Chapter IV: Part 4

Ne elegantissimi operis lepos mellifluus temporis edacis
iniuria tibi, lector optime, aliquando periret, aut
illustrissimi auctoris inclyta memoria aeuo obliteraretur,
ne etiam posteritas, hac delectatione defraudata, cupidineis
lusibus careret, Franciscus Tantius Corniger, poeta
Mediolanensis, hos rithmos Gasparis Vicecomitis lingua
uernacula compositos, quanquam inuito domino, in mille exempla
imprimi iussit, Mediolani anno a salutifero Virginis partu
M.cccc.lxxxxiii. Quarto Calendas Martias. Finis.

Lest to your loss, excellent reader, the honeyed grace of a
most elegant book should some day perish by the wrongs of
devouring time, or the noble memory of the most illustrious
author be blotted out by age, lest also posterity, defrauded
of their pleasure, should lack amorous toys, Franciscus
Tantius Corniger, a Milanese poet, ordered these Rhythms
of Gasparo Visconti, written in the vernacular tongue, to
be printed, against their master’s will, in an edition of
a thousand copies, at Milan, in the year from the Virgin’s
salvation-bringing delivery 1493, on February 26th. Finis.

No doubt Gasparo Visconti duly repaid the admiration thus shown for his poems; but though the admiring friend or patron was not without his uses in the fifteenth century, and even now is occasionally indispensable, when all is said and done the success of a book depends on the reception it meets from an unbiased public, and it is to the public, therefore, that its appeal must finally be made. Colophons recognize this in different ways—sometimes, as we have seen, by praising the book, sometimes by drawing attention to its cheapness, very often by the care with which they give the exact address of the publisher at whose shop it can be bought. Vérard’s colophons are particularly notable in this respect. What could be more precise than the oft-repeated directions which we may quote from his edition of “Le Journal Spirituel” because of the careful arrangement of its lines?

Cy finist le Journal spirituel Imprime a paris
pour honnorable homme Anthoine Verard
bourgoys marchant et libraire demorant
a paris deuant la Rue neufue
notre dame a lymage sainct
Jehan leuangeliste
ou au palais deuant la cha-
pelle ou lon chante la messe de mes-
seigneurs les presidentz. Lan mil cinq
cens et cinq le seziesme iour de decembre.

Here ends the Spiritual Journal printed at Paris
for an estimable man Antoine Vérard
burgess, shopkeeper, and bookseller dwelling
at Paris before the New Street
of Our Lady at the image of Saint
John the Evangelist
or at the palace before the cha-
pel where is chanted the Mass of the Lords
Presidents. In the year one thousand five
hundred and five, the sixteenth day of December.

Occasionally a verse colophon would be employed to tempt a purchaser to come to the publisher’s shop, as in the case of the French translation of the “Ship of Fools” by Jodocus Badius from the German of Sebastian Brant, printed by Geoffroy de Marnef in 1497. This ends:

Hommes mortels qui desirez sauoir
Comment on peut en ce monde bien vivre
Et mal laisser: approchez, venez veoir
Et visiter ce present joyeux livre.
A tous estats bonne doctrine il livre
Notant les maux et vices des mondains.
Venez y tous et ne faictes dedains
Du dit livre nomme Des Fols la Nef
Si vous voulez vous en trouuerez maints
Au Pellican cheux Geoffroy de Marnef.

Mortal men who fain would know
How well to live in this world below,
And evil quit: come hither, see,
And with this book acquainted be.
To each estate good rede it gives,
Notes all the evils in men’s lives.
Come hither, all, and think no shame
Of this said book, which has to name
The Ship of Fools.
You’ll find good store if in you’ll drop
At honest Geoffroy Marnef’s shop,
Where the Pelican rules.

As to advertisements of cheapness, in addition to instances already incidentally noted we may take as our example another colophon partly in verse—that to the edition of the “Liber cibalis et medicinalis pandectarum” of Matthaeus Silvaticus printed at Naples by Arnold of Brussels in 1474.

Explicit liber Pandectarum quem Angelus Cato Supinas de
Beneuento philosophus et medicus magna cum diligentia et
emendate imprimendum curauit, et in clarissima et nobilissima
atque praestantissima dulcissimaque ciuitate Neapoli, regum,
ducum, procerumque matre, prima Aprilis M.cccc.Lxxiiii. Idcirco
excelso deo gratias agamus.

Noscere qui causas et certa uocabula rerum
Et medicas artes per breue queris iter,
Me lege: nec multo mercaberis: Angelus en me
Sic et diuitibus pauperibusque parat.
Cui tantum me nunc fas est debere, Salernum,
Urbs debet quantum, patria terra, mihi.

Here ends the book of the Pandects which Angelus Cato Supinas
of Benevento, a philosopher and physician, has procured to
be printed, with great diligence and correctly, in the most
illustrious, most noble, most excellent, and most delightful
city of Naples, mother of kings, dukes, and nobles, April 1,
1474. For which cause let us give thanks to God on high.

Who’d quickly learn each ill to diagnose,
The terms of art and all a doctor knows,
Let him read me, nor will the cost be great,
My Angel editor asks no monstrous rate.
To whom, Salernum, I as great thanks owe
As thou upon thy offspring canst bestow.

No doubt in this instance the book was much obliged to its editor for his care in revising it, and the great medical school of Salerno might justly be expected to be grateful for the publication of an important medical work: the trouble of the situation was that there were so many of these not wholly disinterested benefactors in the field at the same time. Editions, it is true, were mostly small, owing to the slowness of the presswork; and, no doubt, each several printer reckoned that he had all literary Europe for his market. But when Rome was vying with Venice, and the rest of Italy with both, and almost every important press was turning out classical editions, the market quickly became overstocked, and great printers like Wendelin of Speier at Venice and Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome found that they had burnt their fingers. Hence a commercial motive reinforced that natural self-esteem which still causes every editor to assume that his method of crossing a _t_ or dotting an _i_ gives his edition a manifest superiority over every other. In the next chapter we shall see how editors persistently depreciated their predecessors; but we may note here how, even when he had Chardella to help his finances, Ulrich Han could not help girding at rival firms. Thus in his edition of the Decretals of Gregory IX he bids his readers buy his own text with a light heart and reckon its rivals at a straw’s value.

Finiunt decretales correctissime: impresse alma urbe Roma
totius mundi regina per egregios uiros magistrum Udalricum
Gallum Alamanum et Symonem Nicolai de Luca: cum glosis
ordinariis Bernardi Parmensis et additionibus suis: que paucis
in libris habentur: summa diligentia et impresse ac correcte.
Quas, emptor, securo animo eme. Talia siquidem in hoc uolumine
reperies ut merito alias impressiones faciliter floccipendes.
Anno domini M.cccc.Lxxiiii. die xx mensis Septembris,
Pontificatus uero Sixti diuina prouidentia Pape quarti anno
quarto.

Here end the Decretals, most correctly printed in the bounteous
city of Rome, queen of the whole world, by those excellent
men Master Ulrich Han, a German, and Simon di Niccolo of
Lucca: with the ordinary glosses of Bernard of Parma and
his additions, which are found in few copies; both printed
and corrected with the greatest diligence. Purchase these,
book-buyer, with a light heart, for you will find such
excellence in this volume that you will be right in easily
reckoning other editions as worth no more than a straw. In the
year of our Lord 1474, September 20, in the fourth year of the
Pontificate of Sixtus IV, by divine providence Pope.

If Han relied on the superiority of his work to defeat his rivals, other publishers preferred to have the advantage of coming earlier to market, and we find Stephanus Corallus, at Parma, actually apologizing with a very vivid metaphor for misprints in his edition of the “Achilleis” of Statius on the ground that he had rushed it through the press to forestall rivals. Of course, the rivals were envious and malevolent,—that might be taken for granted,—but the assumption that a purchaser was to acquiesce in bad work in order that Corallus might hurry his book out quickly only for his own profit was merely impudent.

Si quas, optime lector, hoc in opere lituras inueneris nasum
ponito; nam Stephanus Corallus Lugdunensis inuidorum quorundam
maliuolentia lacessitus, qui idem imprimere tentarunt, citius
quam asparagi coquantur id absoluit, ac summo studio emendatum
literarum studiosis legendum tradidit Parme M.cccc.lxxiii. x
Cal. April.

Should you find any blots in this work, excellent reader, lay
scorn aside; for Stephanus Corallus of Lyons, provoked by
the ill will of certain envious folk who tried to print the
same book, finished it more quickly than asparagus is cooked,
corrected it with the utmost zeal, and published it, for
students of literature to read, at Parma, March 23, 1473.

When publishers were as ready as this to forestall each other, a cry for some kind of regulation of the industry was sure to be raised, and at Venice, the greatest book-mart in the world, regulation came in the form of the privilege and spread thence to various countries of Europe. I do not at all agree with the opinion which Mr. Gordon Duff has expressed so strongly, that the power of freely importing books given by Richard III was by any means an unmixed blessing, or that its revocation by Henry VIII fifty years later had disastrous effects on English printing. Printing started late in England and was handicapped by the impoverishment wrought by the Wars of the Roses. The facility with which all learned books were supplied from abroad quickened the growth of English learning, but restricted the English printers to printing and reprinting a few vernacular books of some literary pretensions and an endless stream of works of popular devotion and catch-penny trifles. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge could support a permanent printer, and English scholars were obliged to have their books printed abroad. Nevertheless, free trade, however hardly it might press on a backward industry, was infinitely better than the privilege system, which was altogether haphazard and liable to gross abuse. For the story of its introduction and development at Venice, the reader must be referred to Mr. Horatio Brown’s “The Venetian Printing Press” (Nimmo, 1891), a book which leaves a good deal to be desired on its purely typographical side, but which is quite admirable as regards the regulation of the industry. Our concern here is only with the privileges in so far as they make their appearance in colophons. The earliest colophon in which I have found allusion to them is six years later than the first grant which Mr. Brown records, that to Marc’ Antonio Sabellico in September, 1486, for his “Decades rerum Venetarum,” printed by Andrea de Torresani in 1487 (Hain *14053). By 1492 the system must have been in full swing, as is shown by this colophon to the “Liber Regalis” of Albohazen Haly, printed by Bernardinus Ricius:

Impressum Venetiis die 25 Septembris, 1492, opera Bernardini
Ricii de Nouaria, impensa vero excellentissimi artium et
medicine doctoris domini magistri Ioannis dominici de Nigro,
qui obtinuit ex speciali gratia ab illustrissimo ducali
dominio Venetorum Quod nemini, quicumque fuerit, liceat tam
Venetiis quam in universa ditione Veneto dominio subiecta,
imprimere seu imprimi facere hunc librum, aut alibi impressum
in predicta ditione vendere, per X annos, sub pena immediate et
irremissibilis omnium librorum, et librarum quinquaginta pro
quolibet volumine. Que quidem pena applicetur recuperationi
Montis Noui.

Printed at Venice on September 25, 1492, by the pains of
Bernardinus Ricius of Novara, at the expense of the most
excellent doctor of arts and medicine, Master Giovanni
Dominico di Nigro, who obtained, by special grace, from the
most illustrious dogal government of the Venetians that no
one soever should be allowed, either at Venice or in the
entire dominion subject to the Venetian government, himself to
print this book or cause it to be printed, or to sell in the
aforesaid dominion a copy printed elsewhere, for ten years,
under the penalty of the immediate and irremissible forfeiture
of all the books, and a fine of fifty lire for any volume, the
penalty to be applied to the restoration of the Monte Novo.

The three points as to the duration of the privilege, the amount of the fine, and the charity to which it was to be applied are here stated quite plainly, but many publishers preferred to leave the amount of the penalty mysterious by substituting a reference to the grace itself, as for instance is the case in the edition of Hugo de S. Caro’s “Postilla super Psalterium,” printed by the brothers Gregorii in 1496.

Et sic est finis huius utilis et suauis postille super totum
psalterium. Impressa autem fuit Venetiis per Iohannem et
Gregorium de Gregoriis fratres, impensis Stefani et Bernardini
de Nallis fratrum, suasu reuerendissimi patris et predicatoris
egregii fratris Dominici Ponzoni. Habita tamen gratia ab
excelso Venetorum dominio ne quis per decennium primum
imprimere possit aut imprimi facere seu alibi impressam vendere
per totum dominium &c. sub penis &c. prout in ipsa gratia
plenius continetur. Completa uero fuit die 12 Nouembris, 1496.

Thus ends this useful and delightful lecture on the whole
Psalter. And it was printed at Venice by the brothers Giovanni
and Gregorio dei Gregorii, at the expense of the brothers
Stefano and Bernardino dei Nalli, on the persuasion of the
most reverend father and preacher, the noble brother Dominico
Ponzoni. Grace was granted by the exalted government of the
Venetians that no one for the first ten years should print it,
or cause it to be printed, or sell a copy printed elsewhere,
throughout the whole dominion, &c., under penalty, &c., as is
more fully contained in the grace itself. And it was finished
on November 12, 1496.

The Gregorii followed the same course, in their 1498 edition of S. Jerome’s Commentary on the Bible, a work (rather condescendingly praised by the printers) which it is amazing to find on the privileged list at all.

Habes itaque, studiosissime lector, Ioannis et Graegorii de
Gregoriis fretus officio, ea nouiter impraessa commentaria:
Vnde totius ueteris et noui testamenti ueritatem rectumque
sensum quam facillime appraehendere possis: quae si tuae
omnino bibliotecae ascripseris magnam consequeris uoluptatem,
maioresque in dies fructus suscipies. Venetiis per praefatos
fratres Ioannem et Gregorium de Gregoriis, Anno domini 1498,
die 25 Augusti. Cum priuilegio quod nullus citra decem annos ea
imprimere ualeat nec alibi impressa in terras excellentissimo
uenetorum dominio subditas uenalia afferre possit sub poenis in
ipso contentis.

Thus you have, most studious reader, thanks to the good offices
of Giovanni and Gregorio dei Gregorii, these commentaries
newly printed, whence you can very easily apprehend the truth
and right meaning of all the Old and New Testament, and by
adding these to your library you will obtain a great pleasure
and receive daily greater profit. At Venice by the aforesaid
brothers Giovanni and Gregorio dei Gregorii. With a privilege
that no one within ten years may print them or bring for sale
copies printed elsewhere into territories subject to the most
excellent government of the Venetians, under the penalties
therein contained.

The instances we have quoted so far are of references in colophons to privileges granted to the printer-publishers. They were granted also (as in the case of Sabellico) to authors, and from his translation of Seneca’s plays we learn that Evangelio Fossa obtained from the Senate protection for all his writings.

Finisse la nona Tragedia di Senecha ditta Agamemnone in uulgare
composta per el uenerabile Frate Euangelista Fossa da Cremona.
Impressa in Venesia per Maestro piero bergamascho a le spese de
zuan antonio de Monsera. Nel anno M.cccc.lxxxxvii. adi xxviii
zenaro. El Venerabile Frate Euangelista Fossa compositore de la
presente opera a Impetrado gratia che nesuno possa imprimere
ne far imprimere opera chel compona hic per anni x. poi che la
hara data fora, sotto pena da ducati x. per ogni uolume come
apare nella gratia. Amen.

Here ends the ninth Tragedy of Seneca, called Agamemnon,
composed in the vulgar tongue by the venerable Brother
Evangelista Fossa of Cremona. Printed in Venice by Master Piero
Bergamascho at the expense of Juan Antonio of Monsera. In the
year 1497 on the twenty-eighth day of January. The venerable
Brother Evangelista Fossa, the composer of the present work,
has obtained a grace that no one may print or cause to be
printed a work of his composition for ten years after his
publication of it, under penalty of ten ducats for every
volume, as appears in the grace. Amen.

Privileges were obtainable not only by publishers in Venice itself, but also by those in the towns under Venetian rule, and the two following examples are taken respectively from a Quadragesimale printed by Angelus Britannicus at Brescia in 1497, and a Martianus Capella printed by Henricus de Sancto Urso at Vicenza in 1499.

Explicit quadragesimale quod dicitur lima vitiorum. Diuino huic
operi Angelus Britannicus ciuis Brixianus optimo fauente deo:
eiusque genetrice Maria: finem optatum imposuit: cuius fidem
solertiamque principes veneti charipendentes: ne quis alius
opus ipsum infra sex annos imprimat: aut impressum vendat in
ditione sua: preter ipsius angeli nutum: Senatusconsulto pena
promulgata cauerunt: anno domini M.cccc.lxxxxvii. die xviii
Aprilis.

Here ends the Quadragesimal which is called the File of Vices.
To this divine work by the favor of God the Most High, and
of his Mother Mary, the desired end has been put by Angelo
Britannico, a citizen of Brescia, whose loyalty and skill the
Venetian princes held so dear that by a decree of the Senate
and by the promulgation of a penalty they gave warning that
no one else should print this work within six years, or sell
it, if printed elsewhere, in their dominion, against the will
of the said Angelo. In the year of the Lord 1497, on the
eighteenth day of April.

Martiani Capellae Liber finit: Impressus Vicentiae Anno Salutis
M.cccc.xcix. xvii Kalendas Ianuarias per Henricum de Sancto
Vrso. Cum gratia et priuilegio decem annorum: ne imprimatur
neque cum commentariis: neque sine: & cetera: quae in ipso
priuilegio continentur. Laus deo & beatae Virgini.

Here ends the book of Martianus Capella, printed at Vicenza in
the year of salvation 1499, on December 16th, by Henricus de
Sancto Urso. With a grace and privilege for ten years, that it
be not printed either with commentaries or without, and the
other particulars which are contained in the privilege itself.
Praise be to God and the Blessed Virgin.

As publishers went on applying for these privileges, it is to be presumed that they found them profitable; but they were certainly sometimes contravened, and the fines do not appear to have been enforced. Nevertheless they soon spread beyond the Venetian dominions. Thus in 1496, for instance, we find Scinzenzeler obtaining one at Milan, and warning other booksellers, with effusive friendliness, not to incur these dreadful penalties by ignorant piracy.

Famosissimi iureconsulti Francisci Curtii ex proprio
exemplari exceptum Consiliorum volumen primum per Iohannem
Vinzalium Turrianum summa cum diligentia reuisum, ac
Ulderici Scinzenzeler artificio operoso impressum Mediolani
M.cccc.lxxxxvi die xx Decembris.

Ne in penam non paruam imprudenter incurras, O bibliopola
au[i]dissime, scias obtentum esse ab Illustrissimo et
Sapientissimo Mediolani principe rescriptum ne Curtiana
Consilia ad decimum usque annum, aut imprimi possint, aut
alibi impressa importari venalia in eius districtum sub poena
indignationis Caesaree et eris in eo contenta. Itaque ne
ignarus erres te admonitum esse voluit Iohannes Vinzalius.

The first volume of the Opinions of the most famous jurist
Franciscus Curtius, taken from his own copy, revised with the
greatest diligence by Giovanni Vinzalio Turriano, and by the
busy skill of Ulrich Scinzenzeler printed at Milan on December
20, 1496. To save you from rashly incurring no small penalty,
most greedy bookseller, you are to know that a decree has
been obtained from the most illustrious and most wise prince
of Milan, that until the tenth year from now no copies of the
Opinions of Curtius may be printed, or if printed elsewhere
may be imported for sale into his district, under the penalty
of his royal indignation and a fine, as there expressed.
Therefore, lest you should err in ignorance, Giovanni Vinzalio
wished you to be informed.

Without attempting to follow the subject of Privileges all over Europe, it may be worth while to note a few other instances of them in different countries. Thus they begin to make their appearance in Vérard’s colophons at Paris in 1508, the earliest I can find set forth in Mr. Macfarlane’s Bibliography being that in the “Epistres Saint Pol” of 17th January of that year, called 1507 because of the Paris custom of reckoning from Easter. This reads:

Ce present liure a este acheue dimprimer par ledit Verard le
xviiᵉ iour de ianuier mil cinq cens et sept. Et a le roy nostre
sire donne audit Verard lectres de priuilege et terme de trois
ans pour vendre et distribuer ledit pour soy rembourser des
fraiz et mises par luy faictes. Et deffend le roy nostredit
seigneur a tous inprimeurs libraires et autres du royaulme de
france de non imprimer ledit liure de trois ans sur paine de
confiscation desditz liures.

This present book has been finished printing by the said Vérard
the 17th day of January, 1507. And the king our master has
given to the said Vérard letters of privilege and a term of
three years to sell and distribute the said book to recoup
himself for the costs and charges he has been at. And the king
our said lord forbids all printers, booksellers, and others of
the kingdom of France to print the said book under pain of the
confiscation of the copies.

From this date onwards an allusion to a privilege is found in most of Vérard’s books, but it will be noted that its term is the very moderate one of three years. In England, in the earliest instance I have noted,—Pynson’s edition of the Oration of Richard Pace in 1518,—it is shorter still. The colophon here reads:

Impressa Londini anno verbi incarnati M.D.xviii. idibus
Nouembris per Richardum Pynson regium impressorem, cum
priuilegio a rege indulto, ne quis hanc orationem intra
biennium in regno Angliae imprimat aut alibi impressam et
importatam in eodem regno Angliae vendat.

Printed at London in the year of the Incarnate Word 1518, on
November 13th, by Richard Pynson, the royal printer, with a
privilege granted by the king that no one is to print this
speech within two years in the kingdom of England, or to sell
it, if printed elsewhere and imported, in the same kingdom of
England.

Herbert notes of this book, “this is the first dated book, wholly in the Roman or white letter, that I have seen of his [Pynson’s] printing, or indeed printed in England.” The foreign custom of privileges seems to have made its appearance with the foreign type.

In Spain the duration of the earliest privilege I have found (in an edition of the “Capitulos de governadores” printed in June, 1500, with the types of Pegnitzer and Herbst of Seville) is the same as in those granted to Vérard in France, and the benevolent Spanish government accompanies it by a stipulation as to the price to be charged to purchasers.

Por quanto maestre Garcia de la Torre librero vezino de Toledo
& Alonso Lorenço librero vezino de Seuilla se obligaron de dar
los dichos capitulos a precio de xvi [_sic_] mrs: manda su
alteza & los del su muy alto consejo que ninguno no sea osado
de los empremir ni vender en todos sus reynos & señorios desde
el dia dela fecha destos capitulos fasta tres años primeros
siguientes sin licencia d’los dichos maestre Garcia de la Torre
& Alonso Lorenço libreros: so pena que el que los emprimiere
[o] vendiere sin su licencia pague diez mill marauedis para la
camara de sus altezas.

Forasmuch as Master Garcia de la Torre, bookseller, of Toledo,
and Alonso Lorenço, bookseller, of Seville, bind themselves to
offer the said Ordinances at the price of sixteen maravedis,
His Highness, with those of his illustrious Council, commands
that no one presume to print nor to sell copies in all his
kingdoms and dominions from the day of the ratification of the
said Ordinances for the first three years following, without
the license of the said Master Garcia de la Torre and Alonso
Lorenço, booksellers, under penalty that the unlicensed printer
or vendor shall pay ten thousand maravedis for the Chamber of
their Highnesses.

In Germany, on the other hand, the longer period favored in Italy seems to have been adopted. Here the earliest privileges I have come across are those granted to the Sodalitas Celtica of Nuremberg—_i.e._, to Conrad Celtes and his partners or friends—for printing books in which he was interested. In the first of these privileges—that for the Comedies of the nun Hroswitha—the period for which it held good is not specified;[9] but in that granted to Celtes in the following year for his own “Quatuor Libri Amorum” it is distinctly stated, “ut nullus haec in decem annis in Imperii urbibus imprimat”; _i.e._, that under the terms of the privilege no one might print the book in any town of the Empire for ten years.

The instances of privileges here quoted may not be the very earliest in their several countries, but they at least show how quickly the demand for this form of protection spread from one country of Europe to another. It seems to me a little remarkable that while publishers were at the pains to obtain such legal monopolies (which presumably cost money), and advertised all the other attractions of their books so freely, they should have said so little about the illustrations which often form so pleasant a feature in the editions of this period. In the colophon, as on the title-page, of the “Meditationes” of Cardinal Turrecremata printed by Ulrich Han at Rome we are informed where the woodcuts were copied from:

Contemplaciones deuotissime per reuerendissimum dominum dominum
Iohannem de Turrecremata cardinalem quondam Sancti Sixti edite,
atque in parietibus circuitus Marie Minerue nedum litterarum
caracteribus verum eciam ymaginum figuris ornatissime descripte
atque depicte, feliciter finiunt Anno salutis M.cccc.lxxii.
die uero uigesima quarta mensis decembris sedente Sixto quarta
[_sic_] pontifice magno, etc.

The most devout contemplations published by the most reverend
lord, Lord Johannes de Turrecremata, formerly cardinal of S.
Sixtus, and in the walls of the cloisters of S. Maria Minerva
not only in words and letters but also in pictorial figures
set forth and painted, come to a happy end, in the year of
Salvation 1472, on December 24th, in the pontificate of Sixtus
IV.

So again the colophon[10] of the Verona Valturius notes not only that John of Verona was the first printer in his native town, but also that the book appeared with most elegant types “et figuratis signis,” by which we must understand the pictorial representations of the numerous military engines he describes. In some of the French Horae the illustrations are just alluded to in the titles or colophons, and in Meidenbach’s “Ortus Sanitatis” there is a fairly long reference, in the Address to the Reader, to the “effigies et figuras” with which the book is so successfully adorned. But the only colophon which really does justice to the illustrations of a fifteenth-century book is that to Hartmann Schedel’s “Liber Chronicarum,” or “Nuremberg Chronicle.”

[A]Dest nunc studiose lector finis libri Cronicarum per viam
epithomatis et breuiarii compilati, opus quidem preclarum
et a doctissimo quoque comparandum. Continet enim gesta
quecunque digniora sunt notatu ab initio mundi ad hanc usque
temporis nostri calamitatem. Castigatumque a uiris doctissimis
ut magis elaboratum in lucem prodiret. Ad intuitum autem
et preces prouidorum ciuium Sebaldi Schreyer et Sebastiani
Kamermaister hunc librum dominus Anthonius Koberger Nuremberge
impressit. Adhibitis tamen uiris mathematicis pingendique arte
peritissimis, Michaele Wolgemut et Wilhelmo Pleydenwurff,
quorum solerti acuratissimaque animaduersione tum ciuitatum
tum illustrium uirorum figure inserte sunt. Consummatum autem
duodecima mensis Iulii. Anno salutis nostre 1493.

You have here, studious reader, the end of the book of
Chronicles, compiled by way of an epitome and abridgment, a
notable work indeed, and one to be bought by every learned man.
For it records all the matters specially worthy of note from
the beginning of the world to these last distressful times of
our own. And it has been corrected by very learned men, that
it may make a more finished appearance. Now at the respect
and prayers of those prudent citizens, Sebald Schreyer and
Sebastian Kamermaister, this book has been printed by Master
Anton Koberger at Nuremberg, with the assistance, nevertheless,
of mathematical men, well skilled in the art of painting,
Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, by whose skilful and
most accurate annotation the pictures both of cities and of
illustrious men have been inserted. It has been brought to an
end on July 12th. In the year of our salvation 1493.

Out of all the hundreds of fifteenth-century books with interesting pictures, this is the only one I can call to mind which gives explicit information as to its illustrations. Perhaps the publishers thought that the woodcuts were themselves more conspicuous in the books than the colophons. But it is certainly strange that when authors, editors, press-correctors, printers, patrons, and booksellers all get their due, the illustrators, save in this one instance, should have been kept in anonymous obscurity.

VI

COLOPHONS OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS

Booksellers are a much more learned body than they used to be, but few readers of second-hand catalogues can have failed to meet with ascriptions of dates for the printing of books long anterior to the invention of the art, on the ground of colophons which they know at once to have been written by the authors. Where only a few years separate the dates of composition and publication the mistake is easily made and not always easily detected. The retention of the author’s original colophon is, however, common enough for cataloguers to be prepared for it; and there are plenty of cases in which a book possesses two quite distinct colophons, the first by the author, the second by the printer or publisher. Thus, to take a simple example from a famous book, we find at the end of the text of the “Hypnerotomachia” the author’s colophon:

Taruisii cum decorissimis Poliae amore lorulis distineretur
misellus Poliphilus. M.cccc.lxvii. Kalendis Maii.

At Treviso, while the wretched Polifilo was confined by love of
Polia with glittering nets. May 1, 1467.

That of the printer is thirty-two years later:

Venetiis mense Decembri M I D in aedibus Aldi Manutii,
accuratissime.

At Venice, in the month of December, 1499, in the house of Aldo
Manuzio, with very great accuracy.

A more interesting instance of a double colophon occurs in an equally famous book, the “Morte d’Arthur” of Sir Thomas Malory. In this Malory writes:

Here is the end of the booke of Kyng Arthur and of his noble
Knyghtes of the Round Table, that when they were hole togyders
there was euer an C and xl, and here is the ende of the deth
of Arthur. I praye you all Ientyl men and Ientyl wymmen that
redeth this book of Arthur and his knyghtes from the begynnyng
to the endyng, praye for me whyle I am on lyue that God sende
me good delyuerance, and whan I am deed I praye you all praye
for my soule. For this book was ended the ix yere of the reygne
of Kyng Edward the fourth, by Syr Thomas Maleore Knyght. As
Ihesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the seruaunt of
Ihesu bothe day and nyght.

This colophon was written between Malory’s outlawry in 1468 and his death on March 14, 1471, and its request for the reader’s prayers for his “delyuerance” and for the repose of his soul after death is made all the more pathetic when we remember the author’s declaration that by sickness “al welthe is birafte” from a prisoner (Book ix, ch. 37). Caxton’s preface as editor, printer, and publisher, on the other hand, is purely businesslike, and gives us no more information about the author.

¶ Thus endyth thys noble and joyous book entytled Le Morte
D’Arthur. Notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf and
actes of the sayd Kyng Arthur, of his noble knyghtes of the
Rounde Table, theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures,
thacheuyng of the Sangreal, & in thende the dolorous deth &
departyng out of thys world of them al. Whiche book was reduced
into englysshe by Syr Thomas Malory Knyght as afore is sayd,
and by me deuyded in to xxi bookes, chapytred and enprynted,
and fynysshed in thabbey westmestre the last day of Iuyl the
yere of our Lord Mcccclxxxv.

¶ Caxton me fieri fecit.

Despite outlawry, sickness, and probably imprisonment, Malory finished his book. In the troublous days of the fifteenth century war and disease must often have proved sad interruptions to authors, and in his “Repetitio de verborum significatione” (Hain 11679) Georgius Natta is evidently as proud of having triumphed over these hindrances as of his official position. Thus he writes:

Reliquum est Deo summo gratias agere quo auctor huic operi,
iam bis armis et pestilentia Pisis intermisso, Georgius Natta,
iuris utriusque doctor, ciuis Astensis ac illustrissimi et
excellentissimi Marchionis Montisferrati consiliarius, multis
additis et priori ordine in aliquibus mutato, extremam manum
imposuit anno dominice natiuitatis Millesimo.cccc.lxxxii,
quo tempore pro memorabili Guilielmo Montisferrati Marchione
ac ducali capitaneo generali Mediolani oratorem agebat apud
illustrissimum Io. Galeam Mariam Sfortiam uicecomitem Ducem
sextum, Ludouico patruo mira integritate gubernante, quippe
qui Mediolanensium res iam tunc adeo gnauiter ampliabat et
oranti Italie pacem adeo largiter elargiebatur ut nec superior
etas optabiliorem habuerit nec nostra uiderit prestantiorem.
Profecto mira res quod diuinus ille preses Marti pariter et
Minerue satisfaceret.

Impressum Papie per Christoforum de Canibus Anno a natiuitate
domini. M.cccc.lxxxxii. die xv septembris.

It remains to give thanks to the Most High God, by whose grace
the author, Georgius Natta, doctor of both laws, a citizen of
Asti and councillor of the most illustrious and most excellent
Marquis of Monferrat, to this work, which had been twice
interrupted by war and plague at Pisa, with many additions and
some changes in the former arrangement, put the finishing touch
in the year of the Lord’s nativity 1482, at which time, on
behalf of the memorable Guglielmo, Marquis of Monferrat, and
ducal captain-general, he was acting as ambassador at Milan, at
the court of the most illustrious Viscount Giovanni Galea Maria
Sforza, sixth duke, whose uncle Lodovico was governing with
wondrous uprightness, inasmuch as he was already so skilfully
enlarging the fortunes of the Milanese, and so liberally
imparting peace to Italy which craved it, that neither did any
earlier age present a more enviable person nor did our own
behold one of greater excellence. Wonderful indeed was it that
that heroic ruler gave their due alike to Mars and to Minerva.

Printed at Pavia by Cristoforo degli Cani in the year from the
Lord’s nativity 1492, on the fifteenth day of September.

Less contented with his lot, Henricus Bruno, in his lectures “Super Institutionibus” published at Louvain, after writing the formal colophon takes up his pen anew to give eloquent expression to the woes of the professional man who devotes his leisure not to rest but to literature.

Ad laudem et honorem summi ac omnipotentis deique marie matris
sue intacte Explicit Henricus de piro super Institutionibus Per
Egidium van der Heerstraten in alma Louaniensi uniuersitate
Impressus duodecima die Nouembris. Nouissime domini et fratres
dilectissimi reminiscite queso ac tacite in animis vestris
cogitate quantis laboribus quantisque capitis vexationibus
Ego Henricus Brunonis alias de Piro de Colonia inter legum
dectores [_sic_] minimus hoc opusculum ex scriptis aliorum pro
vestris beniuolenciis atque augmentatione huius nouelli studii
Louaniensis expleuerim Qui singulis diebus post lectionem
fftorum mihi a publico deputatam in continenti hoc opus quasi
intollerabili onere assumpsi. Quare fratres humanissimi si
quicquid erroris vel dignum correctionis inueneritis oro, rogo
atque obtestor vestros immortales animos vt illud benigne non
mordaciter, caritatis zelo non liuoris aculeo, corrigendum ac
emendandum curetis. Ad laudem summi dei qui viuit et regnat in
secula benedictus. Amen.

.]

To the praise and honor of the Most High and Almighty God
and of Mary his Virgin Mother there comes to an end Henricus
de Piro on the Institutions, printed by Egidius van der
Heerstraten in the bounteous University of Louvain, on the
twelfth day of November. Lastly, masters and most beloved
brothers, remember, I pray you, and silently in your minds
consider with how great toils and how great harassments of the
head I, Henricus, the son of Bruno, otherwise Henricus de Piro
of Cologne, the least among the doctors and readers of the law,
have completed this little work out of the writings of other
men for your profiting and for the advancement of this new
university of Louvain. Now I, day by day, after lecturing on
the Pandects according to the terms of my public appointment,
forthwith took up this work, though intolerably burdensome.
Wherefore, my most courteous brethren, if you find any trace
of error or anything worthy of correction, I request, pray,
and entreat you, by your immortal souls, that you see to its
correction and amendment in a kindly rather than a biting
spirit, with the zeal of love rather than the spur of envy. To
the praise of the Most High God, who lives and reigns, blessed
to all ages. Amen.

Even as late as 1580 an author, a musician this time, used the colophon to pour out the griefs of which nowadays we disburden ourselves in prefaces. It is thus that, in his “Cantiones seu Harmoniae sacrae quas vulgo Moteta vocant,” Johann von Cleve took advantage of the tradition of the colophon to bespeak the sympathy of students and amateurs of music for his troubles in bringing out his book:

Sub calce operis, Musicae studiosos & amatores admonere, operae
pretium visum est hoc Motetorum opus, primo Philippo Vlhardo,
ciui et Typographo Augustano, ad imprimendum esse delegatum,
qui ob aduersam corporis valetudinem (vt fieri solet) aequo
morosior, saepe nostram intentionem non est assecutus, meque
opus ipsum, praetermissis quibusdam mutetis (quae tamen breui,
vita comite & Deo fauente, in lucem prodibunt) abbreuiare
coegit, praesertim cum idem Typographus, opere nondum finito,
diem suum clauserit extremum: ac deinceps idem opus Andreae
Reinheckel, ad finem deducendum, sit commissum. Quare si quid,
quod curiosum turbare posset occurrerit, Musici (oro) animam
ferunt aequiore. Valete. Anno Domini M.D.lxxx. Mense Ianuario.

As I come to the end of my task it seems worth while to
inform students and amateurs of music that this collection
of Motets was in the first place entrusted to Philip Ulhard,
citizen and printer of Augsburg, to be printed, and that he
(as often happens), being made unreasonably capricious by
bodily ill-health, often did not carry out our intention, and
compelled me, by leaving out some motets (which, however,
if life bears me company and God helps, will shortly be
published), to abridge the work, and more especially as the
same printer, when the work was not yet finished, came to an
end of his days, and thereupon the said work was entrusted to
Andreas Reinheckel to be completed, if anything, therefore,
is found which might disturb a connoisseur, I pray musicians
to bear it with equanimity. Farewell. In the year of the Lord
1580, in the month of January.

An earlier author, Bonetus de Latis, when he came to the end of his “Annulus astronomicus siue de utilitate astrologiae” (Rome, Andreas Freitag, c. 1496; Hain 9926), dedicated to the Pope, had no complaints to make of his printer or of working after office hours, but used the colophon to ask for lenient criticism of any flaws in his Jewish Latin.

Hec sunt, Beatissime Pater, Anuli astronomici puncta peregregia
una mecum ad S. tue pedes humillime oblata que positis
superciliis hilari uultu, ut spes fovet, recipias. Nec mirum
si grammatice methas qui hebreus sum latinitatis expers
nonnunquam excesserim. Nolens utile per inutile viciari malui
S. T. rosulas uili quam urticas loliumue in preciosa offerre
sportula: ut que ad S. T. totiusque reipublice commodum
omniumque rerum Opificis laudem utilia comperta sunt ob
connexiones verborum enormes non obmitterentur, summa verum
auctoritate tua interposita a cunctis patule agnoscerentur.

Parce precor rudibus que sunt errata latine:
Lex hebraea mihi est: lingua latina minus.

These notable points of the Astronomical Ring are most humbly
offered, most blessed Father, together with myself, at the feet
of your Holiness. May you lay aside all disdain and receive
them, as hope encourages, with a joyful countenance. Nor is it
any wonder if a Hebrew such as I am, with no scholarship in
Latin, should sometimes have overstepped the bounds of grammar.
In my unwillingness that the useful should be made of no
effect by the useless, I preferred to offer to your Holiness
rosebuds in a cheap basket rather than nettles or tares in a
precious one, so that such useful discoveries as have been made
for the advantage of your Holiness and of the whole state,
and to the praise of the Artificer of all things, should not
be passed over on account of unusual collocations of words,
but by the interposition of your authority should be plainly
recognized by all.

Be lenient, you who find some Latin flaw:
Not Latin I profess, but Hebrew law.

Jacobus Bergomensis, when he finishes his “Supplementum Chronicarum,” can boast proudly of promises performed, and gives not only the dates of its completion and printing, but his own age.

Hic igitur terminum ponam Supplementi historiarum: quam [_sic_]
me promisi cum omni veritate traditurum. Nisus autem sum sine
errore successiones regum principum et actus eorum: ac virorum
in disciplinis excellentium et origines religionum: sicut ex
libris hystoricorum descriptio continet. Hoc enim in exordio
huius operis me facere compromisi. Perfectum autem per me opus
fuit anno salutis nostre 1483. 3º Kalendas Iulii in ciuitate
Bergomi: mihi vero a natiuitate quadragesimo nono. Impressum
autem hoc opus in inclita Venetiarum ciuitate: per Bernardinum
de Benaliis bergomensem eodem anno. die 23º Augusti.

Here, then, I will make an end of the Supplement of Histories,
which I promised that I would relate with all truth. Now I have
tried to set down without mistake the successions of kings and
princes, and the activities of them and of the men who excelled
in studies, and the origins of religions as they are embraced
in the description taken from the books of the historians. For
in the introduction of this work I pledged myself to do this.
The work has been finished by me in the year of our salvation
1483, on June 29th, in the city of Bergamo, and as regards
myself in the forty-ninth year from my birth. Now this book was
printed in the renowned city of Venice by Bernardino dei Benali
of Bergamo on August 23d of the same year.

When the “Supplementum Chronicarum” was reprinted in 1485-86, Bergomensis duly altered his statement as to his age to fifty-one and fifty-two. In the 1490 edition the author’s colophon still reads:

Perfectum autem est et denuo castigatum atque auctum per
me opus fuit Idibus Octobris: anno a Natali Christiano
M.cccc.lxxxvi, in ciuitate nostra Bergomi: mihi vero a
natiuitate quinquagesimo secundo.

That of the printer, on the other hand, is duly brought up to date:

Impressum autem Venetiis per Bernardum Rizum de Nouaria anno
a Natiuitate domini M.cccc.lxxxx. die decimo quinto Madii,
regnante inclito duce Augustino Barbadico.

It is thus evident that with this and later editions Bergomensis, though he lived to be eighty-six, did not concern himself.

An author’s colophon must often have been omitted by the scribe or printer who was copying his book precisely because a double colophon seemed confusing, and the scribe or printer wished to have his own say. Nicolaus de Auximo in his Supplement to the Summa of Pisanella ingeniously forestalled any such tampering by linking his remarks to his exposition of the word “Zelus,” the last which he had to explain. After quoting from the Psalms the text “Zelus domus tue comedit me,” “The zeal of thy house has eaten me up,” he proceeds:

et hic zelus me fratrem Nicolaum de Ausmo, ordinis minorum
indignum pro aliquali simpliciorum subsidio ad huius
supplementi compilationem quod struente domino nostro Iesu
Cristo, excepta tabula capitulorum et abbreuiaturarum et
rubricarum expletum est apud nostrum locum prope Mediolanum
sancte Marie de Angelis nuncupatum, et uulgariter Sancti
Angeli, M.cccc.xliiii, nouembris xxviii, die Sabbati ante
aduentum, hora quasi sexta. Et omnia quae in eo ac ceteris
opusculis per me compilatis compilandisue incaute seu minus
perite posita continentur peritiorum et praesertim sacrosancte
ecclesie submitto correctioni, et cetera.

And this zeal hath urged me, Nicholas of Osimo, an unworthy
brother of the order of Friars Minor, to the compilation, for
some aid of more simple men, of this Supplement, which by the
power of our Lord Jesus Christ, save for the table of chapters
and abbreviations and rubrics, has been completed at our abode
near Milan, called Saint Mary of the Angels, and vulgarly Sant
Angelo, in 1444, on November 28, the Saturday before Advent,
at about the sixth hour. And both in it and in the other works
which either have been or are to be compiled by me, all things
which are found stated incautiously or unskilfully I submit to
the correction of the better skilled and especially of the Holy
Church, etc.

The submission of a book, more particularly a theological one, to the correction of the learned and the church was of course “common form” while the Roman dominion was undisputed, and many colophons containing such phrases could be collected. We must pass on now, however, from authors to editors, taking William Caxton, by the way, as an editor and translator who put so much of himself into his work that he deserves honorary rank among authors. That he was his own printer and publisher as well has certainly rather hindered the appreciation of his literary merits, but gives to his colophons, prologues, and epilogues a special flavor of their own. As to which of these opportunities of talking to his readers he should use, Caxton seems to have cared little; but even if we confine ourselves fairly strictly to colophons properly so called, there is no difficulty in finding interesting examples, as, for instance, this from his “Godefroy of Boloyne”:

Thus endeth this book Intitled the laste siege and conqueste
of Iherusalem with many other historyes therin comprysed,
Fyrst of Eracles and of the meseases of the cristen men in the
holy lande, And of their releef & conquest of Iherusalem, and
how Godeffroy of Boloyne was fyrst kyng of the latyns in that
royamme, & of his deth, translated & reduced out of frensshe in
to Englysshe by me symple persone Wylliam Caxton to thende that
euery cristen man may be the better encoraged tenterprise warre
for the defense of Christendom, and to recouer the sayd Cyte of
Iherusalem in whiche oure blessyd sauyour Ihesu Criste suffred
deth for al mankynde, and roose fro deth to lyf, And fro the
same holy londe ascended in to heuen. And also that Cristen
peple one vnyed in a veray peas myght empryse to goo theder in
pylgremage with strong honde for to expelle the sarasyns and
turkes out of the same, that our lord myght be ther seruyd &
worshipped of his chosen cristen peple in that holy & blessed
londe in which he was Incarnate and blissyd it with the
presence of his blessyd body whyles he was here in erthe emonge
vs, by whiche conquest we myght deserue after this present
short and transitorye lyf the celestial lyf to dwelle in heuen
eternally in ioye without ende Amen. Which book I presente
vnto the mooste Cristen kynge, kynge Edward the fourth, humbly
besechyng his hyenes to take no displesyr at me so presumyng.
Whiche book I began in Marche the xii daye and fynysshyd the
vii day of Juyn, the yere of our lord M.cccc.lxxxi, & the xxi
yere of the regne of our sayd souerayn lord kyng Edward the
fourth, & in this maner sette in forme and enprynted the xx day
of nouembre the yere a forsayd in thabbay of Westmester, by the
said Wylliam Caxton.

Here, it will have been noticed, Caxton runs epilogue, colophon, and dedication all into one after his own happy and unpretentious fashion. Our next example is from a book which had indeed a royal patron in France, but in England was brought out at the request of an unnamed London merchant, though its name, “The Royal Book,” has probably had something to do with its high pecuniary value among Caxton’s productions. This colophon runs:

This book was compyled and made atte requeste of Kyng Phelyp of
Fraunce, in the yere of thyncarnacyon of our lord M.cc.lxxix,
and translated or reduced out of frensshe in to englysshe by
me Wyllyam Caxton, atte requeste of a worshipful marchaunt
and mercer of London, whyche instauntly requyred me to reduce
it for the wele of alle them that shal rede or here it, as
for a specyal book to knowe al vyces and braunches of them,
and also al vertues by whiche wel vnderstonden and seen may
dyrecte a persone to euerlastyng blysse, whyche book is callyd
in frensshe le liure Royal, that is to say the ryal book, or
a book for a kyng. For the holy scrypture calleth euery man
a kyng whiche wysely and parfytly can gouerne and dyrecte
hymselfe after vertu, and this book sheweth and enseygneth it
so subtylly, so shortly, so perceuyngly and so parfyghtly that
for the short comprehencion of the noble clergye and of the
right grete substaunce which is comprysed therin It may and
ought to be called wel by ryghte and quycke reason aboue al
other bookes in frensshe or in englysshe, the book ryal or the
book for a kyng, and also bycause that it was made and ordeyned
atte request of that ryght noble kyng Phelyp le bele kynge of
Fraunce ought it to be called Ryall, as tofore is sayd, whiche
translacyon or reducyng oute of frensshe in to englysshe was
achyeued, fynysshed and accomplysshed the xiii day of Septembre
in the yere of thyncarnacyon of our lord M.cccc.lxxxiiii And in
the second yere of the Regne of Kyng Rychard the thyrd.

Our third Caxton colophon belongs to another book which had no royal or princely patron, only Master William Daubeney, keeper of the jewels. There are certainly, however, no lack of kings in the colophon to “Charles the Great”; for Caxton, who had good reason to be attached to the House of York, alludes very ceremoniously to “his late master Edward IV,” while chronology compels him to name also both Richard III and Henry VII, though in neither case does he bestow any complimentary epithets.

And by cause I Wylliam Caxton was desyred & requyred by a good
and synguler frende of myn, Maister Wylliam Daubeney, one of
the tresorers of the Iewellys of the noble & moost crysten kyng
our naturel and souerayn lord late of noble memorye kyng Edward
the fourth, on whos soule Ihesu haue mercy, to reduce al these
sayd hystoryes in to our englysshe tongue, I haue put me in
deuoyr to translate thys sayd book as ye here tofore may se, al
a long and playn, prayeng alle them that shall rede see or here
it to pardon me of thys symple & rude translacyon and reducyng,
bysechyng theym that shal fynde faute to correcte it, & in so
doyng they shal deserue thankynges and I shal praye god for
them, who brynge them and me after this short and transytorye
lyf to euerlastyng blysse Amen. The whyche werke was fynysshed
in the reducyng of hit in to englysshe the xviii day of Iuyn
the second yere of kyng Rychard the thyrd, And the yere of our
lord M.cccc.lxxxv. And enprynted the fyrst day of decembre
the same yere of our lord & the fyrst yere of kyng Harry the
seuenth.

Explicit per William Caxton.

The double dating which the worthy translator and printer gives so calmly has here a special interest as (unless indeed he began setting up the translation before it was finished) it shows that he was able to print a book of considerable size between June 18th and December 1st, and also because between these two dates Bosworth Field was lost and won, and the English throne had passed to a new king, on whom Caxton was perhaps at first inclined to look with rather critical eyes. If this was so, however, Henry VII found a sure way to conciliate him, for in the “Fayts of Arms” of Christine de Pisan we find that the translation and printing of the book were undertaken at the king’s request, and there is now no lack of honorific epithets attached to the mention of him.