustrious men (Diui Athanasii contra Arium, etc.) printed at Paris in 1500 the reader is informed categorically that he owes four several debts of gratitude which apparently no such trifling consideration as the price demanded for the book could affect.

Finis. Habes, lector candidissime, sex opuscula, etc. Reliquum
est igitur vt iis qui hec peperere grati animi significationem
feceritis. Atque adeo in primis prestantissimo viro domino
Simoni Radin, qui hec situ victa in lucem edenda curauit.
Deinde F. Cypriano Beneti: qui castigatrices manus apposuit.
Tum iohanni paruo bibliopolarum optimo qui suo ere imprimenda
tradidit. Nec minus M. Andree Bocard calcographo solertissimo
qui tam terse atque ad amussim castigata compressit: Ad quartum
Calendas Iulias. Anno Millesimoquingentesimo. Deo sit laus et
gloria.

Here you have, most honest reader, six works, etc. It remains,
therefore, for you to make grateful acknowledgment to those
who have produced them: in the first place to that eminent
man Master Simon Radin, who saw to their being brought to
light from the obscurity in which they were buried; next
to F. Cyprian Beneti for his editorial care; then to Jean
Petit, best of booksellers, who caused them to be printed
at his expense; nor less than these to Andrieu Bocard, the
skilful chalcographer, who printed them so elegantly and with
scrupulous correctness, June 28, 1500. Praise and glory to God.

In this book, printed at the very end of the century in Paris, where the book trade had for centuries been highly organized, it is natural to find printer and publisher clearly separated, both being tradesmen working for gain. The lines for such a distinction already existed in the days of manuscripts, the scribes and the stationers belonging to quite separate classes, though they might assume each other’s functions. In the earliest days of printing the craftsmen were, as a rule, their own publishers; but the system of patronage and the desire of well-to-do persons in various ranks of society to get special books printed led to divers bargains and agreements. We find the Earl of Arundel encouraging Caxton to proceed with his translation of the “Golden Legend,” not only by the promise of a buck in summer and a doe in winter by way of yearly fee, but by agreeing to take “a reasonable quantity” of copies when the work was finished. The “Mirrour of the World” was paid for by Hugh Brice, afterward Lord Mayor of London. Whether William Pratt, who on his death-bed bade Caxton publish the “Book of Good Manners,” or William Daubeney, Treasurer of the King’s Jewels, who urged him to issue the “Charles the Great,” offered any money help, we are not told. Caxton was probably a man of some wealth when he began printing, and could doubtless afford to take his own risks; but other printers were less fortunate, and references in colophons to patrons, and to men of various ranks who gave commissions for books, are sufficiently numerous. Thus at Pescia we find two brothers, Sebastian and Raphael dei Orlandi, who subsidized works printed at two, if not three or even four, different presses. Most of the books they helped to finance were legal treatises, as for instance the Commentaries of Accoltus on Acquiring Possession, printed by Franciscus and Laurentius de Cennis, 1486.

Finiunt Commentaria singularia et admiranda super titulo de
acquirenda possessione, quem titulum mirabiliter prefatus
dominus Franciscus novissime commentatus est in studio Pisano,
Anno Redentionis domini nostri Iesu cristi, M.cccc Lxxx. ultima
Iulii. Impressa vero Piscie et ex proprio auctoris exemplari
sumpta Anno M.cccc Lxxxvi. die Iovis. IIII. ianuarii. Impensis
nobilium iuvenum Bastiani et Raphaelis fratres [_sic_] filiorum
Ser Iacobi Gerardi de Orlandis de Piscia. Opera venerabilis
religiosi Presbiteri Laurentii et Francisci Fratrum et filiorum
Cennis Florentinorum ad gloriam omnipotentis Dei.

Here end the singular and wonderful Commentaries on the title
Of Acquiring Possession, which title the aforesaid Master
Franciscus lately lectured on marvellously in the University of
Pisa, in the year of the Redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ
1480, on the last day of July. Printed at Pescia and taken
from the author’s own copy, Thursday, January 4, 1486, at the
charges of the noble youths the brothers Bastian and Raphael,
sons of Ser Jacopo Gerardo dei Orlandi of Pescia, with the help
of the venerable religious priest Lorenzo de Cennis and Francis
his brother, Florentines, to the glory of Almighty God.

Another law-book was printed for them by the same firm also in 1486, and three others in that year and in 1489 by firms not yet identified. But their interests though mainly were not entirely legal, and in 1488, from the press of Sigismund Rodt, there appeared an edition of Vegetius, in the colophon to which their views on the physical degeneration question of the day were very vigorously set forth.

Non sunt passi diutius situ et squalore delitescere illustrem
Vegetium De militari disciplina loquentem, uirum omni laude
dignissimum, ingenui adolescentes Sebastianus et Raphael de
Orlandis. Quem ob eam maxime causam imprimi curauerunt ut
et antique uirtutis exemplo Italici iuuenes, longa desidia
ignauiaque torpentes, tandem expergiscerentur: cum preter
singularem de arte doctrinam ita in omni genere uirtutum
consummatum iudicamus: ut non solum illius artis meditatione
tyro optimus miles fiat, sed omnis etas solertior, omnis
spiritus uigilantior omne denique humanum ingenium prestantius
efficiatur. Piscie, iiii Nonas Aprilis. M. cccc.lxxxviii.
Sigismondo Rodt de Bitsche operis architecto.

The noble youths Sebastian and Raphael dei Orlandi have not
suffered the illustrious Vegetius (a man most worthy of every
praise), in his speech On Military Discipline, any longer to
lurk in neglect and squalor. And especially for this cause they
have concerned themselves that he should be printed, that the
youths of Italy, drowsy with long sloth and cowardice, moved by
the example of ancient virtue, might at length awake, since,
besides his remarkable teaching on his art, we hold him so
perfect in virtues of every kind, that not only by meditating
on his art may a tyro become an excellent soldier, but that
every age may be made more expert, every spirit more watchful,
finally every human character more excellent. At Pescia, April
2d, 1488, Sigismund Rodt being the architect of the work.

Between 1471 and 1474 Ulrich Han printed a dozen or more books at Rome with Simon Chardella, a merchant of Lucca, whose help, if we may trust the colophon to the Commentary of Antonio de Butrio on the Decretals, was given from the purest philanthropy.

Finis est huius secundi libri eximii ac celeberrimi utriusque
iuris doctoris domini Anthonii de Butrio super primo
decretalium in duobus voluminibus: quem quidem et nonnullos
diuersorum electorumque librorum a domino Vdalrico Gallo almano
feliciter impressos a prudenti equidem uiro Simone Nicholai
chardella de lucha merchatore fide dignissimo: sua facultate
cura diligentia amplexos: quia pauperum census diuitumque
auariciam miseratus, ab egregiis uero uiris emendatos, in lucem
reddidit anno salutis M.cccc.lxxiii. die xv nouembris III anno
pontificatus Sixti IV.

Here ends this second book of the distinguished and most
renowned doctor of both laws, Master Antonio de Butrio, on the
first of the Decretals, in two volumes. And this and some of
the divers selected books successfully printed by Master Ulrich
Han, a German, have been financed and diligently supervised,
in his compassion for the means of the poor and the avarice of
the rich, by the prudent Simone di Niccolo Chardella of Lucca,
a merchant of the highest credit; corrected by noble scholars
and published in the year of salvation 1473, on November 15th,
in the third year of the pontificate of Sixtus IV.

Single books, of course, were financed by people of many classes and ranks, from kings, princesses, and archbishops down to the Spanish bell-ringer who paid for a Lerida Breviary, as its colophon very explicitly sets forth.

Breuiarii opus secundum Illerdensis ecclesie consuetudinem
ex noua regula editum clareque emendatum per dominum
Laurentium Fornes, virum doctum, eiusdem ecclesie presbiterum
succentoremque, prehabita tamen ab egregio Decano ceterisque
Canonicis eiusdem ecclesie licentia, Anthonius Palares
campanarum eiusdem ecclesie pulsator propriis expensis fieri
fecit. Impressitque venerabilis magister Henricus Botel de
Saxonia alamanus, vir eruditus, qui huic clarissimo operi in
urbe Illerde xvi Augusti anno incarnationis dominice millesimo
quadringentesimo lxxixº finem fecit. Amen.

A Breviary according to the use of the church of Lerida, edited
in accordance with the new rule and clearly corrected by Master
Lourenço Fornes, a man of learning, priest and sub-cantor of
the said church, with allowance previously obtained from the
illustrious Dean and the rest of the Canons, published at his
own cost by Antonio Palares the bell-ringer. Printed by the
venerable master Heinrich Botel, a German of Saxony, an erudite
man, who brought this glorious work to an end in the town of
Lerida on August 16th, in the year of the Lord’s incarnation
1479. Amen.

We might have imagined that, a bell-ringer being sometimes equivalent to a sacristan, and the sacristan being often responsible for the choir-books, the commission to print this Breviary was given by Palares only in the name of the chapter. We are, however, so distinctly informed that he caused the book to be printed “propriis expensis” (at his own cost), that no such explanation is tenable, and we must imagine either that the bell-ringer was actuated by very creditable motives, or else that he saw his way to dispose of the books. On either view of the case, this bell-ringer’s edition may, perhaps, rank for strangeness with that of the poems of Gasparo Visconti, printed to the number of a thousand copies by Franciscus Corniger, a Milanese poet, to whom he presumably stood in the relation of a patron.