Transcriber’s Note:

The following presumed errors have been corrected in the text.

[Page 107], “1457” changed to “1497” (printed by Geoffroy de Marnef in 1497)

[Page 154], “precedette” changed to “procedette” (non diligente impressore procedette)

[Page 162], “rari” changed to “rara” (Cum quondam fuerit copia rara tui.)

[Footnote 4], “nome” changed to “nomen” (Enee Siluio nomen erat) and “incolaru” changed to “incolam” (de Lubeck Colonie incolam)

[Index entry for Indictions], page reference “70” changed to “170”

The Publication Committee of the Caxton Club certifies that this copy of “An Essay on Colophons” is one of an edition consisting of two hundred and fifty-two copies on French hand-made paper and three copies on imperial Japanese paper, printed from type, and completed in the month of August, nineteen hundred and five.

AN ESSAY ON COLOPHONS

AN
ESSAY ON COLOPHONS

WITH SPECIMENS
AND TRANSLATIONS

BY
ALFRED W. POLLARD

AND AN INTRODUCTION BY
RICHARD GARNETT

CHICAGO
THE CAXTON CLUB
MCMV

Copyright, 1905, by
The Caxton Club

CONTENTS AND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Leaving the Colophon in its bibliographical aspects to the able hand by which these are about to be treated, it may not be amiss to preface Mr. Pollard’s researches by a brief inquiry into the origin and significance of the term itself, and the reason why the colophon for so long performed the office of the title-page.

Colophon originally meant the head or summit of anything. It is clearly cognate with κορυφή, but is a word of far less importance, for while thirteen derivatives from κορυφή are given in Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary, κολοφών has not one. The former word is continually used by Homer; the latter is first met with in Plato, and then and afterwards only in a figurative sense. Yet it is clear that the word must from the first have borne the signification of “summit” or “crest,” for such is the position of the city of Colophon, which must have derived its name from its elevation, just as a modern house may be called “Hilltop.” Names of this kind, if not given at the first, are rarely given at all; we must suppose, then, that colophon was a recognized Greek word for “summit” when the city was founded about the tenth century B.C., according to Strabo by a Pylian colony, though this seems difficult to reconcile with the fact of Colophon being an Ionian city. In any case, the word has long survived the place.

According to the information supplied by the New English Dictionary, colophon made a brief appearance in English, in the first half of the seventeenth century, in its secondary classical sense of a “finishing stroke” or “crowning touch,” being used thus in Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” and again in 1635 by John Swan, who writes in his “Speculum Mundi” of how God “comes to the Creation of Man and makes him the colophon or conclusion of all things else.” Of the use of the word colophon in the particular significance elucidated in this essay—the end or ultimate paragraph of a book or manuscript—the earliest example quoted in the New English Dictionary is from Warton’s “History of English Poetry,” published in 1774. A quarter of a century before this it is found as a term needing no explanation in the first edition of the “Typographical Antiquities” of Joseph Ames, published in 1749. How much older it is than this cannot lightly be determined. The bibliographical use appears to be unknown to the Greek and Latin lexicographers, medieval as well as classical. Pending further investigation, it seems not unlikely that it may have been developed out of the secondary classical sense already mentioned sometime during the seventeenth century, when the interest in bibliography which was then beginning to be felt would naturally call into existence new terms of art. The Latin word subscriptio, which is used in a not very dissimilar sense, could hardly have been modernized without ambiguity. The Greek κορωνις, used for a flourish at the end of a manuscript, had not entered into any modern language. It is possible that it was thus only at a comparatively late date that a need was felt for a special word to denote the final paragraph of a book, and that the metaphorical use of colophon for a “finishing touch” caused it to be specialized in this sense. But whenever this use of the word colophon may have arisen, it is manifest that if this paragraph is to convey any description of the book, it fulfils the office of a title-page; and when we examine the manner in which colophon came to bear this special connotation, we shall see that the printer’s colophon could not, except for a very short period while men’s ideas were still indefinite, have coexisted with the title-page.

The idea especially implied in the Greek proverbial phrase “to put on the colophon” is that of putting the finishing stroke to anything, as when a building is completed by the addition of the coping-stone, or a discourse is summed up by a recapitulation of its general gist. Is the word simply used in the sense of a crowning peak? or has it a special connection with the city of Colophon? Ancient writers assert the latter, and assign two reasons, one of which at least seems fanciful. Strabo says that the allusion is to the decisive charges of the Colophonian cavalry, which were made at the last moment. There seems no other indication of Colophon having possessed a high military reputation. The Scholiast on the “Theaetetus” of Plato gives a more probable derivation; he says that, on account of their having received the Smyrnaeans into their city, the people of Colophon were allowed a casting-vote in the Panionium, or congress of the twelve Ionian cities, and hence the expression was equivalent to “turn the scale.” There would be nothing unreasonable in this supposition if we were sure that the Colophonians actually had this casting-vote; but the notion may well have been invented to explain the proverb; and, after all, if κολοφών has the sense of “crest,” no historical explanation seems necessary.

We have, however, solely to consider here the application of the term colophon to books, and must ask, What portion of a book would embody that final touch which we have seen to be essential to the idea of a colophon? In modern times we should probably say the imprint, for although the printer’s name, as well as the publisher’s, may be given at the bottom or on the reverse of the title-page, it is more usual to find it at the end. The ancient colophon also gave this information, but it commonly gave much more. To understand the part it played in early printing, we must go back to its predecessor, the manuscript.

Manuscripts, as the parents of printed books, have necessarily exercised the greatest influence on their development. A step which might have been very important was taken when, probably early in the fifth century, the form most convenient for the printed book was established by the definitive supersession of the roll form of manuscript by the codex, or manuscript in modern book form. Codices are of sufficient antiquity to be figured in the paintings at Pompeii, but the derivation from caudices, thin leaves of wood, shows that they were not at first much used for literary purposes, but rather for accounts or memoranda. When they began to compete with the roll, a step in the direction of convenience which may be appreciated by us if we can imagine that all our books had at one time been printed in newspaper form, we find the colophon already installed under the title of index. This did not denote the key to the contents of a book, thought so indispensable in modern times, but to the title, giving generally the subject and author of the book with the utmost brevity, and written at the end, precisely like a colophon, which in fact it was, though not bearing the name. As the papyrus roll was not bound, there could be no lettering upon a cover unless when, as was sometimes the case, a fine manuscript was inclosed within a case or wrappage for its protection; and the inconvenience of having to open every roll to find the title soon suggested the idea of hanging the index outside the roll on a separate slip, brightly dyed so as to attract attention. Examples may be seen in paintings from Pompeii. The general, though as yet by no means universal, displacement of papyrus by parchment led to the introduction of binding, early in the fifth century, as the best method of preserving codices. It had, of course, been practised before, but could not make much progress while the majority of books were papyrus scrolls; and even in the case of codices it seems to have been chiefly employed for the opportunity it afforded of adorning a valued manuscript with a splendid exterior. The disuse of the roll, however, soon made binding universal. In the Customs of the Augustinian priory at Barnwell it is distinctly laid down: “As the books ought to be mended, printed, and taken care of by the Librarian, so ought they to be properly bound by him.”

The question of binding, as it concerns the colophon, is chiefly interesting from the point it raises whether the colophon, representing as it certainly did the title-page, was the sole clue to the contents of a manuscript, or whether the binding was lettered by a label affixed, or by the author’s name being written on it. The books represented in the picture of “Ezra Writing the Law,” the frontispiece to the Codex Amiatinus, reproduced in Mr. Clark’s work on “The Care of Books,” show no signs of lettering; and centuries later, in the Augustinian Customs, we find the librarian enjoined not to pack the books too closely together, “ne nimia compressio querenti moram invectat.” Delay, therefore, in finding a book on the shelf was recognized as an evil to be guarded against: it is scarcely likely that this would have been so manifest if the books had been distinctly lettered, or that the librarian would not have been enjoined to supply lettering if lettering had been the practice.

It would seem, then, that the colophon of a manuscript would be the principal means of affording information respecting its contents; but, if we may so far extend the signification of the term as to cover any addition made at the end by the transcriber, and having no reference to the subject-matter of the book, it was capable of conveying much beside. How touchingly the feelings of the copyist, “all with weary task fordone,” craving to be assured that he has not labored in vain, are portrayed in this final note to a volume written in the ninth century!

I beseech you, my friend, when you are reading my book, to keep your hands behind its back, for fear you should do mischief to the text by some sudden movement, for a man who knows nothing about writing thinks that it is no concern of his.[1] Whereas to a writer the last line is as sweet as the port is to a sailor. Three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body toils. Thanks be to God, I, Warembert, wrote this book in God’s name. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Very moving, too, is the injunction of some tender spirit in a manuscript of the fourteenth century:

Whoever pursues his studies in this book, should be careful to handle the leaves gently and delicately, so as to avoid tearing them by reason of their thinness; and let him imitate the example of Jesus Christ, who, when he had quietly opened the book of Isaiah and read therein attentively, rolled it up with reverence, and gave it again to the Minister.

On the other hand, manuscripts frequently contain anathemas against the pernicious race of book thieves, which can hardly be deemed uncalled for when we remember the frank admission innocently volunteered by a Sicilian knight, in a ballad translated by Rossetti, that he had stolen his Bible out of a church, “the priest being gone away.” Sometimes additional force is sought to be given to these imprecations by the assertion that the book is to be regarded as the personal property of the patron saint of the church or monastery—St. Alban, for example.

We have dwelt at some length upon the question of colophons, or inscriptions corresponding to colophons, in manuscripts, as these have been little investigated, and form the groundwork of the more important inquiry concerning the development of the colophon in the printed book, which is the subject of Mr. Pollard’s essay. It would be interesting to collect from medieval manuscripts and bring together in one corpus the ejaculations of medieval scribes, whether minatory, hortatory, or simply expressive of gratitude or relief at the termination of their irksome labors. How far this latter sentiment may have been qualified by the artist’s pleasure in his calligraphy must be matter of conjecture. If he was illuminator as well as transcriber, he must frequently have had ample ground for complacency. It would be a proof how little the conception of painting as an art independent of every other was developed if we could suppose the illustrator of a fourteenth-century Dante, for example, whose talent would in this age have made his fortune as a painter of pictures, condescending to the humble labors of a copyist, exquisite as his calligraphy might be. Yet the craft of the illuminator was destined to be absolutely obliterated by printing, while that of the transcriber exercised an important influence on early printing, as evinced by the care which the first printers took to adapt their types to the forms of letters prevalent in the manuscripts of their respective countries.

The same adaptation is observable in the use of the colophon by the early printers in the place of a title-page, when, as was not always the case, they thought fit to give a title at all. To us this seems almost incomprehensible. The immense advantage of a book bearing a title on its front and manifesting its nature from the first is so apparent that our practical age cannot comprehend how it could have been less obvious to our predecessors than to ourselves. It further seems in accordance with common sense and general usage in all similar matters that proclamation should be made at the beginning and not at the end, at the entrance and not at the exit, as the dedication of the temple is inscribed above the portico. The neglect of this apparently self-evident rule is perhaps to be explained by the influence of the “traditions of the scribes,” which affected early printing in many ways. We have alluded to the manner in which types were modelled upon the style of handwriting in use in the respective countries, the beautifully clear Italian type contrasting so markedly with the massive and imposing ruggedness of the Gothic. We also see how the tradition of illumination long induced printers to leave blank spaces for capital letters, especially at the beginnings of chapters, to be filled in by the artist, and to employ the services of a “rubricator” to preserve at least some phantom of the wealth of color which the printing art was destroying as effectually as in our day the photograph has killed the woodcut. The elegant border, also, was a legacy from the manuscript to the printed book, and this, fortunately lending itself to engraving, admitted of preservation. The service rendered by printing to engraving, it may be parenthetically remarked, is a great set-off against the injury it inflicted upon art in the shape of pictorial illustration. All these circumstances indicate the strong influence of the scribe upon the printer; and it is perhaps not surprising that the latter should for some time have followed the example of his predecessor, and given no title except occasionally the brief heading which frequently precedes the first chapter of a manuscript. This was never set out on a distinct leaf, an indispensable condition of a title-page, until many years after printing had effectually dethroned transcription as the method of the reproduction of books. The first title-page did not appear until some twenty years after the invention of printing. Title-pages became the rule about 1490, but it was not until 1493 that the announcement of the printer or publisher, hitherto buried in the colophon, began to appear upon them.

This it is which gives the colophon such extraordinary importance in the history of early printing. Wherever one exists, the question of place and printer, and frequently the question of date, is entirely solved. Where there is no colophon, we are left to conjecture. The problem is, indeed, generally soluble by a really scientific investigation, but it is only of late that science has been thoroughly brought to bear upon it by a Bradshaw and a Proctor. It is no unimportant matter, for every determination of the locality of an early book is a paragraph added to the history of the culture of the country where it originated. The beginnings of printing, as of other arts, were obscure, and we must be most grateful for any information which has been afforded us by men who assuredly no more thought of posterity than does any tradesman who advertises his wares without reflecting that he too is contributing something to the history of culture or of industry. The ancient printers had no more notion than Shakspere had what interesting figures they would appear in the eyes of posterity.

The colophon, however, does much more than reveal matters of fact. It admits us in a measure into the intimacy of the old printer, shows us what manner of man he was, and upon what he rested his claims to esteem as a benefactor of the community. We find him very decided in asserting his superiority to the copyist, a reaction, perhaps, against a feeling entertained in some quarters that the new art was base and mechanical in comparison with the transcriber’s, with which, in the estimation of the devotee of calligraphy, it could only compare as a motor-car may compare with an Arab steed. That such a feeling existed in highly cultivated quarters we learn from the disdain for printing expressed by the eminent scholar and educator Vespasiano da Bisticci, who had collected the library of the Duke of Ferrara, and who looked upon the manuscripts he had gathered with such joy and pride as an admiral of the old school may have looked upon his lovely frigates in comparison with the ugly, but undeniably more powerful, ironclad. Such printers as Jenson might have replied that their typographical productions were hardly inferior in beauty to the manuscript, but we are not aware that they ever took this line. They rather lay stress upon a more tangible advantage—their superior accuracy. They also affirm, and with truth, that their work is easier to read. “As plain as print” is a proverb which has grown up of itself. They might also have dwelt upon the various sorrows and afflictions which copyists prepared for their employers, so graphically described by Petrarch. Petrarch’s lamentation must have been a rare enjoyment to the first printer who published it, if he understood it and had professional feeling.

Much more might be said about the old printer as revealed by the colophon—his trade jealousies, his disposition to monopolize, his deference to patrons, his joy at having carried his work through the press, his conviction that his labors have not been unattended by the divine blessing. That inferior person, the author, too, occasionally gets a good word, especially when his authorship assumes the form of translation or commentary. But our business is mainly with the colophon in its literary and bibliographical aspects, and it is time to make way for Mr. Pollard, whose monograph upon it will, we believe, be found the fullest, the most entertaining, and the most accurate extant.

R. Garnett.

AN ESSAY ON COLOPHONS

I
THE COLOPHON’S REASON FOR EXISTENCE

The interest of individual colophons in early printed books has often been noted. The task which, under the kind auspices of the Caxton Club, is here to be assayed is the more ambitious, if less entertaining, one of making a special study of this feature in fifteenth-century books, with the object of ascertaining what light it throws on the history of printing and on the habits of the early printers and publishers. If, instead of studying each colophon singly for the sake of the information it may give us as to the book which it completes, or for its own human interest,—if it chance to have any,—we compare the same printer’s colophons in successive books, and the colophons of different printers in successive editions; if we group those which have similar characteristics, and glance also at the books which have no colophons at all, or quite featureless ones, then if there is anything to be learnt from colophons, we ought to be by way of learning it; and if there is only very little to be learnt, that also is a fact to be noted.

The existence, incidentally referred to in our last paragraph, of books which have no colophons, or colophons from which all positive information is conspicuously absent, is a point which may well be enlarged on. In Mr. Proctor’s “Index of Early Printed Books” the one unsatisfactory feature is the absence of any distinguishing mark between the books which themselves contain a statement of their printer’s name, and those of which the printer was discovered by the comparison of types, or ornaments, or other inferential evidence. Mr. Proctor used humorously to excuse himself for this omission on the ground that he had already used so many different symbols that if he had added one more to their number the camel’s back would have broken. But the omission, while occasionally vexatious to the student, is regrettable chiefly as obscuring the greatness of Mr. Proctor’s own work. If all books gave full particulars as to their printers and dates, there would have been little need of Bradshaw’s “natural-history” method, or of Mr. Proctor’s almost miraculous skill in applying it. It is the absence of colophons in so many books that calls into play the power of identifying printers by their types, and of dating books by the appearance of new “sorts,” or the disuse of old ones. A single instance will suffice to illustrate the secrets thus revealed. To Ludwig Hain, Bartolommeo di Libri of Florence is the printer of four books. In Mr. Proctor’s Index he is credited with no fewer than one hundred and twenty-six in the collections of the British Museum and the Bodleian alone, among these being the famous first edition of Homer and some of the finest Florentine illustrated books. He is thus raised from obscurity to the front rank of Italian printers, an example of a man who, though he did excellent work, hardly ever troubled himself to take credit for it. In the face of such an instance the partial nature of the information we can gather from colophons is at once plain. And yet from this very absence of Libri’s name we glean some really characteristic evidence. For, to begin with, the great Florentine Homer is not without a colophon. On the contrary, it possesses this very explicit one:

Homer. Florence: [B. Libri,] 1488.

Ἡ τοῦ Ὁμήρου ποίησις ἅπασα ἐντυπωθεῖσα πέρας εἴληφεν ἢδη σὺν θεῷ ἐν Φλωρεντίᾳ, ἀναλώμασι μὲν τῶν εὐγενῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν, καὶ περὶ λόγους ἑλληνικοὺς σπουδαίων, Βερνάρδου καὶ Νηρίου Τανάιδος τοῦ Νεριλίου φλωρεντίνοιν· πόνῳ δὲ καὶ δεξιότητι Δημητρίου μεδιολανέως κρητὸς, τῶν λογίων ἀνδρῶν χάριν καὶ λόγων ἑλληνικῶν ἐφιεμένων, ἔτει τῷ ἀπὸ τῆς Χριστοῦ γεννησέως χιλιοστῷ τετρακοσιοστῷ ὀγδοηκοστῷ ὀγδόῷ μηνὸς Δεκεμβρίου ἐνάτῃ.

This printed edition of all Homer’s poetry has now come to its end by the help of God in Florence, by the outlay of the well-born and excellent gentlemen, enthusiasts for Greek learning, Bernardo and Nerio, sons of Tanais Nerli, two Florentines, and by the labor and skill of Demetrio of Milan, a Cretan, for the benefit of men of letters and professors of Greek, in the year from Christ’s birth the one thousand four hundred and eighty-eighth, on the ninth day of the month of December.

Here Demetrio Damilas, the Cretan of Milanese descent, is anxious enough to advertise himself: perhaps all the more anxious because his name seems to have been suppressed in the case of some previous Greek books in which he may have had a share. He compliments also, as in duty bound, the brothers Nerli, without whose munificence the book could not have been produced. But the craftsman at whose press the Homer was printed was too insignificant a person for a scholar of the very self-regarding type of the first professors of Greek to trouble to mention him, and thus Libri is ignored by Damilas as completely as the later printers were ignored by the publishers. In some of his larger works of a less learned kind,—books by Boccaccio, the Florentine Histories of Bruni and Poggio, and the Logic of Savonarola,—Libri, when left to himself, was at the pains to print his name. But in the mass of “Rappresentazioni,” Savonarola pamphlets, and other seemingly ephemeral books which he made attractive by procuring for them delightful woodcuts, he did not take sufficient pride to claim the credit which Mr. Proctor after four centuries recovered for him. The scribes who preceded the printers were by no means forward in naming themselves. Though not to the same extent as Libri, the early printers largely imitated their reticence. More especially with vernacular books they were careless of connecting themselves, because vernacular books were as yet despised. Hence, though we shall have to quote some in the chief languages of Western Europe, the comparative rarity of vernacular colophons. Hence, on the other hand, the comparative frequency of the Latin ones, which can be culled from all kinds of learned books, more especially from the laborious legal commentaries which now possess so few attractions beyond their beautiful, though crabbedly contracted, typography. It is a pity, because the Latin found in colophons is often far from classical, and occasionally so difficult that our renderings will be offered in fear and trembling. But it was in Latin that literary distinction was mainly to be won in the fifteenth century, and it was therefore with Latin books that the printers desired their names to be associated. Colophons, in fact, are the sign and evidence of the printer’s pride in his work, and this is the main clue we have in seeking for them.

Breslau Missal. Mainz: P. Schoeffer, 1483.

II
COLOPHONS AT MAINZ

Latin Bible. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1462.

It was said at the end of our first chapter that the presence of a colophon in an old book is to be taken as a sign of its printer’s pride in his work. This being so, it would seem only reasonable to expect that the very earliest books of all, the books in which the new art made its first appearance before the book-buying world, should be found equipped with the most communicative of colophons, telling us the story of the struggles of the inventor, and expatiating on the greatness of his triumph. As every one knows, the exact reverse of this is the case, and a whole library of monographs and of often bitterly controversial pamphlets has been written for the lack of the information which a short paragraph apiece in three of the newly printed books could easily have given. What was the reason of this strange silence we are left to guess. It will be thought noteworthy, perhaps, that all three of these too reticent books are Latin Bibles—the 42-line Bible variously assigned to Gutenberg and to Fust and Schoeffer, the 36-line Bible variously assigned to Gutenberg and Pfister, and the 48-line Bible known to have proceeded from the press of Johann Mentelin of Strassburg. It is indeed a curious fact, and it is surprising that the folly of Protestant controversialists has not leapt at it, that not merely these three but the great majority of Latin Bibles printed before 1475 are completely silent as to their printers, place of imprint, and date. Of the fourteen editions which in the catalogue of the British Museum precede that which Franciscus de Hailbrun and Nicolaus of Frankfort printed at Venice in 1475, only three reveal their own origin—those printed at Mainz by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462 and by Schoeffer alone ten years later, and the edition of 1471, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome. On the other hand, the three editions printed before 1462, as well as those of Eggestein and the “R-printer” at Strassburg and of Ruppel and Richel at Basel, are all anonymous. We might imagine that there was a fear that the natural conservatism of the church would look askance at the new art, and that therefore in printing the Bible it was thought best to say nothing about it. But, as a matter of fact, it was not only in their Bibles that these printers showed their reticence. Gutenberg never put his name in any book at all. Bertold Ruppel never dated one; Eggestein dated nothing till 1471, Mentelin nothing till 1473, Richel nothing till 1474. Most of their books are anonymous. When we remember that Mentelin was printing at Strassburg, a city with which Gutenberg had many relations, as early as 1458, and Eggestein not long after; that Ruppel was Gutenberg’s servant and Richel was Ruppel’s partner and successor, it would almost seem as if all this reticence were part of a distinct Gutenberg tradition, an attempt to keep the new art as secret as possible, either in order to lessen competitors and keep up prices, or (to take another alternative) because some of these printers may have broken promises of secrecy imposed on them with this object, and were thus less anxious to advertise themselves.

In strong contrast to the almost furtive behavior of this group of printers is the insistent glorification of themselves and the new art by Johann Fust the goldsmith and Peter Schoeffer the scribe, his son-in-law. The contrast is so great that it must certainly be reckoned with by those who hold that to Fust and Schoeffer must be assigned the production of the anonymous 42-line Bible, though in the tangled relations of the Mainz printers about 1454 there may have been reasons for silence at which we cannot guess. As printers in their own names the known career of Fust and Schoeffer begins with the publication, in 1457, of the famous Psalter in which we find our first colophon:

Presens spalmorum [sic for psalmorum] codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus, Adinuentione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami vlla exaracione sic effigiatus, Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus, Per Johannem fust ciuem maguntinum, Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernszheim Anno domini Millesimo.cccc.lvij In vigilia Assumpcionis.

The present copy of the Psalms, adorned with beauty of capital letters, and sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and stamping without any driving of the pen, And to the worship of God has been diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schöffer of Gernsheim, in the year of the Lord 1457, on the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption.

A few notes on some of the words in this colophon may be offered. “Codex,” which has been paraphrased “copy,” meant originally a collection of tablets waxed over for writing on, and so any book in which the leaves are placed one on another instead of being formed into a roll. “Capital letters” must be understood of large initials, not merely, as the phrase is often used to mean, majuscules, or “upper-case” letters. “Adinventio” appears to mean simply invention, and not, as with our knowledge of stories of “prefigurements” of printing in Holland afterward completed in Germany we might be inclined to think, the perfecting of an invention. The epithet “artificiosa” probably only means skilful, without emphasizing the contrast between the artificial methods of printing as compared with the natural use of the hand. About “caracterizandi” it is not easy to feel quite sure. Does it complete “imprimendi” by adding to the idea of pressing the further idea of the letter (χαρακτήρ) impressed, or is “imprimendi” already fully equivalent to printing, while “caracterizandi” refers to engraving the letters on the punches? Lastly, it may be noted that in calamus, “reed,” and exaratione, “plowing up,” which properly refers to the action of the “stilus” of bone or metal on the waxed surface of a tablet, we have reference to two different methods of writing, one or other of which must necessarily be slurred. Not all colophons present so many small linguistic difficulties as this, but few are wholly without them, and many of the renderings which will be offered in ensuing chapters must be accepted merely as the best paraphrases which could be attained.

This first colophon was repeated by Fust and Schoeffer with very slight alterations in the Psalter of 1459 (in which were added the words “et honorem sancti iacobi,” “and to the honour of S. James,” the patron of the Benedictine monastery at Mainz, for whose use the edition was printed), in the “Durandus” of the same year, the Clementine Constitutions published in 1460, and the Bible of 1462.

Meanwhile, in 1460, there had been published at Mainz an edition of the “Catholicon,” a Latin dictionary compiled by Joannes Balbus of Genoa, a Dominican of the thirteenth century. The colophon to this book, instinct with religious feeling and patriotism, and interesting for its pride in the new art and use of some technical terms, yet lacks the one important piece of information which we demand from it—the name of the printer.

Altissimi presidio cuius nutu infantium lingue fiunt diserte, Quique numerosepe paruulis reuelat quod sapientibus celat, Hic liber egregius, catholicon, dominice incarnacionis annis Mcccclx Alma in urbe maguntina nacionis inclite germanice, Quam dei clemencia tam alto ingenij lumine, donoque gratuito, ceteris terrarum nacionibus preferre, illustrareque dignatus est, Non calami, stili, aut penne suffragio, sed mira patronarum formarumque concordia proporcione et modulo, impressus atque confectus est.

Hinc tibi sancte pater nato cum flamine sacro

Laus et honor domino trino tribuatur et uno

Ecclesie laude libro hoc catholice plaude

Qui laudare piam semper non linque mariam.

Deo Gracias.

Balbus. Catholicon. Mainz: [J. Gutenberg,] 1460.

By the help of the Most High, at Whose will the tongues of infants become eloquent, and Who ofttimes reveals to the lowly that which He hides from the wise, this noble book, Catholicon, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1460, in the bounteous city of Mainz of the renowned German nation, which the clemency of God has deigned with so lofty a light of genius and free gift to prefer and render illustrious above all other nations of the earth, without help of reed, stilus, or pen, but by the wondrous agreement, proportion, and harmony of punches and types, has been printed and finished.

Hence to Thee, Holy Father, and to the Son, with the Sacred Spirit,

Praise and glory be rendered, the threefold Lord and One;

For the praise of the Church, O Catholic, applaud this book,

Who never ceasest to praise the devout Mary.

Thanks be to God.

In addition to the “Catholicon,” the British Museum possesses three books in the same type, which are, therefore, ascribed to the same press—a “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” of Matthew of Cracow, and two editions of the “Summa de articulis fidei” of S. Thomas Aquinas; but these, perhaps because they are only little books, have no printer’s colophon. On November 4, 1467, a Latin-German vocabulary known as the “Vocabularius Ex Quo” was finished at Eltville, near Mainz, by Nicolaus Bechtermünze and Wigandus Spiess of Ortenberg, having been begun by Heinrich Bechtermünze, brother of Nicolaus. It is printed in the same type as the “Catholicon,” reinforced by some slight additions, and it is noteworthy (as illustrating what we may call the hereditary or genealogical feature which runs through many colophons) that in taking over the type used in the “Catholicon,” part of the wording of its colophon was taken over also, though a few words appear to be borrowed from Fust and Schoeffer. To show this we may quote the colophon to the 1467 “Vocabularius” as transcribed by Mr. Hessels (“Gutenberg: was he the inventor of printing?” p. 141):

Presens hoc opusculum non stili aut penne suffragio sed noua artificiosaque invencione quadam ad eusebiam dei industrie per henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altauilla est inchoatum et demum sub anno domini M.cccc.l.xvij ipso die leonardi confessoris, qui fuit quarta die mensis nouembris, per nycolaum bechtermuncze fratrem dicti henrici et wygandum spyesz de orthenberg est consummatum.

Hinc tibi sancte pater nato cum flamine sacro

Laus et honor domino trino tribuatur et uno:

Qui laudare piam semper non linque mariam.

This present little work, not by the help of stilus or pen, but by a certain new and skilful invention to the worship of God, was diligently begun at Eltville by Heinrich Bechtermünze of pious memory, and at last, in the year of the Lord 1467, on the day of Leonard the Confessor, which was on the fourth day of the month of November, by Nicolaus Bechtermünze, brother of the said Heinrich, and Wigandus Spiess of Orthenberg, was brought to completion.

Hence to Thee, Holy Father, and to the Son, with the Sacred Spirit,

Praise and glory be rendered, the threefold Lord and One.

O thou who never ceasest to praise the devout Mary.

The omission of the third line of the “Catholicon” quatrain, obviously because the word “Catholice” no longer had especial import, makes the construction even more mysterious than in the original, nor is this the only instance we shall find of such mauling.

While the Eltville colophon thus mainly takes its phrasing from that of the “Catholicon,” with a few words from Fust and Schoeffer’s thrown in, the latter firm were themselves not above borrowing a happy phrase, since in the “Liber Sextus Decretalium Bonifacii VIII” not only do we find an antithesis introduced to the “artificiosa adinuentio,” but in some copies, if Maittaire is to be trusted, the praise of Mainz is bodily taken over, so that the full colophon now reads:

Presens huius Sexti Decretalium preclarum opus alma in urbe Maguntina inclyte nacionis germanice, quam dei clemencia tam alti ingenii lumine donoque gratuito ceteris terrarum nacionibus preferre illustrareque dignatus est, non atramento plumali canna neque aerea, sed artificiosa quadam adinuentione imprimendi seu caracterizandi sic effigiatum et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatum per Iohannem Fust ciuem et Petrum Schoiffher de Gernsheim. Anno domini M.cccclxv. die uero xvii mensis Decembris.

The present splendid edition of this sixth book of Decretals, in the bounteous city of Mainz of the renowned German nation, which the clemency of God has deigned with so lofty a light of genius and free gift to prefer and render illustrious above all other nations of the earth, has been thus fashioned not by ink for the pen nor by a reed of brass, but by a certain ingenious invention of printing or stamping, and to the worship of God diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schoiffher of Gernsheim, in the year of the Lord 1465, and on the 17th day of December.

By this time even a patient reader may well be weary with this ringing of the changes on the two colophons first printed, respectively, in 1457 and 1460. But, without pushing the suggestion too far, we may at least hazard a guess as to how they came thus to be amalgamated in December, 1465. For it was in this year that Gutenberg, who, when all is said, is the most probable printer for the “Catholicon” and the other books which go with it, became a pensioner of Adolph II, Archbishop of Mainz, and presumably gave up printing. The two small books in the “Catholicon” type (i.e. the “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” and the “De articulis fidei”) appear in Schoeffer’s catalogue of 1469-70. Whether he bought the stock of them as early as 1465 cannot be proved, but it would seem reasonable to connect his taking over the “Catholicon” colophon in that year with the disappearance of Gutenberg from any kind of rivalry. As between printers in different cities, there was certainly no copyright in colophons any more than there was in books. We shall see presently how, when books of Schoeffer’s were reprinted at Nuremberg and Basel, his colophons, with slight alterations, were taken over with them. But in Germany at this time, between citizens of the same town, trade rights, I fancy, were much more respected than at Venice, for instance, or at Paris, where the editions of Caesaris and Stoll were impudently pirated by two other firms in the very same street. At all events, it is worth noticing that the “Catholicon” printer’s colophon seems to have been taken over by Schoeffer, who bought some of his stock, and by the brothers Bechtermünze, who had the use of his types.

Passing now to other of Schoeffer’s colophons, we find in the edition of the “Officia et Paradoxa” of Cicero of this same year, 1465, a more personal form of the colophon, which gives us an explicit statement that Fust, the capitalist of the business, probably owing to failing health, now left the actual superintendence of the printing to his son-in-law Schoeffer, the quondam scribe. It runs:

Cicero. De Officiis. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1465.

“Presens Marci tulii clarissimum opus Iohannes Fust Moguntinus ciuis, non atramento plumali, canna neque aerea, sed arte quadam perpulcra, Petri manu pueri mei feliciter effeci finitum, Anno 1465.” This statement, that “I, Johann Fust, citizen of Mainz, completed the book by the labor or instrumentality (manu) of my son Peter,” was repeated in the reprint of February 4, 1466, and thenceforth the name of Fust disappears from the annals of printing.

In 1467 we find the colophon attributed by Maittaire to some copies of the “Sextus Decretalium” repeated (with the omission of Fust’s name) in the “Secunda Secundae” of S. Thomas Aquinas and the second edition of the Clementine Constitutions, and this became for some time Schoeffer’s normal colophon. In 1470, however, he varied it in his edition of S. Jerome’s Epistles in order to introduce a compliment paid by the saint to the city of Mainz, which made it peculiarly appropriate that his work should be popularized by a Mainz printer. This colophon runs:

[I]gitur Sophronii Eusebii Ieronimi orthodoxi, Ecclesie Christi propugnatoris clarissimi, Liber Ieronimianus, aut si mauis, quod et ipse velim, Liber Epistolaris explicit, ut dignitas nominis Ieronimiani egregio viro Johanni Andree permaneat, qui hoc ipsum zelo deuotionis erga virum sanctum affectus tempore prisco vulgauit in orbem. Est autem presens opus arte impressoria feliciter consummatum per Petrum schoiffer de Gernsshem in ciuitate nobili Moguntina. Cuius nobilitati vir beatus Ieronimus scribens ad Agerutiam de monogamia testimonium perhibet sempiternum multis milibus incolarum eiusdem in ecclesia pro fide catholica sanguine proprio laureatis.

Huic laudatori reddit moguntia vicem,

Tot sua scripta parans usibus ecclesie.

Anno domini M.cccc.lxx. Die septima mensis septembris que fuit vigilia natiuitatis Marie. Da gloriam Deo.

S. Jerome’s Epistles. Mainz: P. Schoeffer, 1470.

Thus of Sophronius Eusebius Hieronimus [i.e., S. Jerome], the Orthodox, the most renowned champion of the Church of Christ, there comes to an end the book called after him Hieronominian, or if you prefer it the Book of his Epistles, the title I myself should wish to give it in order that the honor of the title Hieronimian may be reserved for the illustrious Johannes Andreae, who in olden time published to the world this very work from the zeal of his devotion to the holy man. Now the present work by the printing art has been happily brought to completion by Peter Schoiffer of Gernsheim in the noble city of Mainz, as to whose nobility the blessed man Jerome, writing to Agerutia concerning monogamy, bears eternal witness to the many thousands of its inhabitants who with their own blood have won crowns of laurel in the church for the catholic faith.

Printing the words of him who gave this praise,

Mainz helps the church the while her debt she pays.

In the year of the Lord 1470, on the seventh day of September, which was the vigil of the Nativity of Mary. Give glory to God.

In 1472, in the “Decretum Gratiani cum glossis,” we get another variant and an addition of some importance:

Anno incarnationis dominice 1472 idibus Augustiis, sanctissimo in Christo patre ac domino domino Sixto papa quarto pontifice maximo illustrissimo, nobilissime domus austrie Friderico, Romanorum rege gloriosissimo, rerum dominis, Nobili nec non generoso Adolpho de Nassau archiepiscopatum gerente maguntinensem, in nobili urbe Moguntia que nostros apud maiores Aurea dicta, quam diuina etiam clementia dono gratuito pre ceteris terrarum nationibus arte impressoria dignata est illustrare, hoc presens Gratiani decretum suis cum rubricis, non atramentali penna cannaue, sed arte quadam ingeniosa imprimendi, cunctipotente adspiranti deo, Petrus Schoiffer de Gernsheym suis consignando scutis feliciter consummauit.

A similar colophon was used in the “Nova compilatio Decretalium Gregorii IX” of 1473, and the phrase “suis consignando scutis” occurs again in Schoeffer’s edition of S. Bernard’s Sermons (1475) and in several books of the three following years. In 1479, in an edition of the “Decretals of Gregory IX,” the phrase is varied to “cuius armis signantur,” after which Panzer records it no more. This first mention of the shields has for us far more interest than the pompous recital of how Sixtus IV was pope, and Frederick of Austria king of the Romans, and Adolph of Nassau archbishop of Mainz when this “Decretal of Gratian” was printed “in the noble city of Mainz, which our ancestors used to call the golden city, and which has been so highly favored by its preëminence in printing.” Needless discussions have been raised as to what was the use and import of printers’ devices, and it has even been attempted to connect them with literary copyright, with which they had nothing whatever to do, literary copyright in this decade depending solely on the precarious courtesy of rival firms, or possibly on the rules of their trade-guilds. But here, on the authority of the printer who first used one, we have a clear indication of the reason which made him put his mark in a book—the simple reason that he was proud of his craftsmanship and wished it to be recognized as his. “By signing it with his shields Peter Schoiffer has brought the book to a happy completion.” When Wenssler of Basel copied Schoeffer’s books, he copied him also in affixing their marks and in drawing attention to them in the same way. Wenssler, too, was a good printer, and though he was certainly not claiming copyright in books which he was simply reprinting, he was equally anxious to have his handiwork recognized.

If yet further evidence be wanted, we can find it in the colophon to Schoeffer’s 1477 edition of the “Tituli Decisionum antiquarum et nouarum,” which reads as follows:

Anno domini M.cccc.lxxvij. pridie nonis Ianuariis graui labore maximisque impensis Romanam post impressionem opus iterum emendatum: antiquarum nouarumque decisionum suis cum additionibus dominorum de Rota: In ciuitate Maguntina impressorie artis inuentrice elimatriceque prima Petrus Schoyffer de Gernssheym suis consignando scutis arte magistra; feliciter finit.

Some other features which occur in the wording of this will be noted later on. For our present purpose it is of interest to find the mark of the shields attached to a book which is distinctly stated to have been printed “Romanam post impressionem,” “after the edition printed at Rome,” and for which, therefore, no literary copyright is conceivable.

In the 1473 reprint of the “Sextus Decretalium” we note that Schoeffer now considered himself venerable, or perhaps it would be fairer to say “worshipful” (“per venerandum virum Petrum schoiffer de Gernshem feliciter est consummatum”), but in his edition of S. Augustine’s “De Ciuitate Dei,” of the same year, we find a more important variant. This reads:

Igitur Aurelii Augustini ciuitatis orthodoxe sideris prefulgidi de ciuitate Dei opus preclarissimum, binis sacre pagine professoribus eximiis id commentantibus rubricis tabulaque discretum precelsa in urbe moguntina partium Alemanie, non calami per frasim, caracterum autem apicibus artificiose elementatum, ad laudem Trinitatis indiuidue, ciuitatis dei presidis, operose est consummatum per Petrum schoiffer de gernsheim. Anno domini M.cccc.lxxiij. die v. mensis septembris. Presidibus ecclesie catholice Sixto tercio pontifice summo Sedi autem moguntine Adolfo secundo presule magnifico. Tenente autem ac gubernante Christianismi monarchiam Imperatore serenissimo Frederico tercio Cesare semper augusto.

Thus the most renowned work of Aurelius Augustinus, a shining star of the city of orthodoxy, the De Ciuitate Dei, with the notes of two distinguished professors of Biblical Theology, set out with rubrics and index, in the exalted city of Mainz of the parts of Germany, not by the inditing of a reed, but skilfully put together from the tips of characters, to the praise of the undivided Trinity, ruler of the City of God, has been toilfully brought to completion by Peter Schoiffer of Gernsheim, in the year of the Lord 1473, on the fifth day of the month of September, the catholic church being under the rule of Sixtus III as supreme pontiff, and the see of Mainz under that of the magnificent patron Adolf II, while the most serene Emperor Frederick III, Caesar Augustus, held and guided the monarchy of Christendom.

The struggles of the fifteenth-century Latinists to express the technicalities of printing are always interesting, and the phrase “caracterum apicibus elementatum” is really gallant. Following the Greek στοιχεῖα, the Romans used the word “elementa” originally for the component sounds of speech and then, by transference, for the letters of the alphabet. “Elementatum,” therefore, is strictly appropriate, and might be rendered “with the letters built up or put together,” while “caracterum apicibus” of course refers to the engraving in relief which forms the face of the type.

In 1475, perhaps as an echo of some verses in the “Noua compilatio Decretalium Gregorii IX” of 1473, we find a new phrase tacked on to the “arte impressoria” in an edition of Justinian, noting the fact that though Providence did not consider antiquity worthy of the art, it had been granted to our times (“qua quidem etsi antiquitas diuino non digna est visa indicio, nostra nichilominus tempestate indulta”). In 1476 again Schoeffer advertises that his edition of Justinian’s Institutes was printed “in the noble city of Mainz am Rhein, the inventress and first perfectress of the printing art” (“In nobili urbe Maguncia Rheni, impressorie artis inuentrice elimatriceque prima”), while in the Clementine Constitutions of the same year he substitutes “alumnaque” for “elimatriceque,” presumably in the sense of pupil or practiser, reverting subsequently to “elimatrice.” In 1478 he once more varies the praises of Mainz by calling her “domicilium Minerve firmissimum,” “the most stable home of Minerva.” With this year 1478, which closes the period of Schoeffer’s chief activity, we may bring our survey of his colophons to an end. Thereafter he printed more intermittently, and, if the absence of colophons may be trusted, as I think it may, with less interest in his work. But during these twenty-two years from 1457 to 1478, inclusive, he had made his books bear continual testimony to one great fact, that the art of printing had been invented and brought to perfection in Germany, in the city of Mainz; and in any weighing of the comparative claims that have been advanced on behalf of Germany and Holland, I think that the evidence of Schoeffer’s colophons alone would suffice to give the priority to Germany and Mainz.

Of the clearness and energy of the claim made in these Mainz colophons, we have already given abundant illustration, nor can there be any doubt that it obtained wide publicity. Schoeffer printed at least one advertisement of his books, and he had an agency for their sale in Paris. Besides this, his editions were copied by other printers. So far as publicity could be insured in the fifteenth century, it was insured by Schoeffer, aided by the printer of the “Catholicon,” for the statement that printing was invented at Mainz; and despite the rivalry between city and city, and between country and country, during all the years that this assertion was being repeated in one colophon after another, no printer in any other book ventured to challenge it. No doubt there are facts on the side of Holland which have to be explained as best we may, but in the face of these Mainz colophons the explanation must be of such a kind as to leave undisputed the fact that it was at Mainz that printing with movable types—“mira patronarum formarumque concordia proporcione et modulo”—first became a practicable art. On the other hand, as to the individual inventor of this art the fifteenth-century colophons are absolutely silent. There is nothing in any Mainz colophon answering to the boast of John of Speier at Venice, “primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis,” by which he asserted his individual priority over any other firm. The only statement of the kind is in the extraordinarily crabbed verses added by the corrector Magister Franciscus, after the colophon, to the “Institutiones Justiniani” of 1468, and reprinted in that of 1472, and in the Decretals of 1473, but omitted in 1476. This states that two Johns, both of whom the town of Mainz produced (genuit), were the renowned first stampers of books (librorum insignes protocaragmaticos), and that with them was associated a Peter; and the natural interpretation of these allusions identifies the “protocaragmatici” (though the “proto” may refer to preëminence quite as well as to priority) with Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust, and Peter Schoeffer.

So far as they are intelligible, therefore, these verses in the Institutes of Justinian confirm and extend the evidence of the colophons, and may be cheerfully accepted. Our last colophon in this chapter is not quite in the same case. This famous and ingeniously arranged addendum to the edition of the “Compendium de Origine regum et gentis Francorum” of Johann Tritheim, printed by Johann Schoeffer at Mainz in 1515, is shown as one of our illustrations, but may nevertheless be transcribed here for the sake of expanding its contractions:

Tritheim. Chronicarum opus. Mainz: Joh. Schoeffer, 1515. (Reduced.)

Impressum et completum est presens chronicarum opus, anno domini MDXV. in uigilia Margaretae uirginis. In nobili famosaque urbe Moguntina, huius artis impressorie inuentrice prima. Per Ioannem Schöffer, nepotem quondam honesti uiri Ioannis Fusth, ciuis Moguntini, memorate artis primarii auctoris. Qui tandem imprimendi artem proprio ingenio excogitare specularique coepit anno dominice natiuitatis M.CCCC.L. indictione XIII. Regnante illustrissimo Romanorum imperatore Frederico III, praesidente sanctae Moguntinae sedi Reuerendissimo in Christo patre domino Theoderico pincerna de Erpach, principe electore. Anno autem M.CCCC.LII. perfecit deduxitque eam (diuina fauente gratia) in opus imprimendi, opera tamen ac multis necessariis adinuentionibus Petri Schöffer de Gernsheim ministri suique filii adoptiui, cui etiam filiam suam Christinam Fusthinn, pro digna laborum multarumque adinuentionum remuneratione nuptui dedit. Retinuerunt autem hii duo iam praenominati, Ioannes Fusth et Petrus Schöffer, hanc artem in secreto (omnibus ministris ac familiaribus eorum, ne illam quoquo modo manifestarent, iureiurando astrictis) Quo tandem de anno domini M.CCCCLXII per eosdem familiares in diuersas terrarum prouincias diuulgata haud parum sumpsit incrementum.

Cum gratia et priuilegio Caesaree Maiestatis iussu et impensis honesti Ioannis Haselperg ex Aia maiore Constantiensis dioecesis.

This may be rendered:

The present historical work has been printed and completed in the year of the Lord 1515, on the vigil of Margaret, virgin, in the noble and famous city of Mainz, first inventress of this printing art, by John Schöffer, grandson of a late worthy man, John Fust, citizen of Mainz, foremost author of the said art, who in due course by his own genius began to think out and investigate the art of printing in the year of the Lord’s nativity 1450, in the thirteenth indiction, in the reign of the most illustrious Emperor of the Romans Frederick III, and when the most reverend father in Christ, Theoderic the cup-bearer, of Erbach, prince-elector, was presiding over the sacred see of Mainz, And in the year 1452 perfected and by the favor of divine grace brought it to the work of printing, by the help, however, and with many necessary inventions[2] of Peter Schöffer of Gernsheim, his workman and adoptive son, to whom also he gave his daughter Christina Fust in marriage as a worthy reward of his labors and many inventions.[2] And these two already named, Ioannes Fust and Peter Schöffer, kept this art secret, all their workmen and servants being bound by an oath not in any way to reveal it; but at last, from the year of the Lord 1462, through these same servants being spread abroad into divers parts of the world, it received no small increase.

With the favor and privilege of the Imperial Majesty and at the command and expense of the worthy John Haselperg of Reichenau of the diocese of Constance.

It would be too much to call this colophon untruthful, inasmuch as the term “primarius auctor,” like “protocaragmaticus,” does not necessarily claim primacy in point of time; nevertheless, it certainly suggests this primacy and generally assigns to Fust a more decisive part than we can easily believe that he played. We need not censure too hardly John Schoeffer’s family feeling, even though it led him to ignore Gutenberg in a way which earlier testimony forbids us to believe to be just; but it seems evident that family feeling was so much to the fore as to place this long historical colophon on quite a different footing from that of the earlier ones written by Schoeffer himself.

III
COLOPHONS AT VENICE

While to Mainz belongs the supreme credit of having brought printing to the position of a practical art, the city in which it attained its highest perfection and popularity in the fifteenth century was undoubtedly Venice. The output from the Venetian presses represented some forty per cent. of the entire book production of Italy, and its quality was at least as remarkable as its quantity. It is natural, therefore, to turn from Mainz to Venice in our quest for interesting colophons, as wherever printers did good work and took pride in it we may expect to find correspondingly good colophons. Certainly at Venice we have no ground for disappointment in this respect. The Venetian colophons are plentiful and full of information, though chiefly about the publisher’s side of printing. What makes them a little alarming to the pedestrian editor is that so many of the earliest and most interesting specimens are in verse. The books most favored by the first Venetian printers were editions of the Latin classics and Latin translations of the Greek ones. To see these through the press each printer had to retain the services of a corrector, who filled a position half-way between the modern proof-reader’s and editor’s. The printers, not being able to write Latin themselves with any fluency, naturally left their colophons in the hands of their correctors, and these gentlemen preferred to express themselves in verse. The verse, even allowing for the fact that it is generally intended to be scanned by accent rather than quantity, is often of a kind which would get an English school-boy into considerable trouble; and it would be a nice question as to whether Omnibonus Leonicenus and Raphael Zovenzonius, who wrote it for John and Wendelin of Speier; Antonius Cornazanus, who was in the pay of Jenson; or Valdarfer’s corrector, Lodovicus Carbo, should be held the most successful. Just, however, because its poetic ornaments are commonplace, to render this verse into prose seems more than usually unsportsmanlike. Good poetry can stand the test of prose, and the poetaster meddles with it at his peril, as witness the uniform inferiority of metrical renderings of the Psalms to the prose of the Great Bible or Prayer-Book version. But mediocre poetry when turned into prose becomes simply ridiculous, and so the present translator, without reckoning himself as even a “minimus poeta,” has wrestled manfully with these various verse colophons and “reduced” them, as best he could, into English rhymes, since these, poor as they are, misrepresent the originals less than any attempt he could make in prose. Here, then, without more apology, are the colophons from the earliest Venetian books, which fall into an interesting sequence.

The first printer at Venice, it will be remembered, was John of Speier, who obtained a special privilege for his work which would have cramped the whole craft at Venice had not his death removed the difficulty. In his first book, an edition of Cicero’s “Epistolae ad Familiares,” printed in 1469, the colophon is cast into these verses:

Cicero. Epistolae ad Familiares. Venice: John of Speier, 1469.

Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis

Vrbe Libros Spira genitus de stirpe Iohannes.

In reliquis sit quanta uides spes, lector, habenda,

Quom labor hic primus calami superauerit artem.

M.CCCC.LXVIIII.

In Adria’s town, one John, a son of Speier,

First printed books by means of forms of brass.

And for the future shall not hope rise higher

When the first fruits the penman’s art surpass?

1469.

Of this first Venetian edition of Cicero’s letters we know from a subsequent colophon that only one hundred copies were printed, one twenty-fifth part of the whole edition now being preserved in the four copies at the British Museum. It was obviously sold out very rapidly, and in some three or four months’ time the printer had got out a second edition, to which he added a new colophon.

Cicero. Epistolae ad Familiares. Second Edition. Venice: John of Speier, 1469.

Hesperiae quondam Germanus quisque[3] libellos

Abstulit: en plures ipse daturus adest.

Namque uir ingenio mirandus et arte Ioannes

Exscribi docuit clarius aere libros.

Spira fauet Venetis: quarto nam mense peregit

Hoc tercentenum bis Ciceronis opus.

M.CCCC.LXVIIII.

From Italy once each German brought a book.

A German now will give more than they took.

For John, a man whom few in skill surpass,

Has shown that books may best be writ with brass.

Speier befriends Venice: twice in four months has he

Printed this Cicero, in hundreds three.

1469.

The puzzle here is to determine how many copies there were of the second edition. Mr. Horatio Brown, in “The Venetian Printing Press” (p. 10), courageously asserts that “the second edition of the Epistulae consisted of six hundred copies, published in two issues of three hundred each; and that the whole six hundred took four months to print.” This is clearly inadmissible, as everything we know of fifteenth-century printing forbids us to suppose that John of Speier kept the whole book standing in type and printed off a second “issue” when he found there was a demand for it. The fourth month must be reckoned from the date of the first edition, and we have to choose, as to the number of copies in the second, between supposing that the three hundred, the “tercentenum opus,” refers to this alone, and that the poet did not intend to make any statement about the number of the first edition at all, or else that the second edition consisted of two hundred copies, and that these, with the hundred of the first, made up a total of three hundred. In either case his language is ambiguous, as the language of poets is apt to be when they try to put arithmetic into verse.

I have followed Mr. Proctor in making the second edition of Cicero’s letters precede the Pliny, but—as, in common with many other students of old books, I am made to feel daily—to be no longer able to go to him for information is a sore hindrance. I should have thought myself that the Pliny, a much larger book, was begun simultaneously with the first edition of Cicero, and that Wendelin’s colophon to the “De Civitate Dei” obliged us to link the Pliny with the first rather than the second edition. Perhaps, however, this arithmetic in verse is once more a little loose. Certainly the Pliny colophon, which is free from figures, is all the better poetry for that reason. It is the book here that speaks:

Plinius. Historia Naturalis. Venice: John of Speier, 1469.

Quem modo tam rarum cupiens vix lector haberet,

Quique etiam fractus pene legendus eram:

Restituit Venetis me nuper Spira Ioannes:

Exscripsitque libros aere notante meos.

Fessa manus quondam moneo: calamusque quiescat,

Namque labor studio cessit: et ingenio.

M.CCCC.LXVIIII.

I, erst so rare few bookmen could afford me,

And erst so blurred that buyers’ eyes would fail—

To Venice now ’twas John of Speier restored me,

And made recording brass unfold my tale.

Let rest the tired hand, let rest the reed:

Mere toil to zealous wits the prize must cede.

1469.

The aspersion on the scribes was undeserved. If truth be told, either because they used too thin an ink, or else from too slight pressure, the early Venetian printers seldom did full justice to their beautiful types; and though their vellum copies are really fine, those on paper are no easier to read than the average fifteenth-century manuscripts which they imitated. We must, however, forgive John of Speier his little boastings, as this was the last colophon he was to print; and our next, which comes at the end of S. Augustine’s “De Civitate Dei,” contains his epitaph:

Qui docuit Venetos exscribi posse Ioannes

Mense fere trino centena uolumina Plini

Et totidem magni Ciceronis Spira libellos,

Ceperat Aureli: subito sed morte peremptus

Non potuit ceptum Venetis finire uolumen.

Vindelinus adest, eiusdem frater et arte

Non minor, Adriacaque morabitur urbe.

M.CCCC.LXX.

John, who taught Venice there might written be

A hundred Plinys in months barely three,

And of great Cicero as many a book,

Began Augustine, but then death him took,

Nor suffered that he should Venetians bless

Finishing his task. Now Wendelin, no less

With skill equipped, his brother, in his room

Means to take Adria’s city for his home.

1470.

The business which thus passed into his hands was certainly carried on by Wendelin vigorously, for during the next three years he turned out over a dozen folios or large quartos a year. He seems, indeed, to have outrun his resources, for as early as 1471 his colophons tell us that some of his books were financed for him by John of Cologne, and after the summer of 1473 his type passed into the possession of this John and his “very faithful partner, Johann Manthen.” As Wendelin’s name disappears from colophons for three years, it is probable that his services were taken over with his types; in 1470, however, he was his own master and the object of much praise from his colophon-writer. In his Sallust of this year we read:

Quadringenta dedit formata volumina Crispi

Nunc, lector, Venetis Spirea Vindelinus.

Et calamo libros audes spectare notatos

Aere magis quando littera ducta nitet?

To Venice Wendelin, who from Speier comes,

Has given of Sallust twice two hundred tomes.

And who dare glorify the pen-made book,

When so much fairer brass-stamped letters look?

The Livy of the same year ends with a poem of forty-six lines, which praises Wendelin for bravely rescuing such of Livy’s Decads as remained, “saevis velut hostibus acri Bello oppugnatas,” and by multiplying copies saving them from the fate which had befallen the rest. A poem like this, however, must be reckoned rather with congratulatory verses than as a colophon, though the line in these Venetian books is not always easy to draw. Two more of Wendelin’s publications in 1470 may be pressed into our service—a Virgil and a Petrarch. Of these the Virgil ends:

Progenitus Spira formis monumenta Maronis

Hoc Vindelinus scripsit apud Venetos.

Laudent ergo alii Polycletos Parrhasiosue

Et quosuis alios id genus artifices:

Ingenuas quisquis Musarum diligit artes

In primis ipsum laudibus afficiet:

Nec vero tantum quia multa uolumina, quantum

Quod perpulchra simul optimaque exhibeat.

M.CCCC.LXX.

Wendelin of Speier these records of the art

Of Maro now to Venice doth impart.

Let some of Polycletus praise the skill,

Parrhasius, or what sculptor else you will;

Who loves the stainless gifts the Muses give

Will pray that Wendelin’s renown may live;

Not that his volumes make so long a row,

But rather for the grace and skill they show.

1470.

The colophon to the Petrarch claims credit for the restoration of a true text, a point on which the scholars of the Renaissance were as keen, up to their lights, as those of our own day, and which is often emphasized in their laudatory verses as the one supreme merit:

Que fuerant multis quondam confusa tenebris

Petrarce Laure metra sacrata sue,

Christophori et pariter feruens Cyllenia cura

Transcripsit nitido lucidiora die.

Vtque superueniens nequeat corrumpere tempus

En Vindelinus erea plura dedit.

The songs that Petrarch to his Laura made

With many a doubt obscure were overlaid:

Now, by Cristoforo’s and Cyllenio’s care,

Than day itself their text shall shine more fair.

Lest by corrupting time they still be tried,

Wendelin these printed copies multiplied.

In 1471 Wendelin, or his correctors, lest their inspiration should be too hard worked, invented a simple couplet which would apply to any book equally well.

Impressum formis iustoque nitore coruscans

Hoc Vindelinus condidit artis opus.

Printed from forms, with modest splendors bright,

This Wendelin designed to give delight.

This is found in the “Apophthegmata” of Plutarch, the “Memorabilia” of Valerius Maximus, the “Singularia” of Pontanus, the “Aureae Quaestiones” of Bartolus de Saxoferrato, etc.; and must have been a welcome second string in case of need. Nevertheless, when a second edition of Sallust was called for, Wendelin’s private poet was equal to the occasion, producing the quatrain:

Quadringenta iterum formata uolumina nuper

Crispi dedit Venetis Spirea Vindelinus.

Sed meliora quidem lector, mihi crede, secundo

Et reprobata minus antea quam dederat.

The verses are so incredibly bad, not merely in their entire disregard of quantity, but in grammar as well, that it would be pleasant to reproduce the peculiar iniquity which makes their charm. What the writer meant to say was something to the effect that:

Wendelin of Speier to Venice now once more

Of printed Sallusts hath given hundreds four.

But here all’s better, all may trusted be:

This text, good reader, is from errors free.

Faithfully to reëcho the discords of the original is above the present translator’s skill.

As money troubles thickened about him, Wendelin’s colophons became less buoyant and interesting; but in 1473, when the transfer of his business to John of Cologne and Manthen of Gerresheim was impending, we find these verses in one of the huge law-books in which the early printers were so bold in investing their money—the “Lectura Bartoli de Saxoferrato super secunda parte Digesti Veteris”:

Finis. M. cccc. lxxiii.

Non satis est Spire: gratissima carmina Phoebo,

Musarum cantus, historiasque premi.

Omnis habet sua vota liber. Non cessat ab arte.

Has pressit leges, Iustiniane, tuas.

Spira tua est virtus Italas iam nota per urbes,

Ore tuum nomen posteritatis erit.

1473.