Typographorum Emblemata: The Printer’s Mark in the Context of Early Modern Culture 9783110430271, 9783110439199

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Anja Wolkenhauer, Bernhard F. Scholz (Eds.) Typographorum Emblemata

Schriftmedien / Written Media

Kommunikations- und buchwissenschaftliche Perspektiven / Perspectives in Communication and Book Studies Herausgegeben von Heinz Bonfadelli, Ursula Rautenberg und Ute Schneider

Band 4

Typographorum Emblemata The Printer’s Mark in the Context of Early Modern Culture Edited by Anja Wolkenhauer and Bernhard F. Scholz

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften in Ingelheim am Rhein Die Reihe In der Reihe werden Monographien und Sammelbände in deutscher und englischer Sprache publiziert, die sich aus buch-, kommunikations- und medienwissenschaftlicher Perspektive mit Schriftmedien und dem Lesen beschäftigen. Das Reihenprofil umfasst das spezifische Problemlösungspotential eines interdisziplinären Zugangs zur schriftbasierten Kommunikation in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Themenfelder sind die Herstellung und Verbreitung von Medien schriftbasierter Kommunikation in den Organisationen Verlag, Buchhandel und Bibliotheken, die soziale Funktionalität der Schriftmedienkommunikation und die gesellschaftliche und individuelle Bedeutung des Lesens sowie nicht zuletzt die Herstellung, Typographie und Gestaltung von Lesemedien. Editorial Board Prof. Dr. Frédéric Barbier (Paris); Jun.-Prof. Dr. Daniel Bellingradt (Erlangen); Prof. Dr. Natalie Binczek (Bochum); Prof. Dr. Heiko Droste (Stockholm); Prof. Dr. Thomas Gergen (Luxemburg); Dr. Jonathan Green (USA); Prof. Dr. Svenja Hagenhoff (Erlangen); Dr. Axel Kuhn (Erlangen); Jun.-Prof. Dr. Patrick Merziger (Leipzig); Prof. Dr. István Monok (Szeged / Budapest); Prof. Dr. Martin Mulsow (Erfurt); Prof. Dr. Rudolf Stöber (Bamberg); Prof. Dr. Konrad Umlauf (Berlin).

ISBN 978-3-11-043919-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-043027-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043036-3 Set-ISBN 978-3-11-043028-8 ISSN 2364-9771 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Umschlagabbildung: SLUB Dresden/Deutsche Fotothek Satz: Integra Software Services, Pondicherry Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Contents Preface 

 VII

Part A: Beginnings and Provenances Anja Wolkenhauer Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? The Relationship between Printer’s Marks and Emblems during the First Hundred Years   3 Andreas Bässler Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 29

Luuk Houwen Beastly Devices: Early Printer’s Marks and Their Medieval Origins 

 49

Hubert Meeus From Nameplate to Emblem. The Evolution of the Printer’s Device in the Southern Low Countries up to 1600   77

Part B: Regions & Places Konstantinos Sp. Staikos Heraldic and Symbolic Printer’s Devices of Greek Printers in Italy (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries)   103 Anna Jakimyszyn-Gadocha Jewish Printers’ Marks from Poland (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)  

 125

Joanna A. Tomicka Fama Typographica. In Search of the Emblem Form of Printer’s Devices. The Iconography and Emblem Form of Printer’s Devices in Sixteenth- and SeventeenthCentury Poland   151 Paul Hoftijzer Pallas Nostra Salus. Early Modern Printer’s Marks in Leiden as Expressions of Professional and Personal Identity   169 Dietmar Peil Early Modern Munich Printer’s Marks (and Related Issues) 

 197

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 Contents

Kristina Lundblad The Printer’s Mark in Early Modern Sweden 

 227

Silvia Hufnagel Iceland’s Lack of Printer’s Devices: Filling a Functional and Spatial Void in Printed Books during the Sixteenth Century   257

Part C: Concepts, Historical and Systematic Bernhard F. Scholz The Truth of Printer’s Marks: Andrea Alciato on “Aldo’s Anchor”, “Froben’s Dove” and “Calvo’s Elephant”. A Closer Look at Alciato’s Concept of the Printer’s Mark   269 Valérie Hayaert The Legal Significance and Humanist Ethos of Printers’ Insignia 

 297

Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba The Transition of the Printer’s Device from a Sign of Identification to a Symbol of Aspirations and Beliefs   315 Judit Vizkelety-Ecsedy Mottos in Printers’ Devices – Thoughts about the Hungarian Usage  Melinda Simon European Printers’ and Publishers’ Marks in the Eighteenth Century. The Three C’s: Conformity, Continuity and Change   347 Bernhard F. Scholz In Place of an Afterword: Notes on Ordering the Corpus of the Early Modern Printer’s Mark   361

Part D: Research Bibliography and Index Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts   377 Contributors  Index 

 417

 413

 333

Preface Despite the fact that printer’s and publisher’s marks are among the most widely distri­ buted art objects of the Early Modern period, they still form a continent waiting for close investigation by the academic disciplines devoted to the study of Early Modern verbal and pictorial media. Printer’s and publisher’s marks were applied to books by the thou­ sands not only to authenticate their provenance from a particular printer or publisher, but also to say something about the self-image, the beliefs and the cultural affinities of those printers and publishers. The realization that the study of the printer’s mark is still a widely open field is not new, however. Nearly a century ago the eminent German book historian Ludwig Volkmann (1870–1947) in an appendix to his Bilderschriften der Renaissance. Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen (Leipzig 1923), called the maker’s marks that Early Modern printers and publishers used to place in their books a “special area of research [...] about which it had occasionally been noticed correctly – and then usually with regard to specific cases – that they were deeply and frequently influenced by the hieroglyphs and the emblems of the Renaissance, but which, strangely enough, had not yet been dealt with in a coherent manner” (p. 118). In the intervening decades a considerable amount of scholarly work on the Early Modern printer’s mark has indeed been undertaken. But as yet research on the Early Modern printer’s mark has not progressed nearly as much as, for example, that on the Early Modern emblem.1 The principal focus of that research so far has been on cataloguing the immensely varied corpus of the Early Modern printer’s mark along national lines.2 Another line of research involved tracing the provenance, the intended

1  A recent survey of research may be found in “Printers’ Marks in Scholarly Research – Overview and Questions.” In: Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. Papers presented on 17–18 March 2015 at the CERL Workshop, hosted by the National Library of Austria, Vienna. Ed. Michaela Scheibe & Anja Wolkenhauer. London 2016 (CERL Studies) 7–25, digitally accessible at https://www.cerl.org/_media/ publications/cerl_papers/cerl_papers_xiii.pdf. 2  Such bibliographical endeavours resulted in, e. g., Paul Heitz, Karl August Barack, Paul Kristeller, C. Chr. Bernoulli, Konrad Haebler & Otto Zaretzky, Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen. Strasbourg: J. H. Ed. Heitz, 1892–1908; Emerenziana Vaccaro, Le marche dei tipografi ed editori italiani del secolo XVI. nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma. (Biblioteca di Bibliografía italiana 98) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1983; Henning Wendland, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, 1984; Frank Vandeweghe, & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15e en de 16e eeuw binnen de grenzen van het huidige België = Marques ­typographiques employées aux XVe et XVIe siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle. ­(Nationaal Centrum voor de Archeologie en Geschiedenis van het boek = Centre National de ­l’Archéologie et de l’Historire du Livre 5) Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1993; Peter van Huisstede, & J.P.J. ­Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th–17th Century. A Catatalogue. 3 vols.: A–J; K–Z; and Indices. Ni­ euwkoop 1999; Judit V. Ecsedy & Melinda Simon, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1488– 1800 [= Hungarian printers’ and publishers’ devices between 1488 and 1800]. Budapest 2009. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-202

VIII 

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effects and the history of the reception and influence of the printer’s marks used by the printers associated with one or the other cultural formation.3 As a result of these scholarly efforts there are now bibliographies and data banks of printer’s marks available for several national traditions of Early Modern printer’s mark production. We have also come to know a good deal about the cultural, social and economic backgrounds of that production. Mapping the corpus of printer’s marks bibliographically along national lines, and tracing the history of certain strands of that corpus are undoubtedly important and rewarding ways of dealing with that corpus “in a coherent manner”. But they are not the only ones worth undertaking. There are also questions of genre to be tackled, questions, that is, which focus on the possible affinity of the Early Modern printer’s mark with other word-image genres that were productive during the same period: what exactly were the relations, both generic and historical ones, between the Early Modern printer’s mark and the Renaissance hieroglyph, the device, the emblem, the aenigma, and the reverse of the medal? Can the printer’s mark be added to these as one more species of the genus of the symbolum, to use Early Modern terminology? Where, in other words, is its proper place in the vast field of Early Modern bi-medial art forms? The place of the Early Modern printer’s mark among these word-image genres, both as far as their shared and/or divergent poetics and their mutual influences are concerned, is still waiting to be studied in detail. And while the corpus of Early Modern printer’s marks is successfully being catalogued along national lines, the fact that the national corpora mapped by these catalogu­ ing endeavors often comprise all sorts of variants of printer’s marks so far has not prompted any systematic efforts at defining and classifying those variants as so many sub-genres of the printer’s mark. The principal reasons for lacunae such as these may be traced to the fact that printer’s marks, to the extent that they have been recognized as an art form in its own right, to date have been dealt with as primarily belonging to the domain of Book Studies. Devices, Renaissance hieroglyphs and emblems, by contrast, have been viewed as belonging to the domains of literary and art history, and consequently been studied by scholars active in those fields. The joint references to devices, emblems, hieroglyphs and printer’s marks, which one occasionally encounters in Early Modern texts suggests that the division of labor epitomized by modern scholarly concerns with various Early Modern word-image genres would not have been familiar or ­plausible by the producers and users of those genres. The specially commissioned chapters of this book aim to shed light on the Early Modern printer’s mark from the perspectives of book history, literary history and art

3  E. g. Anja Wolkenhauer, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens, 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002; Marvin Heller, Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

Preface 

 IX

history, thus bringing together scholars from both sides of the divide between scho­ larly disciplines imposed on the study of the Early Modern genus of the symbolum by the modern division of academic labor as it appears to have come about in the course of the nineteenth century. It is intended as a first attempt at exploring the pos­ sibility of starting a dialogue between those disciplines on their findings about the printer’s mark in relation to the other species of that genus. Despite the impressive results produced to date by research on the Early Modern printer’s mark – we have tried to record them in the research bibliography at the end of the volume, undoubt­ edly without being able to achieve completeness – research on a European level is still in the beginnings. Due to the dominant tendency to approach the printer’s mark along country-specific lines there are notable differences in the state cataloguing has reached in different European countries. Thus the corpora of Central European prin­ ter’s marks are better accounted for bibliographically than those of countries in the periphery, and those of the sixteenth century better than those from later periods. Attempts at taking in several countries at a glance are rare indeed. And only very occasionally have the beginnings of the printer’s mark or its place among the other Early Modern bi-medial arts forms been studied in detail. For the authors of the chap­ ters of this volume that meant that they could only occasionally fall back on previous research. More often they had to undertake explorative sallies into little known terri­ tory, at times staking out new fields of study. Typographorum Emblemata addresses issues such as that of the adoption of printer’s devices in the place of the older printer’s marks reminiscent of medieval maker’s marks as a symptom of the changing self-image of the representatives of the Early Modern printing profession, the influence of the device and the emblem on the development from the early printer’s mark to the “Humanist” printer’s device, social, religious and economic factors involved in the development of the printer’s mark, pictorial topics of the printer’s mark and their provenance. The volume is subdivided thematically into three sections devoted primarily, but not exclusively, to

A. Beginnings and Provenances: The history of artistic forms has often been told along genealogical lines: A led to B, C merged with D etc. With Early Modern printer’s marks such an approach is bound to run into problems since they not only display great diversity of form and function but are also very heterogeneous as far as their roots and origins are concerned. Hence one of the central presuppo­ sitions underlying this volume: there are many variants of printer’s marks, many beginnings, many origins.



B. Regions and Places (Regional Perspectives on a European Phenomenon): The Early Modern printer’s mark was both a regional and a European phenomenon. On the local level its users, printers and publishers, were agents prominently ­operating within the cities in which their businesses were located. Their produc­ tive and commercial activities reflect the local, social and economic situation,

X 

 Preface

including local conflicts and local hierarchies, bound up in some places with the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century. On a regional level above that of the town they reflect the trading relations established at the time, and the ongoing cultural transfers. To recognize such relations and transfers is particularly impor­ tant in the case of printer’s marks in books in Greek and Hebrew, which, due to the very nature of the cultures they belong to, call for wider horizons. In view of the ease with which the Early Modern printer’s mark was able to cross borders one must therefore aim whenever possible for a vantage point that allows both paying attention to local and regional specifics and taking note of local, regional and European aspects of the genre.

C. Concepts, Historical and Systematic: It is hardly an exaggeration if one claims that to date theoretical research carried out on Early Modern artistic genres has by and large bypassed the printer’s mark. The contributions in this section are meant to undertake a few first steps towards changing that situation by paying close attention to individual aspects of the Early Modern printer’s mark, and by suggesting directions which future research might take: its motto, its pictura, the truth claims connected with some kinds of objects depicted in a printer’s mark, the terms and concepts employed in research on the Early Modern printer’s mark.

A forth section is devoted to a first attempt at a comprehensive – but undoubtedly still far from complete – research bibliography (IV. Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts). The production of a handbook on the Early Modern printer’s mark in the classical sense of that term, needless to say, will have to wait until there is a sufficiently large stock of knowledge, and a sufficiently large set of approaches and research strategies shared by or at least familiar to all scholars active in the field. But the scarcity of common ground that characterizes the present, the absence, that is, of a paradigm shared by book historians, literary historians and art historians studying the Early Modern printer’s mark is not without its positive aspects, asking, as it does, for open­ ness to new questions and for willingness to adopt new perspectives. The various chapters of this volume differ in their choice of regional focus, with special atten­ tion given to the “European periphery” so far too little studied, in their attempts at study­ing the emergence and the developments of the art form of the printer’s mark, in the manner in which they place the printer’s mark in the contexts of contemporary culture, and in the manner in which they identify its linguistic, social, economic and/ or geographic contexts. But we hope that the necessarily polyphonic aspects of our projects will not only be viewed as an avoidable consequence of having undertaken an expedition into a terra parum cognita, but also as a stimulus for follow-up research. The volume will be able to derive some of its coherence, we are confident, from the shared overall topic, the Preface and the Afterword, the bibliography and the indices.

Preface 

 XI

A project like ours requires patience on the part of the authors and the people supporting it in one way or another, and all of these deserve thanks for having had such patience. For their cooperation and patience we would like to thank, first and foremost, to our colleagues who accepted our invitation to venture into a territory that was and still is only partially known. Poets from Classical Antiquity often praise themselves for having been first in entering new fields. As for ourselves we had to learn that the paths through such new fields can be full of thorns, and that we had to accept the challenge of occasionally having to follow rather untrodden paths. Ursula Rautenberg and Ute Schneider have accepted our volume into their series when it was still only a mere plan, and they have helped us through occasional doubts about the feasibility of our project. For this they deserve our warmest thanks. Claudia Heyer, our editor with our publisher, De Gruyter, has always been generous in ­settling issues concerning more pages, more pictures, more time and Monika Pfleghar has guided us safely through the final production process with as much patience and care as we could wish for. Mirjam Haas has translated several chapters from German into English  with great care and with much concern for detail. Ulrike Falkenstein, Johannes ­Fleischer, Aurelia Gumz, Isa Gundlach, Thomas Kaebel, Annemarie Mayer, Felix Seibert and Lara Elisabeth Vogel have been of great help in the editing and indexing of the chapters of this book. A number of libraries have assisted us in track­ ing down rare pictorial materials, some of which are here made accessible through reproductions for the first time. As editors we have learned a lot during the nearly five years that have passed between the first formulation of the project and the finished book. We hope that Typographorum Emblemata will be able to serve as a travel guide and as a handbook for all who wish to find out more about the terra parum cognita of the Early Modern printer’s mark. March 2017 Anja Wolkenhauer, Tübingen Bernhard F. Scholz, Amstelveen

Part A: Beginnings and Provenances

Anja Wolkenhauer

Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? The Relationship between Printer’s Marks and Emblems during the First Hundred Years Introduction Printer’s marks and emblems began their career about the same time around 1500. Both art forms combine images and (Latin) texts in an often enigmatic way, both are closely connected to early printing, and both draw on devices, Renaissance hiero­ glyphics, courtly pastime, and the figures and techniques of ars memorativa. Conse­ quently, similarities should hardly be surprising and were, indeed, established early on – this is not least made apparent by the fact that both forms were often summa­ rised under the term symbolum in Latin texts. Research, however, has added a further premise and, from quite early on – whether one starts with Friedrich Roth-Scholtz’s Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum (1730), or only with the studies of Praz, Heckscher and others in the middle of the twentieth century – has always acknowledged printer’s marks as the late-born children of the mater emblematica, i. e. as a derived and thus apparently less inter­ esting form – if it acknowledged them at all.1 This categorisation lead to them not being considered in the discussion on the early history of emblematics. Even though, the chronology already suggests that the relationship between both arts resembles, if you will, much less a mother-daughter relationship than a sisterly one in which the printer’s marks then takes on the role of the older sister. Whereas the first emblem book, Alciato’s Emblematum liber, was only printed in 1531, printer’s marks, which, as I will show, share strong similarities in form and contents with the later emblems, were already used in humanist printing and distributed in many 1000 copies in the whole of Europe around 1500. This implies that they were present on the European stage several decades earlier than the emblem books following Alciato’s example. Chronology, sign structure and distribution indicate that printer’s marks played a significant role in the development of the first emblem book and the popularisation of emblematics. The chronologically wrong but also structurally inadequate idea of a onesided historical derivation should rather be replaced by other concepts in

1  Mario Praz (Praz 1964) mentioned only the devices as protoemblematic forms. The very influential article of Heckscher and Wirth 1959 did not list the printer’s marks among the protoemblematics (col. 130 sequ.), but as a kind of applied emblematics (col. 214–215), while they recognised the strong rela­ tionship between both arts. Grimm noticed that some marks were much older than the emblems usu­ ally used to help explaining them, but did not draw any conclusions from this fact (Grimm 1965, 339). DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-001

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

which the printer’s mark finds its place as a sister of the emblem, giving and taking in the historical process. Thus, the perspective on the medial landscape of the six­ teenth century changes as well. The noticeable differentiation of multiple bi-medial art forms during this period becomes recognisable as a joint process that is mainly rooted in early printing and its possibilities of printing and distribution. The fact that it is possible to take on this perspective today is not least due to the ever-increacreasing accessibility of the source material. The cataloguing, dating, topographic and semantic recording of printer’s marks is still in its infancy, but has advanced so much in Europe in recent years that the contours slowly become clearer.2 To support the new way of looking at Early Modern media history, which I am pro­ posing, I want to look more closely at the relationship of printer’s marks and emblem art at three crucial moments in their common history: during the period of the origin of the first emblem book as a book of epigrams in the 1520s, during the period of the first printed editions of the Emblemata in the 1530s, when the differences between authorised and unauthorised print editions makes the influence of printer’s marks visible, and during the period of the genre crossings of the second half of the the sixteenth century, when not only a strong approximation of both art forms, but also a long-term shift in the media relationship becomes visible. I recorded initial observa­ tions on this subject in a study nearly 15 years ago to which I will refer in summary in the following.3 My current observations differ in many details and some consequen­ ces from this initial draft, but not in the general outline.

Printer’s Marks as Inspiration for Alciato’s Epigrams and Their Illustration The awareness that epigrams were originally epitaphs has never quite disappeared over the millennia old history of their genre, so that many famous epigrams show an ekphrastic character.4 The epigrammatic ekphraseis of the Anthologia Graeca have been constantly reformulated in various languages – here only the epigrams on

2  The (especially in Italy) far advanced cataloguing, the well-tried connection of database driven and classical, printed catalogues by Hans Brandhorst and others in the Netherlands (e. g. in van Huisstede & Brandhorst 1999), as well as my own primarily methodologically oriented studies (Wolkenhauer 2002) shall be mentioned here as examples. The currently being printed volume Scheibe and Wolken­ hauer 2015 provides an up-to-date overview. 3  Wolkenhauer 2002. 4  Many pictorial epigrams can be found in the ninth book of the Anthologia Graeca, among them also the poems on the cow of Myron attributed to Leonidas of Tarent (AP 9, 713–742). Still fundamental for the understanding of antique pictorial epigrams is Lausberg 1982.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 5

Myron’s bronze cow and on the statue of opportunity (Kairos) shall be mentioned.5 A humanist would most likely have characterised them as easily accessible, highly learned as well as rich in imagery. No wonder, then, that the Milanese lawyer Andrea Alciato (1492–1550), apart from many legal texts, also wrote Latin epigrams, which were Latin adaptations of Greek models from the Anthologia Graeca, as well as his own verses following classical examples. He was not the only one to write such adapta­ tions, but rather one of many, as contemporary collections of epigrams clearly prove.6 Erasmus of Rotterdam, too, included such memorable expressions and image concep­ tions in his widely distributed Adagia.7 What is it then that distinguished Alciato’s epigrams so much from many thou­ sands of similar epigrams, and gave them such a far-reaching influence? It cannot be because of the quality of his poems, which, as a look into the Basle epigram collection of 1529 (see below) makes clear, is good, but not extraordinary – so, in my view, the reason for their popularity has to be found in the just emerging market for the printed book. Andrea Alciato began to write epigrams during his studies – as praetextatus, as he calls it –; they belong to humanist everyday culture.8 Thirty of those early epigrams found their way into a collection of Latin translations from the Anthologia Graeca, published in Basle in 1529, which already included the translation of the Kairos ekphrasis and his Harpocrates epigram to both of which I will return later.9 Others circulated in the 1520s – if at all – exclusively in manuscript form, and only with the Augsburg first edition of 1531 did they reach a somewhat wider public. Alciato must have drawn on further inspirations, apart from the Anthologia Graeca, while working on his epigrams. The innovative connection of epigrams and images makes it plausible to look precisely at the printer’s marks of that time for an impor­

5  For the translation history, see Hutten 1935. 6  See, e.  g., the Basle print of 1529, which compiles translations of Erasmus, Morus, Poliziano, ­Alciato, Luscinius et al.: Selecta epigrammata Graeca Latine versa, ex septem Epigrammatum Graecorum libris, accesserunt omnibus omnium prioribus editionibus ac versionibus plus quam quingenta Epigrammata recens versa, ab Andrea Alciato, Ottomaro Luscinio, ac Iano Cornario Zviccaviensi, Basle, Bebel, Aug. 1529. See VD16 C 5144 for the work; Hieronymus 1992/1993, no. 299; see http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-584. 7  Publication history in Theise and Wolkenhauer 2009, 134–141. 8  Alciato, letter to Pietro Bembo of the 25th of February 1535 (Barni 1953, 156, letter no. 93) on the occasion of the gift of the Paris Emblemata edition of 1534: Composueram praetextatus et nescio quo casu amissum Vindelici edidere corruptissime; quae res effecerat ut agnoscere foetum illum nollem. Nuper vero Lutetiae castigatius a diligentiore opifice editum recepi in gratiam et amicorum meorum primoribus communicavi. Groundbreaking for the understanding of Neo-Latin epigrammatics is now de Beer et al. 2009. 9  Selecta epigrammata Graeca Latine versa (cf. note 6) including the Harpocrates epigram (cum tacet) p. 118 and the Kairos ekphrasis (Lysippi hoc opus est) p. 375. Alciato was in possession of the work (see Barni 1953, 100, letter no. 56, line 50).

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

tant inspiration, because already in the first decades of the sixteenth century they made comparable forms of bi-medial art known in the whole of Europe. They were familiar to Alciato, because they were deeply embedded in humanist education as well as the “printing scene”. Many publishers of the time used printer’s marks as trademarks for their products and to make a statement on the quality of their production; ownership, legal and advertising signs here all melt into one, without a clear distinction of these different functions always being possible. In the centres of humanist printing in the early six­ teenth century, printer’s marks were in use which, inspired for example by Aldus’ famous Dolphin-and-Anchor-Signet (1502), combined various multilingual texts in multiple ways with images. As they could be imprinted, if the printer preferred it, into every copy of an edition in a prominent place, they were able to reach a higher rate of distribution than all other art forms of the time. As his correspondence shows, Andrea Alciato stood in close contact with many humanist printers of Northern Italy, France and Upper Germany. Accordingly, he was in lively correspondence with the signet-keeping printers Andreas Cratan­ der, Johann Froben and Johann Bebel already before 1530, and had many works that came from their printer’s offices in his library, as Barni has reconstructed in detail.10 So it can hardly be surprising that Alciato just thought of the printer’s marks of Aldus Manutius and Johann Froben as examples for good insignia, when he mentioned his epigram collection in a letter to his friend Francesco Calvo for the first time in 1523, and noted that the epigrams could serve craftsmen as tem­ plates for scuta and insignia.11 Common to both signets is their underlying bi-medi­ ality, the high level of education they presuppose (ex historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus aliquid elegans), and the possibility of personalisation (anchora Aldi), which Alciato here emphasises explicitly. The structure of Aldus’ Anchor and Froben’s Dove differs quite strongly in regard to the respective media combinations, as I have shown elsewhere.12 Aldus (see Figure 3) translates a text into an image in the

10  Barni 1947; Barni 1953. 11  Andrea Alciato to Francesco Calvo, Mailand, 9. 12. 1522 [recte 9. 1. 1523]: His saturnalibus ut illustri Ambrosio Vicecomiti morem gererem, libellum composui epigrammaton, cui titulum feci Emblemata: singulis enim epigrammatibus aliquid describo, quod ex historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus aliquid elegans significet, unde pictores, aurifices, fusores, id genus conficere possint, quae scuta appellamus et petasis figimus, vel pro insignibus gestamus, qualis Anchora Aldi, Columba Frobenii [...]. [“I have, on these Saturnalia, to do a favour to Ambrosius Vicecomes, put together a small volume of epigrams, which I have given the title Emblemata: for I describe in the single epigrams something that is, taken from history or nature, somehow appealing. Starting from there, painters, goldsmiths, and metal casters can produce what we call ‚Shields’ (scuta), and pin on hats and that which we list as sings ­(insigne) such as the Anchor of Aldus, the Dove of Froben.”] Cited in Barni 1953, letter no. 24. The retrieved autograph of the letter demands a redating to January 1523. See Scholz 1991, 215–216 and 221. 12  Wolkenhauer 2002, 56–57.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 7

­ ieroglyphics; Froben (see Figure  1), on the other hand, manner of Renaissance h ­ ifferent ages and origins as if he had recombines elements of texts and images of d a grammar and a vocabulary at his disposal, both of them unspecified with respect to the media employed. This difference seems to be negligible here, more impor­ tant is the fact that Aldus’ Anchor and Froben’s Dove belong to the most famous printer’s marks of the time, so that Alciato could outline them briefly to his corre­ spondent with a single term and could take their popularity for granted. Erasmus of Rotterdam had treated both in his Adagia since 1508, with Festina lente as no. 1001, and Cassioticus nodus as no. 1434, and they were, as his own as well as other contemporary comments show, held in high regard as achievements of humanist education.13 It should be noted that humanist printer’s marks were familiar to Andrea Alciato; he clearly stated this when first talking about his epigrams (1523), and named the above-mentioned printer’s marks, which were both renowned among humanist ­ ­thinkers, as models for the proper usage of his epigrams. Their quite different medial structure, on the other hand, apparently is not worth mentioning to him – concision, figurative nature, educational aspects and medial variability are foregrounded.

The Typographical Design of Alciato’s Emblem Book The first edition of Alciato’s epigrams, which was unauthorised and later criticised by the author, was published in 1531 by Steyner in Augsburg.14 It combined about 100 epigrams under the previously uncommon title Emblemata, provided with titles and simple woodcuts. This pictorial decoration was unprecedented; contemporary Latin

13  Evidence in Wolkenhauer 2002, 174–180 and 206–210. 14  There are many problems with the 1531 edition; Bernhard Scholz has analysed them lucidly (see Scholz 1991). Frankly put, I assume here that Alciato has written many epigrams in the 1520s, which were partly incorporated into the Basle epigram edition (see note 6). I further believe to be able to show that the templates for the images for Steyner’s unauthorised first edition can hardly origin in Alciato’s work, and assume that the manuscript for the Epigrammata was not illustrated and, thus, assign the authorship of the illustrations to Steyner and his visual artist Jörg Breu. (At least for those epigrams which relate to Aldus Manutius and Erasmus’ adagium 1001, we can be sure that there were no images at all: the faults of Steyner – i. e. separating dolphin and anchor and misunderstanding echineis as a kind of mussel – cannot result from any possible misunderstanding of an image given by Alciato, who, probably, would have simply copied the printer’s mark of Aldus, as he did again later.) With the authorised Paris editions (from 1534), however, I assume that the visual artist Mercure Jollat collaborated with Alciato.

8 

 Anja Wolkenhauer

poetry collections were not illustrated.15 The combination of epigrams and illustrations is thus, in my view, the really extraordinary thing about the small volume. This, however, is often overlooked as we are dealing with a small-formatted, typographically rather simple printing design, altogether more reminiscent of a chapbook than an Aldine. The criticism Alciato formulated repeatedly after the publication of the edition, however, is not concerned with this unusual combination, quite the opposite: in his early letter to Calvo and the later dedication to Peutinger, he continues to declare the production of templates of images for craftsmen to be the most important function he had in mind for his epigrams.16 Hence, Alciato’s epigrams – continuing a genre con­ vention of epigrammatics – were primarily understood as ekphrastic poetry. Conse­ quently, the editions that were authorised by Alciato and published from 1534 onward by Wechel in Paris also included epigrams and images: in this respect, the author apparently did not see the need for correction. The threefold division of the emblem (inscription, picture, epigramma), which had only been evident semantically in Steyner’s edition, was typographically fixed only in the edition of Wechel: every emblem was placed in isolation at the centre of a single page with the individual parts following a fixed arrangement. The single page turned into the typographical norm of the emblem book – a norm that had nothing to do with the printing of epigrams of the time, but rather with the “typographical staging” of pamphlets, Dances of Death, etc. This is especially true for those printer’s marks of the epoch that were arranged at the end of the book in a media-crossing fashion and separate from the rest of the corpus of the book by many humanist printers, before they were finally integrated into the architecture of the title page in the seventeenth century.17 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, humanist signets often claimed the last page of a printed book for themselves as typographical units, which could include images, texts, marginalia and pieces of decoration, and often giving particular importance to the text positioned above the pictura. Two printer’s marks,

15  Apart from the Selecta epigrammata of 1529 (fn. 9) and Alciato’s authorised collected works from 1546 until 1550, the Poematia aliquot insignia (Basle 1544), and the single editions of Gilbert Cousin (Basle 1547), Julius Caesar Scaliger (Geneva 1574), and Théodore de Bèze (icones and epigrammata, 1548 passim) shall be mentioned here, which do not contain any illustrations other than the printer’s mark. 16  Letter of dedication to Konrad Peutinger, see Alciato, Emblemata, Augsburg: Steyner 1531, fol. A2r (accessible online via the Glasgow Alciato website: Haec nos festivis emblemata cudimus horis, / Artificum illustri signaque facta manu / Vestibus ut torulos, petasis ut figere parmas / et valeat tacitis scribere quisque notis. 17  In his letter to Calvo, Alciato speaks of a libellus (see note 11). An idea of how Alciato contextu­ alised the epigrams in regard to his other literary works, is offered decades later by the authorised col­ lected works of Alciato, which he edited, together with his friend and student Bonifacius ­Amerbach, in the last years of his life. Here, despite of its success story, the Emblemata is republished as nuda, in a s­ imple layout, two-columned, condensed on 11 pages, withholding the dedicatory i­ntroduction, images and emblematic typography and exclusively features the epigrams. Ill. in Theise and ­Wolkenhauer 2009, 163. For the early history of the title page, see Rautenberg 2008.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 9

which were certainly known to Alciato, shall here serve examples, in order to make Alciato’s point of reference clear:18

Figure 1: Printer’s mark of Johann Froben, from 1515 onward.

Figure 2: Printer’s mark of Andreas Cratander, from 1519 onward.

The marks share a set of characteristics: both are highlighted as the central content of the page. They combine images and texts that are part of humanist ­education and derive from Classical Antiquity.19 Alciato treated the central motives, the wand of Mercury and Fortuna, in his epigrams as well, which can be taken as an indication of his affiliation to the same cultural context – a direct dependency, however, should not be constructed here.20 But it is above all the typographical lay-out that was to serve

18  Alciato mentions Froben’s signet in his letter to Calvo (cf. fn. 11); Cratander’s books were in his  possession (see Barni 1947 and 1953). Here, it always has to be taken into account methodo­ logically – and this makes the work with printer’s marks more difficult – that printer’s marks could change drastically over their career of usage. Texts (mottoes) varied or were temporarily omitted, from printing to printing, from year to year, image details were added or disappeared altogether. Thus, the here depicted printer’s marks are all taken from prints that have been on the market between 1515 and 1530, i. e. before the printing of the first emblem book. 19  For individual sources, cf. Wolkenhauer 2002, 165–185 and 199–224. There is no equivalent depic­ tion of the palma Bebeliana (Figures 9 and 10). 20  The poem on Fortuna/ Kairos belongs to the most famous ekphraseis of the Anthologia Graeca; Alciato did not have to look at Cratander’s signet to remember it, even though his committed text-image-combinations could have accompanied Alciato while writing his epigram in Occasionem. There are no cornucopias in Froben’s signet (Erasmus regrets this in his interpretation as well); the common feature the signet shares with the epigram Virtuti fortuna comes, which forms the basis for

10 

 Anja Wolkenhauer

as an example. In Froben’s work, two texts – imprint and dedication – as well as the borders support the claim of the signet to take the central position on the page. In both marks various kinds of texts are distinguished by means of font, language and position in the lay-out, and in both cases there is special emphasis on the header. This header consists of quotes from the Bible or the Anthologia Graeca, respectively, and attains the character of a comprehensive title. The typographical staging that the humanist prin­ ters with whom Alciato stood in close connection with chose for their signets served as model for the page layout of the first emblem book. But only the authorised edition oriented itself on this typographical model; it evidently did not play a role for Steyner.

Printer’s Marks as Inspiration for Andrea Alciato Apart from the qualities of printer’s marks (high level of education, possibility of personalisation) mentioned in Alciato’s letters, bi-mediality and page layout emerge as two further aspects deriving directly from printing practice. For single emblems this relationship can even be described more fully: here, a comparison of Steyner’s unauthorised picturae of 1531 and the authorised picturae of Wechel pub­ lished from 1534 onward can prove itself useful.21 The example of the printer’s mark of Aldus Manutius, which had been distributed in Europe from 1502 onward and named as a model by Alciato himself, is especially instructive. Alciato’s epigram princeps ­subditorum reads: Princeps subditorum incolumitatem procurans Titanii quoties conturbant aequora fratres, Tum miseros nautas anchora iacta iuvat: Hanc pius erga homines Delphin complectitur, imis Tutius ut possit figier illa vadis. Quam decet haec memores gestare insignia Reges, Anchora quod nautis, se populo esse suo. [“The ruler who ensures the well-being of his people // Whenever [the winds], Titan brothers, stir up the waters, then an anchor thrown out brings good fortune to the miserable sailors. The dolphin, devoted to mankind, embraces the anchor so that it can fasten it more securely deep down on the bottom of the sea. How fitting that kings bear this insignia mindful that they are for their people what the anchor is to the sailors.”]

Alciato’s own device, lies mostly in the understanding of Caduceus as a sign that can be referred to rhetorically as well as economically. In later editions of the Emblemata a dove appears, sitting side­ ways on the cornucopia, which really only could have been added in the knowledge of Froben’s signet (see Najera 1615, accessible online: www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A15a117). Froben’s signet was widely distributed in Spain as well, cf. Wolkenhauer 2003, 298–309. 21  For a comparison of the editions, see www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk.



Figure 3: Printer’s mark of Aldus ­ anutius, from 1502 onward. M

Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

Figure 4: Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531.

 11

Figure 5: Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534.

In Steyner’s unauthorised edition, title and epigram are complemented by a pictura, which is clearly of narrative character (Figure 4). The most important informa­ tion about the image can be drawn from the epigram: the philanthropical dolphin embraces the anchor, which the sailors have dropped in the storm, and thus helps them to secure the ship more safely. As the bow wave in front of the animal’s mouth shows, he fights with all his might against the current. The anchor rope leading out of the image on the opposite side reminds us of the desperate men who place their hopes in him. For the authorised edition of the Emblemata (Figure 5), however, Aldus’s printer’s mark definitely serves as template (Figure 3). Aldus Manutius had been using it since 1502 in nearly all of his prints. It was known all over Europe and frequently imitated but without its provenance ever being forgotten: the anchor always remained Aldus’ anchor. The pictura of the Paris edition is so similar to the Aldinian signet – i­ ncluding the pointed beak and acanthus-shaped flippers – that a direct copy can safely be assumed. Narrative details as in Steyner’s version – as, e. g., the anchor rope and the bow wave – are, however, missing entirely. Wechel’s edition, on the other hand, insists on a pictura that imitates a famous printer’s mark accurately and thus features all the characteristics belonging to Renaissance hieroglyphics. I am referring here to the graphic isolation of the signs and the sym­ bolic nature of the representation that connects the Aldinian signet with, e. g., the Hypnerotomachia Polifili.22 At the same time, the narrative aspect loses importance so that the figure of the princeps as well as the context of events can no longer be inferred from the image.

22  For the interdependency, see Wolkenhauer 2002, 34–46.

12 

 Anja Wolkenhauer

An adaptation of the pictura from a printer’s signet can also be assumed (even though with a little less certainty) in Alciato’s emblem In silentium. The underlying epigram is already included in the Basle epigram collection of 1529, and thus belongs to Alciato’s earlier texts. It reads: In silentium Cum tacet, haud quicquam differt sapientibus amens, Stultitiae est index linguaque voxque suae. Ergo premat labias, digitoque silentia signet, Et sese Pharium vertat in Harpocratem. [“To silence // When he is silent then the one without wit is barely different from the wise men. Indicators of his ignorance are tongue and voice. Therefore may he press the lips together and give with the finger the sign of silence and change himself into an Egyptian Harpocrates.”]

In all editions of Alciato, the pictura shows a man in the habit of a scholar who puts the index finger to his lips to signal silence (Figures 7 and 8). The first distich of the epigram writes out Boethius’ proverbial dictum Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, which had made him the best-known admonisher of silence. In the second distich, however, Alciato introduces a new, unusual figure: the amens shall not imitate Boethius or the students of Pythagoras (as other humanists had formulated it in adaptations of the Greek epigram AP 10, 98) but the Egyptian god Harpocrates. The figure of Harpocrates is new to his contemporaries. It was virtually unknown in the Middle Ages and has only been traceable as a personification of silence from the sixteenth century onward. The earliest records originate in Basle where he reached a special local importance during those years as Holbein’s (now lost) frescoes for the Basle council hall, the signet of the Basle printer Thomas Wolff, but also several men­ tionings in the circle of Erasmus prove.23 At that time, the Egyptian god evidently also turned into a humanist scholar who now bore his distant heritage only symbolically. Wolff’s Signet (Figure 6) is, to my knowledge, the earliest example for the iconographic “incorporation” of the Egyptian god into the humanistic res publica litterarum. It shows a scholar in typical habit who presses the finger to his lips while leaning against a fragment of a wall. This otherwise functionless element takes up half of the pictorial space and is filled up with a multitude of signs on its narrow side that are inexplicable in the context of the iconography of silence. These quasi-hieroglyphical elements thus introduce an additional Egyptian flavor into a mark that, based on Boethius’ classical dictum si tacuisses, was already building a bridge from the Bible all the way to the Roman

23  Evidence in Wolkenhauer 2002, 255–261.



Figure 6: Printer’s mark of Thomas Wolff, from 1521 onward.

Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

Figure 7: Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531.

 13

Figure 8: Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534.

satirist Juvenal24: the gesture of silence turns into an universal request that covers time and space. Alciato’s allusion to the figure of Harpocrates, little known outside of Basle, but particularly its habitus in the authorised pictura of his Emblemata (Figure 8), suggest a familiarity with the Basle printer’s mark: the side view of the figure, the emphasised profile, the square headdress that is pulled up high, the wide, loosely falling sleeves, the long, shirred cloak under which the shoes just show, connect both iconographically with each other.25 It could be argued that the iconography of the scholar is generally of little significance; the tendency towards “Egyptisation”, however, that Wolff and Alciato perform here, still marks an otherwise inexplicable coincidence. The emblem Obdurandum adversus urgentia provides a final example that shows how complex the connections between early printer’s marks and the Emblemata of Alciato were. Alciato’s epigram initially mentions the method of weighing down palm trees in their growth zone to achieve a larger crown, which was already known in Antiquity. In its second part, it requests a student to gather the palm fruits, regardless of the fact that the climbing of the tree is troublesome, because in the end the one who consistently makes an effort (mens constans) will be rewarded.

24  Wolff’s signet was in usage from 1521 until the death of the printer in 1535. In March 1522, shortly after its initial usage, Wolff printed an edition of Boethius. 25  Here, I do not want to omit that Wolff’s signet includes both, the request for right silence as well as the one for right speech – the different hand gestures are also to be understood in this way. Alciato concentrates the gesture exclusively on the fool who kindly should hold his tongue.

14 

 Anja Wolkenhauer Obdurandum adversus urgentia Nititur in pondus palma, et consurgit in arcum; Quo magis et premitur, hoc mage tollit onus. Fert et odoratas bellaria dulcia glandes, Queis mensas inter primus habetur honos. I puer et reptans ramis has collige: mentis Qui constantis erit, praemia digna feret. [“One has to fight oppression // The palm tree struggles up against the weight and rises in an arc [i. e.: into the air]; the more it is pressed down, the more it lifts up the weight. The palm tree also carries fragrant fruit, a sweet dessert, much valued at table. Go, boy, and gather it, crawling amidst the branches. He who is of resolute spirit will carry home an appropriate reward.”]

The epigram does not belong to Alciato’s adaptations of the Anthologia Graeca and cannot be dated exactly. It connects two conceptions of images with each other, the one of the palm tree growing up against oppression and the one of the labori­ ously climbing boy. A printer’s mark of which we know that it was well known to Alciato probably served him as an inspiration for the former: it was included among others in the already frequently cited collected edition of the Latin transla­ tions from the Anthologia Graeca, a work Alciato owned. Not only for Alciato but also for Steyner, the first printer of the Emblemata, the printer’s mark of their col­ league Bebel c­ ertainly did represent a visual point of reference as a comparison of the picturae shows. The Basle printer Johann Bebel had been using a (palm) tree as his mark since 1526, the crown of which is burdened with a weight (Figures 9 and 10).26 Steyner and Jörg Breu, who was commissioned by the former, are following this mark in their composition of the image. The fact that the tree (contrary to Alciato’s suggestion in the text) looks not at all like a palm tree, i. e. that it has short, lancet-shaped leaves, supports the idea that their pictura (Figure 11) refers to the printer’s mark, and is not an immediate narrative realisation of Alciato’s epigram. Moreover, the weight has the same physical measurements as the one in Bebel’s signet and is positioned in the same way in the middle of the sheet- and tree-centre, which causes some branches to rise up into the air before and others behind it. Accordingly, Steyner’s pictura could be described as a revisualisation of an ekphrasis whose original inspiration – Bebel’s signet image – was known and thus here determined the conception of the image within the emblem.27

26  During the first years of its usage, the palma Bebeliana is still complemented with a representa­ tion of a human in the tree, which is pushed down by the weight. In the spring of 1531 – a closer dating is unfortunately impossible – the human disappears, only tree and weight remain. The motto “Ver­ druck mich armen nit” [“Don’t crush me, poor thing”] which appears in some works (e. g. in Heitz and Bernoulli 1984, 113; Grimm 1965, 131) seems to me to be a singular handwritten addition; up-to-date, it has not been possible to establish a corresponding print. 27  For the term of revisualisation, see the contribution of A. Bässler in this volume (p. 40 ff.).



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 15

The authorised edition of Alciato’s Emblemata took a different path. Even though Alciato knew Bebel’s printer’s mark, he chose to ignore the first ekphrasis, which followed the printer’s mark and chose the second one, formulated in the last distich. Thus, the pictura does not show the weight pressing down on the tree, but a boy who, in his endeavor to climb and harvest the tree, seems to be kicking the air.28 Alcia­ to’s decision can be understood as the attempt to now leave the starting point of his epigram, the printer’s mark, behind him and, starting from the second image of his ekphrastic epigram – as in an ever turning spiral – to reach a new pictura. This proce­ dure could be continued endlessly: starting from the new pictura a new epigram can be obtained, which then again takes up at least one more, new motif and again leads to a new picturae etc. Thus, the emblem as an art form that combines different media and the emblem book with its characteristic typography can be traced back to two different early lineages of the printing of the Emblemata. While the addition of woodcuts to the epigrams is due to Steyner and Breu, Wechel, Alciato and Jollat are responsible for the typographical arrangement, for adjusting the word-image relation in many re­spects, and for bringing Renaissance hieroglyphics into play as an important point of reference. Whereas the addition of woodcuts to the epigrams has to be attributed to the edition of Steyner and Breu, the edition of Wechel, Alciato and Jollat can be held responsible for having established the typographical fixation, having revised the text-image-relationship in many details, and having defined the Renaissance hieroglyphics, following the example of Aldus Manutius, as an important point of ­reference. Both printers were familiar with the printer’s marks of various other col­ leagues, but while we have to assume that Steyner took unauthorised decisions (which still, however, seem to agree with Alciato’s ideas of utilisation), Wechel pub­lished his edition with the consent and support of Alciato and remained in close contact with the author later on. All three signet examples presented here date from the first 30 years of the six­ teenth century; thus, they prepared the ground on which Alciato’s book-style emblem­ atics could develop and be appreciated by a readership that was already ­familiar with the relevant word-image conventions. Our sample analyses, however, do not yield a coherent picture: whereas Aldus’ mark is named by Alciato as a model and explicitly introduced in the authorised version, Wolff’s mark mostly seems to convey the motif of a humanist “neiconografia” (Wittkower). Bebel’s signet was taken up

28  This pictura becomes more incomprehensible with each new edition as the row of examples pro­ vided by the Glasgow edition vividly illustrates (www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/index.php). Later, it was revised as a purely educational emblem – now already by other emblem authors –, complemented with inscriptiones such as studiorum contentio and ardua quae pulchra as well as tree ­climbers who actually climbed up the tree (e. g. Aneau (1552), no. 95 and Schoonhovius (1618), no. 74; both in Henkel & Schöne 1976, 197–198).

16 

 Anja Wolkenhauer

Figures 9 and 10: Printer’s mark of Johann Bebel (from ca. 1526 and March 1531 onward, respectively) Illustration taken from: Selecta Epigrammata, Basel 1529, cf. fn. 14. Alciato was in possession of this volume (Barni 1947).

Figure 11: Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531.

Figure 12: Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 17

again by Steyner, while Alciato continued the interplay between ekphrasis and revisu­ alisation29 and introduced a new pictura.

Alciato’s Emblems as Templates for Printer’s Marks Since the 1540s, Alciato’s emblems have been used as templates for printer’s marks all over Europe. In view of the wide distribution of Alciato’s little book, and its many ­imitators, that is only what was to be expected. I will therefore refer to this issue briefly. During these decades, it is difficult to determine the giving and the taking side; rather both, emblems as well as signets, seem to swim side by side in an anima­ ted exchange in the broad stream of word-image art forms.30 Both have their origin in Latin-influenced humanist culture, which is only slowly complemented by vernacu­ lar mottoes and emblem translations. Both are driven by the interest in education of the time, but even more by the interest of the printers in appealing as well as cost-ef­ fective illustrations. Exemplary of a critical engagement with Alciato is the signet of the Strasbourg humanist printer Wendelin Rihel, which belongs to the earliest ones avowedly reacting to the Emblemata (Figure 14).31 It was first used in 1537, six years after the first printing of the Emblemata. The printer’s mark refers to the emblem nec verbo nec facto (Figure 13) whose pictura depicts a personification of Nemesis, a goddess supposed to be measure and guiding principle for all decisions – this is also the way in which the epigram in the Anthologia Graeca formulates it, to which both, Alciato as well as Rihel, refer. Alciato’s figure carries a bridle in one hand while she clasps her elbow with the other. Rihel, by contrast, corrects Alciato’s iconography and introduces a different reading of the Greek epigram: departing from Alciato’s reading, who translates πῆχυς/cubitum as “forearm” and thus depicts his Nemesis with a unique position of the arm (which was only corrected decades later in the edition of C. Mignault, Antwerp 1577), Rihel’s Nemesis holds up the measuring instrument, i. e. the cubit, with an explicit pointing gesture and together with the bridle: his pictura represents a humanist correction of Alciato’s. On the other hand, he evidently takes over Alciato’s reduction of the mottoes to a single distich that is

29  See the contribution of A. Bässler in this volume for the term (p. 40 ff.). 30  The influence of Erasmus’ widely distributed Adagia should not to be neglected here, which, even though never illustrated itself, had a great, though often unnoticed, influence on producers and recipients of emblematic art through the high number of image descriptions embedded into the text as well as its wide distribution. 31  More detailed in Wolkenhauer 2002, 62–63 and 358–366 (with ill.).

18 

 Anja Wolkenhauer

now positioned on its own and beneath the pictura – an otherwise unconventional mode of representation. No other printer’s mark of this generation is so similar to a “classical” emblem. Other printers copy Alciato’s picturae, as for example Johann von Aich in Cologne (Figure 16), but rearrange the texts. Von Aich resorts to the unauthorised edition of Steyner (Figure 15)32 for the design of his printer’s mark, he took a motif from the epigram (Ganymede on the eagle), copied the corresponding picture, but contextua­ lised it in a new way – whereas the homoerotic relationship between Ganymede and Jupiter is at the centre of attention in Alciato’s epigram and only ‘spiritualised’ in the final distich, Johann von Aich chose a clearly marked quotation from the psalms for the motto. Thus, his Ganymede unambiguously turns into an allegory for the ­Christian anima. The broader the stream of word-image art forms flows in the sixteenth century, the harder it gets to determine exclusive relationships. The printers are aware of the printer’s marks of many colleagues as well as Alciato’s small work. They use different editions of his work side by side, so that the focus of the creative process lies less on the finding than on the recombination of texts and images. Successive shifts emerge in the media combination in the printer’s marks, resulting in the reduction of the wealth of detail of the images, and in the total disappearance of many texts: the prin­ ter’s marks lose their bi-mediality.33 Finally, a phenomenon shall be described here, which was to be expected in regard to the already mentioned broad stream, but still offers the possibility of drawing further conclusions.

The Infinite Spiral: Printer’s Marks Become Emblems Printer’s marks have not only influenced the emergence of emblematics as an art form among the first generation of emblem writers, only to be influenced in return by emblems, but the interplay between the two was lasting; and so it should not be surprising that an emblem book printed at the end of the sixteenth century did not only adopt other emblems and devices, as had been noticed many times, but most of all also printer’s marks that were epigrammatically complemented and thus became three-part emblems.

32  This has already been noted by Grimm 1965, 339. 33  See also Wolkenhauer 2015.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

Figure 13: Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534.

Figure 14: Printer’s mark of Wendelin Rihel, from 1537 onward.

Figure 15: Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531.

Figure 16: Printer’s mark of Johann von Aich, from 1543 onward.

 19

In the years of 1611 and 1613 the Nucleus emblematum was published in Arnhem, Cologne and Utrecht combining altogether 200 emblems in two volumes; even more were planned. Visual and text artists appear side by side on the engraved title page, and both preface the work with a Latin text of their own. The work biography of the visual artist on the one hand, and the dedication of the humanist on the other, suggest that the underlying graphic collection, the concept and the page layout can be attributed to Crispin de Passe the Elder (1564–1637), while Gabriel Rollenhagen the Younger (1583–1619), an outstanding epigrammatist in his own right, wrote the

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

epigrams.34 The Arcus Cupidinis, an emblematic “predecessor”, which can be attribu­ ted exclusively to Crispin de Passe, however, already shows the characteristic revival of the motto within the epigram. Beyond that, the way in which the two men collabo­ rated is difficult to reconstruct.35 While the epigrams have only aroused little interest to date,36 templates for the picturae have been identified repeatedly. Among them are Alciato’s Emblemata as well as later emblem books (Aneau, Sambucus, Junius, Camerarius), works of devices (Paradin, Ruscelli), and hieroglyphic literature (Horapollon).37 Even though they often have to be revised in individual cases, these attributions are surely correct in general. This is certainly true of the printer’s marks, which often served as models but have not yet been taken into consideration in the re­­ search on the nucleus. The most likely explanation of this complete disregard may be that printer’s marks, in contrast to the already mentioned emblem books, have never been collected in compendia like Henkel and Schöne or Tung, and are there­ fore less easily accessible.38 But already on a first review, one has to realise that printer’s marks even surpass the biggest source group named by Veldman and Klein.39 Crispin de Passe has chosen a whole range of printer’s marks as templates for his picturae, which appear occasionally in the first and in rapid succession in the second volume.40

34  Gabriel Rollenhagen, Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum [...], Arnhem and Cologne 1611; Selectorum emblematum centuria secunda, Utrecht 1613. Many emblems from this work have been repro­ duced in Henkel & Schöne 1976; additionally, a reprint commented by Carsten-Peter Warncke exists, whose versions of the epigrams, however, are not always reliable (Warncke 1983). The ÖNB Vienna offers a digital reproduction online: data.onb.ac.at/ABO/%2BZ15511070X. Veldman and Klein 2003, 267–299 offer the best analysis; Peil 1992 looks at the structure of the single emblems as well. 35  Warncke 1983, 426–427 attributes the selection of images to de Passe, while the epigrams, with which the engraver supposedly felt overwhelmed, were left to Rollenhagen. He does not say anything about the motto and the page layout. Veldman and Klein 2003 assume that de Passe had enough knowledge of Latin to write the introduction himself and also do not little appreciate his Arcus Cupidinis (p. 270–272). They point out that many details – the medallion shape, the close interplay of image and text, the brevitas – are already traceable in the works preceding them. It seems to me that de Passe in his introduction and Rollenhagen in his dedicatory letter do not always use the same terminology to the effect that sometimes also the epigrams by themselves are called emblemata. 36  Tung 2014, 361–380, who is, however, primarily interested in language technique and the conse­ quences of the revival of the motto within the epigram, is an exception from this. 37  Warncke 1983; Tung 2014 passim. 38  Henkel & Schöne 1976. 39  Veldman and Klein 2003 name Paradin’s Devices as most important source to which 14 emblems can be traced back; the printer’s marks, however, do already outnumber this figure in my first, still very rough overview (Wolkenhauer 2002, 66–67). 40  I assume that de Passe compiled a collection of pictures first, which resembled his later albums. He then made selections from this album. If this assumption holds true, his copperplate emblems can



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 21

The Nucleus emblematum distinguishes itself from other contemporary emblem books by being engraved in copper throughout. This offers not only the possibility of a much more detailed representation than in woodcut, but also knits together the media of text and image more closely than before: all is printed from a single plate. It is this novel typographical design Crispin de Passe refers to when he emphasises the parerga non invenusta.41 It manifests itself particularly in the medallion-like concept of the picturae, in the rendition of the inscriptiones as circumscriptions, and the frequent change of font as well as in the many decorative lines, which partition and structure the emblem. These draw the attention of the reader to the printing process and the page layout, which comes into focus as the third constitutive element next to text and image. Crispin de Passe creates a highly artificial form of the unified, three-parted emblem, filled with various intra-paginal references (i. e. visual, typographical and textual reference structures within the printed page). How can his dealing with prin­ ter’s marks be described in those instances in which they serve as template for him? Roughly, two groups can be distinguished: one in which he adopted pictura and motto/ inscriptio, and a second one in which only the pictura was adopted. This could be based on a purposeful selection that concentrates on the image alone, but it is as least as likely that de Passe often came across signets without text in his search: whether the mottoes had been removed during cutting (as can often be observed in the preserved single-sheet collections) and thus the printer’s marks entered his col­ lection as monomedial images, or whether he came across signets which had in fact possessed mottoes in the early days of their usage, but, at the end of the century, only lived on their “memorised bi-mediality” (i. e. the temporarily continued existence of the motto in the memory of the audience) and appeared as monomedial signs: the share of the mottoes in the printer’s marks has declined successively since the middle of the sixteenth century. The motto clearly gained in importance within the emblem in the case of those printer’s marks from which de Passe took over the pictura as well as the motto, as he isolated it and turned it into the inscriptio. Rollenhagen took up the motto again in his distich with only minor syntactical changes, based on the model of the Arcus Cupidinis, and de Passe for his part made sure that this interplay did remain clearly visible for each recipient in a change of font as well. The double specification of inscriptio

simultaneously be understood as a reference to the oldest reconstructable signet collection (probably within a larger graphic printing collection). 41  Figuras enim non in lignum, ut illi [indicated are the early authors of emblem books] sed in aes incisas damus, nec nudas, sed parergis non invenustis exornatas. Versus pauci sunt, sed apti, perspicui, rotundi [“We do not give the images/picturae in woodcut as other makers of emblem books do, but in copperplate engraving and we do also not give them nude, but adorned with not quite unhandsome accessories. The verses are few/ brief, but fitting, comprehensive and well-formed.”] P. 21/fol. A4 in the digitalised edition of the ÖNB Vienna (cf. fn. 42). The introduction is not signed; as Rollenhagen is here addressed as a friend, I do believe Crispin de Passe to be its author.

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

and pictura, in connection with the claim to brevitas and perspicuitas, brevity and clarity, does only leave little freedom for epigram poetry. Following the emblematic tradition, Rollenhagen rather aims at a generally formulated, moral statement, while the individual and economical aspects of the printer’s marks cannot expect to raise any interest here. In those cases in which only the pictura was adopted the guiding specifications were fewer and the freedom greater. Two examples may serve to illus­ trate Rollenhagen’s procedure that emblematised the printer’s marks without com­ pletely suppressing their origin. As mentioned in the beginning, Andrea Alciato named the printer’s mark of Johann Froben as a model and an example for the utilisation for his ekphrastic epigrams. The printer’s mark was used over decades in Froben’s printer’s office, and underwent only minimal changes. In the process, the mottoes, as in other printer’s marks, were typeset less often in the course of time. The motto Prudens simplicitas, amorque recti that was taken up by de Passe, a mixed quotation from two verses of Martial, has ­appeared ­occasionally since its initial usage in 1515, and was also referred to explicitly as connect­­ed with Froben by Erasmus in his interpretation of the signet: “Froben, who always held up the staff upright, and had nothing but the general interest in view, who did not deviate from the dove-like simplicity and who expressed the wisdom of the snake rather in his signets than his deeds, he is richer in glory than in money.”42 That the pictura of de Passe represents an exact copy of the printer’s mark (see Figures 17 and 18) is evident; even more so, as the most striking difference between them, the crowning of the snake, does not appear in all of Froben’s printing blocks.43 De Passe’s contribution can be seen mostly in the selection, the aesthetic reduction and the addition of a background action, which suggests a Christian reading of the signet. Rollenhagen, however, must still have had the complete Frobenian signet at his disposal – i. e. the pictura with the motto Prudens simplicitas, amorque recti. Even though the motto is shortened to prudente simplicitate in the inscriptio, Rollenhagen still refers back to the original context of the Frobenian motto. He recognises it as a quote from Martial and starts his own epigram with another verse out of the self-same Martial poem 10, 47: Vitam quae faciant beatiorem: Prudente simplicitate. Vitam quod faciat beatiorem – prudens simplicitas, pie putamus. [“With clever simplicity.// That the clever simplicity may make life more blessed: this we record religiously.”]

42  Frobenius, dum baculum semper erectum gerit, non alio spectans quam ad publicam utilitatem cum a columbina simplicitate non recedit, dum serpentum prudentiam magis exprimit insigniis suis quam factis, fama potius dives est quam re. Erasmus of Rotterdam, Adagium 1434: Cassioticus nodus, first in the edition of 1528. Cited here in Wolkenhauer 2002, 207 (with further evidence). 43  For the different possibilities of interpretation, see Wolkenhauer 2002, especially 213–215.



Figure 17: Printer’s mark of Johann Froben, second version, 1519.

Figure 19: Printer’s mark of Nicolaus Episcopius, from 1553 onward.

Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

Figure 18: Rollenhagen/de Passe, Nucleus emblematum, 1613.

Figure 20: Rollenhagen/de Passe, Nucleus ­emblematum, 1613.

 23

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

Froben’s Motto, but also the whole pagan joy of life of Martial’s famous epigram that praises peace, health, joy and sexuality as guarantors of a good life shine through the Christian reduction achieved by the image as artfully continued pre-texts. De Passe also added the printer’s mark of another Basle printer to his collec­ tion, that of Nicolaus Episcopius the Younger, who was closely connected to Fro­ ben’s printer’s office. It shows the vigilant crane, grus vigilans (Figure 19). The bird is standing on a bishop’s staff that visualises the name of the printer, Episcopius/ bishop, which is inscribed into the picture simultaneously to the left and the right of the staff. De Passe re-engraved the pictura together with the inscription of the name of the printer, but left out his Greek motto (Figure 20). The reason for this may be found in the language but perhaps also in the content of the motto, as Episcopius relates the motif of the vigilant crane specifically to the care and attention the printer needs for his work.44 In his own, new motto, Rollenhagen foregrounds vigilance, vigilantia, as the principal characteristics of rulers: Non dormit qui custodit. Detinet hunc non alta quies similisque sapori [lege: sopori] qui vigili nostras res, ratione, regit. [“Who wakes, sleeps not. // The calm which is deep and similar to heavy sleep does not hold back the one who governs our affairs with a vigilant mind.”]

Here, once again, an antique pre-text adds a certain lightness to the statement: Rol­ lenhagen begins the epigram with a passage from Ovid’s love poetry in which the poet muses on the practical arrangement of the gods, who can always be called on for help in all affairs of love, because they themselves do not need any sleep.45 Rollenhagen compares the ruler with these slightly deranged, omnipresent and ever available gods of love – at least for those readers who can read between the lines and are aware of the pre-text.46 The remains of the name EPIS/COP., which is preserved in the emblem, now do no longer appear as a proper name, but are reinterpreted and generalised as the official title of the prince of the church. The de-individualisation that always takes place with the transition from printer’s mark to emblem here becomes blatantly obvious.

44  For a more detailed interpretation, see Wolkenhauer 2002, 404–409. 45  Ovid, Ars amatoria 1, 639–640: nec secura quies ullos similisque sopori / detinet. 46  I think it more probable that during the cutting of the writing sopori was misread as sapori, becau­ se the counterargument – that Rollhagen had interfered with the Ovid verse to such an extent – must implicate that a literary gain would be connected to this action; this, however, is not the case. ­Warncke 1983 has evidently registered the difficulty with sapori in his edition, but was unable to resolve it and thus simply omitted the term resulting in a flawed transfer.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

 25

Conclusion The relationship between printer’s marks and emblems is difficult to pin down. Research on Alciato and the early history of emblematics can no longer ignore the market-generating and genre-shaping power of printer’s marks: not only did they precede Alciato’s Emblemata chronologically, but they also influenced them in every phase of their development from ekphrastic epigram up to the compe­ ting editions of the 1530s. Later on, many emblems turn into printer’s marks, many printer’s marks become emblems. Much is gained in taking note of the interdepen­ dency of the art forms, even their joint integration into the broad stream of bi-me­ dial arts and in understanding devices, emblems and printer’s marks as closely related and interacting art forms of the Early Modern Age. What allowed all of these bi-medial genres to become productive was not only the Humanists’ craving for education and recognition, but also, and to a similar extent, the existing social networks, the new technical possibilities, and the typographical experiments of the early printers. The ­disproportionately ­inadequate mapping of European prin­ ter’s marks if compared to emblems and devices, is an impediment to research into the history of Early Modern media. It makes it difficult to realise the creative force of printing in its whole depth and to understand the bi-medial art forms from a common perspective.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Printer’s mark of Johann Froben, from 1515 onward. Taken from Seneca, Ludus de morte Claudii Caesaris, Basilea, [1515], UB Basel, DB VII 25:1 (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-40246). Figure 2: Printer’s mark of Andreas Cratander, from 1919 onward. Taken from Lorenzo Valla, De voluptate ac vero bono, Basilea [1519], UB Basel, CB VIII 8:3 (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-1828). Figure 3: Printer’s mark of Aldus Manutius, from 1502 onward. Taken from Poetae Christiani Veteres, 2, fol. 8v, VenBNM 385 d 121 in Wolkenhauer, Zu schwer für Apoll, Wiesbaden 2002. Figure 4: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber, Augsburg, Heinrich Steyner, 28 February 1531 (1st edition), by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ picturae.php?id=A31a022). Figure 5: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum libellus, Paris, Chrestien Wechel, 1534, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A34b021). Figure 6: Printer’s mark of Thomas Wolff, from 1521 onward. Taken from Boethius, De consolatione Philosophiae, Basilea, [1522], UB Basel, Rb 1140 (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-5604). Figure 7: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner Feb. 1531. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber, Augsburg, Heinrich Steyner, 28 February 1531 (1st edition), by permission of University of

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 Anja Wolkenhauer

Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ emblem.php?id=A31a003). Figure 8: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum libellus, Paris, Chrestien Wechel, 1534, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem. php?id=A34b003). Figure 9: Printer’s mark of Johann Bebel, from 1526 onward. Taken from Selecta epigrammata Graeca Latine versa, Basilea, 1529, UB Basel, Bc VI 77:8 (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-584). Figure 10: Printer’s mark of Johann Bebel, from march 1531 onward. Taken from Aristoteles, Opera omnia graece, Basilea 1531, UB Basel, Bc I 1 (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-399). Figure 11: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber, Augsburg, Heinrich Steyner, 28 February 1531 (1st edition), by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ emblem.php?id=A31a025). Figure 12: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum libellus, Paris, Chrestien Wechel, 1534, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem. php?id=A34b024). Figure 13: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Wechel 1534. Image taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum libellus, Paris, Chrestien Wechel, 1534, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem. php?id=A34b013). Figure 14: Printer’s mark of Wendelin Rihel, from 1537 onward. Taken from Octavianus Mirandula, Illustrium Poetarum Flores, Strasbourg 1538, BSB, A.lat.c. 18, VD16 F 1112 (Permalink: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10996462_00718.html? contextType=scan). Figure 15: Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, Steyner 1531. Taken from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber, Augsburg, Heinrich Steyner, 28 February 1531 (1st edition), by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections (Permalink: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ emblem.php?id=A31a033). Figure 16: Printer’s mark of Johann von Aich, from 1543 onward. Taken from Andrés de Laguna, Europa heautēn timōrumenē h.e. misere se discrucians suamque calamitatem deplorans, Cologne 1543, BSB Dogm. 335#Beibd.2, VD16 L 104 (Permalink: http://reader. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10175291_00081.html). Figure 17: Printer’s mark of Johann Froben, second version, from 1519 onward. Taken from Desiderius Erasmus, Paraphrasis in duas epistolas Pauli ad Corinthios, Basilea+ [1519], UB Basel, FC* III 8:2 (Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-3172). Figure 18: Rollenhagen/de Passe, Nucleus emblematum, 1613. Taken from Gabriel Rollenhagen/ Crispijn van de Passe, Nucleus emblematum,/ selectorum emblematum centuria secunda, Arnhem 1611, 1613. Figure 19: Printer’s mark of Nicolaus Episcopius, from 1553 onward. Taken from Angelo Politiano, Opera, Basilea 1553, UB Basel, DJ II 2:1, (Permalink: http://dx.doi. org/10.3931/e-rara-5637). Figure 20: Rollenhagen/de Passe, Nucleus emblematum, 1613. Taken from Gabriel Rollenhagen/ Crispijn van de Passe, Nucleus emblematum,/ selectorum emblematum centuria secunda, Arnhem 1611, 1613.



Sisters, or Mother and Daughter? 

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Bibliography Barni, Gian Luigi, “La biblioteca di Andrea Alciato attraverso il suo epistolario.” In: Scritti in onore di Contardo Ferrini, pubblicati in occasione della sua beatificazione. Vol. 1. Milan: Milano Soc. ed. “Vita e pensiero”, 1947, 56–76. Barni, Gian Luigi (ed.), Le lettere di Andrea Alciato giureconsulto. Florence: Le Monnier, 1953. de Beer, Susanna, Karl A. E. Enenkel & David Rijser, eds., The Neo-Latin Epigram. A Learned and Witty Genre. (Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 25) Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Heckscher, William S. & Karl A. Wirth, Art. “Emblem, Emblembuch.” In: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte. Vol. 5. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1959, 85–228. Heitz, Paul & C. Chr. Bernoulli, Basler Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1895. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1984). [resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0000165900000000]. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, ²1976. Hieronymus, Frank, En Basileia polei tés Germanias. Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen (Exhibition Catalogue). (Publikationen der UB Basel 15) Basel: Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel, 1992/1993. (www.ub.unibas.ch/cmsdata/spezialkataloge/gg/). van Huisstede, Peter & Hans Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th–17th Century. A Catalogue with Cd-rom. 3 vols. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1999. [Rev. by Jochen Becker in Quaerendo, 32 (2002): 304–313.] Hutton, James, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800. Ithaka, NY: Cornell University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1935. Lausberg, Marion, Das Einzeldistichon. Studien zum antiken Epigramm. (Studia et testimonia antiqua 19) München: W. Fink, 1982. Peil, Dietmar, “Emblem Types in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Nucleus Emblematum.” Emblematica 6 (1992): 255–282. Praz, Mario, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. 2 vols. Second enlarged edition (Sussidi eruditi 16) Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1964. Rautenberg, Ursula, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Buchtitelblatts in der Inkunabelzeit in Deutschland, den Niederlanden und Venedig.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 62 (2008): 1–105. Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015. Scholz, Bernhard F., “The 1531 Augsburg Edition of Alciato’s Emblemata: A Survey of Research.” Emblematica 5 (1991): 213–254. Theise, Antje & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Emblemata Hamburgensia: Emblembücher und angewandte Emblematik im frühneuzeitlichen Hamburg. Katalog zur Ausstellung in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, 12. Februar – 22. März 2009. (Publikationen der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky 2) Kiel: Ludwig, 2009. Tung, Mason, “Two Research Notes on Rollenhagen’s Emblems.” Emblematica 21 (2014): 361–380. Veldman, Ilja M. & Clara Klein, “The Painter and the Poet: The Nucleus Emblematum by de Passe and Rollenhagen.” In: Enenkel, Karl A. E. & A.S.Q. Visser, eds., Mundus Emblematicus. Studies in Neo-Latin Emblem Books. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003, 267–299.

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Warncke, Carsten-Peter, ed., Gabriel Rollenhagen, Sinn-Bilder. Ein Tugendspiegel. Bearbeitet, mit einem Nachwort versehen und ed. von Carsten-Peter Warncke. Dortmund: Harenberg, 1983. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Die vielfältige Lesbarkeit humanistischer Druckerzeichen. Geistesgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen und methodische Konsequenzen.” Emblemata 9 (2003): 289–313 (with a summary in Spanish). Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Symbola ac emblemata: Perspektiven der Druckerzeichenforschung für die Frühe Neuzeit.” Wolfenbüttler Renaissance-Mitteilungen 36 (2015): 25–38.

Andreas Bässler

Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets Ekphrasis in the Humanist Antiquitates Ekphrasis,1 Lat. descriptio, is characterised in classical rhetoric as an element of speech that aims at “the artistic verbal representation of the externally visible ele­ ments that form a complete picture (human, object, place, scene, etc.) through the portrayal of recognisable features, a complete listing of all the details or a pointed highlighting of essential characteristics”.2 The ekphrasis of works of art r­ epresents an important subgenre. During the Second Sophistic, ekphrasis detach­ es itself from its existence as a dependent part within a bigger context of speech and establishes an independent genre, which even generates collections of descriptions of art. Many forms of the usage of ekphraseis do emerge in humanism, especially in epical and lyrical contexts,3 but they prove to be of particular importance for the present context in the field of the reception of classical antiquity in the humanist antiquitates of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. A new humanist descriptio-literature establishes itself, imitating the already existing classical ekphraseis, in the antiquitates from the fifteenth century onwards, which claims to be “scientific”, i.  e. methodologically motivated.4 Here humanist periegesis founded by Ciriaco d’Ancona in the wake of Pausanias is of importance, which is reflected in descriptions of travels in Eastern Greece.5 For the autopsy of clas­ sical artefacts that were uncollectable, humanists turned to recording such artefacts in drawings, in the transcription and compilation of inscriptions, and, finally, in verbal descriptions of the seen. The act of describing classical arte­ facts was ­relevant to such an extent that it was utilised for the titling of complete works. The same holds true for the travel literature of Rome, but also, as in the case of the works of Flavio Biondo and Andrea Fulvio, for the descriptive liter­ ature of entire countries from the fifteenth century onwards. But in this case, too, there are a number of antiquarian works that already point towards the

1  Boehm and Pfotenhauer 1995; Wagner 1996; Scholz 2007. 2  Translated from Halsall 1992, 1495: “die kunstvolle sprachliche Darstellung äußerlich sichtbarer Elemente eines Gesamtbildes (Mensch, Gegenstand, Ort, Szene usw.) durch Porträtieren erkennbarer Züge, vollständiges Aufzählen aller Details oder pointiertes Herausstellen wesentlicher Merkmale.” 3  Arnulf 2004, 491–568. 4  Landfester 2014, 24–28. 5  Neuhausen 1996.

DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-002

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 Andreas Bässler

underlying mode of the descriptio in their titles such as Leon Battista Alberti’s Descriptio urbis Romae and Leandro Alberti’s Descrittione di tutta Italia (written ca. 1530–1534, first printed in 1550).

Revisualisation of Ekphraseis The losses that occurred during the handing down through time constitute a problem that did, however, come up in connection with the antiquitates. This problem does not only apply to classical artefacts but also to texts. Supplements and reconstructions provide a methodological answer.6 Humanist philology reacts to lacunae in ­classical texts and develops the methodology of the supplementing; gaps are “bridged” by the connoisseurs of an author – no matter how speculatively – via supplements. When frag­ mented statues such as the one of Laocoön, which lacks part of the limbs, are discov­ ered, they are reconstructed plastically. Inscriptions that are incomplete are partly added on to the stone artefact itself.7 The nearly non-existent preservation of c­ lassical panel painting is a special case. Nothing is left of some classical works of art but a description; they survive as verbal “remains”. Due to a lack of alternatives, e­ kphraseis thus provide the basis for attempts at reconstruction. The term “revisualisation” refers to an image-producing process on the basis of a media transformation from the text describing an image to an image itself. The feasibility of such a media t­ ransformation is founded on the intermedial idea of the ekphrasis itself. As a time-honored ­rhetorical device it legitimises a media change that “originally” went from the object to its verbal description. Any doubts that such a media change could lead to “losses” in clarity etc. apparently did not exist. The verbal “copy” could “replace” its original. It does only become clear before this background that the once implemented media change from the pictorial and plastic artefact to the word could potentially always also be ­understood as reversible. The central assumption is the possibility and the feasibility of a reciprocal transformability. This kind of reconstruction of classical works of art is, of course, a lot more speculative, precisely because more than just some lost parts need to be reconstructed. Additionally, the revisualisations of the Renaissance seldom consider the problem whether the ekphraseis in question are of real or of imaginary objects, a problem that, in the case of some descriptions, cannot be settled completely to this day. We have to distinguish between a revisualisation that actually tries to reconstruct the original shape within the same medial form: if, e. g., the description of a ­classical painting such as the Calumny of Apelles is re-transformed into a painting by Botti­ celli. Other revisualisations, however, do not show such consideration for medial

6  Howard 1990. 7  Barkan 1999.



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­differences: in this case, the description of statues is not again remodelled as a piece of sculpture, but “only” in two-dimensional drawings, woodcuts or paintings. Here a medial gap remains between the “medium of the original” and the revisualisation. But during the Renaissance revisualisations often take licence to deviate; these devi­ ations can be of a medial, sometimes also of a motivic nature. Depending on their subject matter these artefacts could arouse both an historical and an aesthetic interest. For at issue was not only a concern for an historically correct reconstruction of an object from the past but also a concern for their creative and artistic potentials, which those objects possessed because as artefacts and as works of art, they belonged to traditions of intermediality, and served as carriers of aesthetic meaning. Nor should it be overlooked that it was artists dealing with images, rather than humanist philologists who were carrying out the transfer of those strategies into the pictorial medium, and who, in doing so, allowed their own aesthetic ideas to enter into their activities. Revisualisations are thus embedded into a broader context of strategies for visualising extant artefacts of classical antiquity. Comprehensive antiquarian works that sought to systematically identify both visually and descriptively the cat­ egories of engraved gems, coins, vases, vedutas, statues, hermai, reliefs and the topography of Rome, have been in existence since the sixteenth century,8 and have thus created collections of antiquities in paper form. The visualisation of preserved artefacts has, of course, the advantage of being based on existing plastic models. For the most part, however, the fact that this already involves a media transforma­ tion is overlooked, i. e. the “transfer” from the classical artefact to word and image on paper, which has not without good reason been referred to as “paper archaeol­ ogy”.9 Though art history has recognised images of classical antiques of every kind as an artistic and archaeological source,10 it has underestimated the importance of the description of artefacts of classical antiquity or is even highly sceptical of such philologically oriented revisualisation processes, which are based on literary sources: “Vicenzo Cartari [...] attempted in his work Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi, Venice 1556, to reconstruct images of gods solely on the foun­ dation of classical text sources, for this reason the work is not considered in the context of this book”.11 In the area of painting the Eikones of both of the Philostrati and the Descriptiones of Callistratus, as it were galleries in verbo, but also the rhetorically ­influenced

8  Heenes 2003. 9  McGrath 1962. 10  Daly Davis 1994; Schade 2007; Rombach and Seiler 2012. 11  Translated from Heenes 2003, 131: “Vicenzo Cartari [...] versuchte in seinem Werk Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi, Venedig 1556, Abbildungen von Göttern allein auf der Grundlage von antiken Textquellen zu rekonstruieren, aus diesem Grund wird das Werk im Rahmen dieser Arbeit nicht berücksichtigt.”

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pieces of Lucian and the Tabula Cebetis were especially suited for revisualisation by Renaissance humanism. The epigrams of the Anthologia Graeca, Pausanias’ Periegesis Hellados (Description of Greece) as well as Pliny the Elder’s “history of art” in the Naturalis Historia are more strongly, albeit not exclusively, orientated toward statues and are even mixed with descriptions of architecture and images. Revisualisations of classical ekphraseis began in the second half of the fifteenth century and reached a first climax around 150012: better known ones among them are the Tabula Cebetis,13 the Calumny of Apelles14 and the Hercules Gallicus.15

Revisualisation of Icons Renaissance hieroglyphics is a special form of revisualisation that should not be neglected. The idea that we are dealing with a pure image tradition of classical antiquity,16 as seems plausible at first, is misguided in its basic assumption. The manuscript of the Hieroglyphica of Horapollon, which was discovered on Andros in 1419 and then moved to Florence, is indeed based on an Egyptian pictography of late antiquity. The textual tradition of the manuscript, however, shows not a single Egyptian icon but only a Greek text. The first print editions, as the Greek one of 1505, published by Aldus Manutius, and the Latin translation by Fasanini (1517), prove that we are dealing with a plain text, in which icons are described merely ekphrasti­ cally, and annotated interpretively.17 Occasional hieroglyphical records of classical authors such as Plutarch, Pliny, Plotinus etc. have to be added to this. But here, too, we are dealing with an exclusively written tradition. Original hieroglyphic icons, excepting the ones on archaeological artefacts such as the obelisks in Rome, are not to be found in the written sources at all. For the hieroglyphs of Horapollon the same holds true as for other ekphraseis: they first had to be revisualised as pictures, before they could develop an independent iconography in the Renaissance. Here painters such as Leonardo, Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini are the ones who revisualised hieroglypical signs toward the end of the fifteenth century.18 Eventually, Dürer adds his drawings to a Latin translation of the Hieroglyphica by Pirckheimer in 1512. Only with the translations and editions that appeared from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, the German one by Herold (1554) and Valerianos’s monumental encyclopaedia (1556), did a continuous ­revisualisation of the ­hieroglyphs through

12  Förster 1922; Marek 1985; Rosand 1990. 13  Schleier 1973; Hirsch 2005. 14  Förster 1887; Cast 1981; Massing 1990. 15  Till 1994; Bulst 2003. 16  Heckscher and Wirth 1967, 97. 17  Drysdall 1983, 146–147. 18  Praz 1964, 24–25.



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 33

added picturae become the norm. The Pythagorean symbola,19 20–30 short apho­ risms, which were originally dietetic maxims but were allegorised later on, form part of the immediate context of the Hieroglyphica. Pythagoras, who probably spent some time in Egypt, was assumed in the Renaissance to have verbalized the knowledge of the mysteries, originally laid down in the form of hieroglyphs, which he had ac­­ quired while he was there, “as a verbal counterpart to the Egyptian hieroglyphs”.20 According to Harm, during the Renaissance “the Pythagorean symbola were viewed as verbal solutions of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were understood as pic­ tures”.21 The symbola are here taken as the historical interface between the media. Ludwig Volkmann concludes: “Plutarch’s remark that the teachings of Pythagoras – the so-called Pythagorean Symbols – do hardly differ from the hieroglyphs, may have contributed especially to the inclination of the humanists to put their short sententiae in visual form as well themselves”.22 A French manuscript from ca. 1514 demonstrates the revisualisation of 20 symbola.23 As far as emblematics is concerned Alciato once again takes a leading role: in the fifteenth emblem a Pythagorean symbolon is depicted in the pictura.24 The perceived connection between the symbola and the hieroglyphs also survives in the poetological reflection on emblematics.25 The revisualisation of the hieroglyphs thus played an even more important role as providers of models for the signet and the emblem than objects of art did, because they suggested by their character as open signs the possibility of conveying meaning through allegorizing, and, as collections, offered – similar to epigrams – the basic option for a continuous serialisation.

Classical Ekphrasis and Printer’s Marks As humanists and artists designed new symbolic text-image-creations such as emblems, printer’s marks and impresas, they also used as a resource ekphraseis of classical as well as non-classical origin, i.  e. texts that they generally attributed an ekphrastic quality to. While the first revisualisations of classical ekphraseis in

19  for the symbola, see Vuilleumier Laurens 2000. 20  Translated from Jöns 1966, 12: “als sprachliches Gegenstück zu den ägyptischen Hieroglyphen.” 21  Translated from Harms 1970, 108: “die pythagoreischen Symbola als sprachliche Auflösungen der als Bilder verstandenen ägyptischen Hieroglyphen aufgefaßt werden.” 22  Translated from Volkmann 1923, 6: “Die Bemerkung Plutarchs, daß die Weisheitslehre des Pytha­ goras – die sogenannten pythagoreischen Symbole – sich kaum von den Hieroglyphen unterschie­ den, mag besonders zu der Neigung der Humanisten beigetragen haben, auch ihrerseits kurze Sen­ tenzen in bildliche Form zu kleiden.” 23  Massing 1995, 25–36. 24  Alciatus 1977 [1531], A7. 25  Schöne 1964, 36.

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the ­fifteenth century occurred primarily in painting and corresponding texts that described images themselves, such revisualisations of ekphraseis (i.  e. a renewed transformation from descriptions of images to pictures) are to be found among signets and emblems at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Among learned printers who had connections to humanists or had received a humanist education, and thus had knowledge of classical literature,26 an interest in ekphraseis and their revisualisation arose not only in conjunction with the designing of printer’s signets, but also of title pages. The Basle printer Johann Froben, inspired by the humanist Beatus Rhenanus, commissioned the woodcutter Ambrosius Holbein to picture the Lucian-ekphrasis of the Imago vitae aulicae for a title woodcut. Froben first reports this in a letter of the 13th of November 1518 to Thomas More, using this passage again as an introduction to Ulrich von Hutten’s Aula, a court-critical Lucianian dialogue: Lucianus salsissimus scriptor et inimitabilis facetiarum artifex, in dialogo quem inscripsit περί τῶν ἐπὶ μισϑῷ συνόντων vitam istam aulicam (ut nosti) sic verbis depingit, ut nullus Apelles, nullus Parrhasius penicillo potuerit expressius, quem Erasmi nostri beneficio, Latini maiore pro­ pemodum gratia redditum legunt, quam ille graece scripsit; unde et nos eam picturam mutuati sumus, qua frontispicium librorum, qui typis nostris excuduntur, nonnunquam ornamus.27 [“In the dialogue to which he gave the title ‘The Hired Artist’, Lucianus, a very witty author, and an inimitable producer of jokes, as you know, depicts with words courtly life in such a way that no Apelles, no Parrhasius could improve on it with his brush. Thanks to the effort of our Erasmus it almost possesses greater charm for the reader in Latin translation than when he wrote it in Greek. We have taken from it this image, and we occasionally use it as the frontispiece of the books, which are being printed with our printing types.”]

Froben placed the woodcut rendering of Lucian’s ekphrasis on the title page deco­ rations of several of the works from his press. For the first time it appeared as lower title-page border of Erasmus’ Historiae Augustae scriptores in June 1518.28 Froben and Erasmus’ collaboration resulted in additional revisualisations of ekphraseis. The title-page border of Erasmus’ edition of the New Testament of 1522, which was designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, adorns the Tabula Cebetis.29 Consequently, the illustrated ekphraseis do not only embellish their own text editions. Froben was eventually inspired by Beatus Rhenanus to make use of a further Lucian-ekphrasis for his title frames, namely the Calumny of Apelles (dated to 1517, first used in 1519)30 that has been interpreted as critical of the court, and was well known during the

26  Ludwig 1999; Wolkenhauer 2002b. 27  Ulrich von Hutten, Eines deutschen Ritters Dialog über den Hof, ed. Müller and Schreiner 2008, 24–25. 28  Massing 1987, 217. 29  Hirsch 2005, 184. 30  Bulst 2003, 75.



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 35

Renaissance. This motif then made it, with Cervicornus and Spyridopoeus, though not with Froben, to a real printer’s mark (more on this below). Even though Lucian’s Hercules Gallicus is not among the most prominent ekphraseis, here, too, certain attempts at visualisation can be traced in title woodcuts to works that were pub­ lished in the German-speaking area. In competition to Froben’s printer’s office, the Basle printer, publisher and bookseller Andreas Cratander commissioned Hans Frank to design the Gallic Hercules from Lucian’s dialogue as God of eloquence for a title-page border in 1519.31 Subsequently, this image of Hercules served as a motif for title frames several times: in 1519 for the Dictionarium, in quo latina Graecis exponuntur and for an edition of Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae, in 1520 for Claudius Cantiuncula’s Topica, in 1521 for Johann Chrysostomos’s Opera, in 1522 for Pompo­ nius Mela’s De orbis situ, in 1529 for Isocrates’s Orationes.32 Additionally, Cratander had already used the goddess Occasio, balancing on a sphere, as a printer’s mark several times from 1519–1523,33 which then returns as Alciato’s emblem no. 17 in 1531. A connection may well be possible here as Cratander was one of Alciato’s pub­ lishers in the 1520s, and Alciato owned several editions featuring the signet from his press.34 Thus, Alciato’s remark that his emblems might possibly be of importance for the design of printer’s marks is especially relevant. Some of his emblem-motifs actually do later appear among the printer’s signets. On the other hand, the Hercules Gallicus (emblem 92) as well as the Occasio (emblem 17) can be found earlier on among the printer’s signets.35 Trying to determine where the idea of using ekphraseis for printer’s marks first became prominent, one comes across a group of people – for the signet as well as the emblem –, which is strikingly connected with Basle as an important book-printing centre, and had personal contacts to humanists in Italy, Germany and France.36 Apart from the printers already mentioned, the name of Erasmus of Rotterdam comes into focus, who, with his Adagia, influenced signets as well as emblems, but also contri­ buted his share to the humanist understanding of ekphrasis.37 Among the woodcut­ ters who were needed for the pictorial realisation, i. e. who had had to implement the idea, names such as the one of Ambrosius Holbein and Hans Holbein the Younger come up. The printers thus did not only play an important role due to their educa­ tional background in humanism, but also because they often had to function organi­ sationally as mediators between authors and visual artists.

31  Bulst 2003, 75–77. 32  Till 1994, 257. 33  Grimm 1966, 246–251; Bulst 2003, 111. 34  Wolkenhauer 2002a, 854–855. 35  Grimm 1965, 252; Wolkenhauer 2002b, 296–297. 36  Sebastiani 2014. 37  Bässler 2012, 50–56.

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 Andreas Bässler

Taking into account that Alciato’s first mentionings of emblemata date from the early 1520s one arrives it the period between ca. 1517 and 1523 during which the revisualisation of ekphraseis in the design of signets and emblems seems to become concrete for the first time. While the idea of revisualisation was realised earlier on with regard to the signet, it appears to have been realized more sweepingly in the case of the emblem. The emblems of Alciato probably also utilize ekphraseis more fre­ quently,38 because they already had a “gallery-like” serial- and collective-character. Emblems and signets continue to mutually influence each other in motifs – due to a common basis and idea. A motif such as the Calumny of Apelles thus can be found in both the emblem as well as in the printer’s mark. While ekphraseis are transformed into picturae, they rather seldomly offer already pre-formulated sentential tituli, devices and lemmas as textual bases to text-image creations. This is probably due to the fact that the classical tradition tends to foreground the interpretive role of ekphrasis. Using a term from present day emblem terminology one might suggest that it is therefore better suited for the interpretive subscriptio. Where textual components such as a lemma become neces­ sary they either have to be first carved out of the text as sententiae or imported from other contexts. There is, however, one exception: in contrast to prose ekphraseis, epigrammatical ones with their pointedness are also capable of supplying sententiae or proverbial inscriptiones. In that respect they can be viewed as analogues of the weighty and concise inscriptions placed on statues. In the following two exem­ plary cases of revisualisations evidenced by signets will be discussed.

The Statue of Occasio A prominent ekphrasis of a famous statue of classical antiquity, which caused a long-lasting echo in printer’s signets as well as in emblems, was the Kairos of Lysippus, sculptor at the court of Alexander the Great. Emblems and signets show similarities, but also interesting differences in the revisualisation. Thus, the comparison of both is of great interest. The bronze statue itself has not been pre­ served; merely three ekphraseis from classical antiquity survive as “remains”. An epigram of the Anthologia Graeca (XVI, 275), which is ascribed to Posidippus and can be roughly dated to 270 BC, is fairly contemporary to the creation of Lysip­ pus’s statue. εἰς ἄγαλμα τοῦ καιροῦ a. τίς πόθεν ὁ πλάστης; b. Σικυώνιος. a. οὔνομα δὴ τίς; b. Λύσιππος. a. σὺ δὲ τίς; b. καιρὸς ὁ πανδαμάτωρ.

38  Bässler 2012.



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 37

a. τίπτε δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἄκρα βέβηκας; b. ἀεὶ τροχάω. a. τί δὲ ταρσοὺς ποσσὶν ἔχεις διφυεῖς; b. Ἵπταμ᾽ ὑπηνέμιος. a. χειρὶ δὲ δεξιτερῇ τί φέρεις ξυρόν; b. ἀνδράσι δεῖγμα, ὡς ἀκμῆς πάσης ὀξύτερος τελέθω. a. ἡ δὲ κόμη, τί κατ᾽ ὄψιν; b. Ὑπαντιάσαντι λαβέσθαι. a. νὴ Δία, τἀξόπιθεν δ᾽ εἰς τί φαλακρὰ πέλει; b. τὸν γὰρ ἅπαξ πτηνοῖσι παραθρέξαντά με ποσσὶν οὔτις ἔθ᾽ ἱμείρων δράξεται ἐξόπιθεν. a. τοὔνεχ᾽ ὁ τεχνίτης σε διέπλασεν; b. εἵνεκεν ὑμέων, ξεῖνε: καὶ ἐν προθύροις θῆκε διδασκαλίην. [“On a Statue of Time by Lysippus // A. Who and whence was the sculptor? B. From Sicyon. A. And his name? B. Lysippus. A. And who art thou? B. Time who subdueth all things. A. Why dost thou stand on tip-toe? B. I am ever running. A. And why hast thou a pair of wings on thy feet? B. I fly with the wind. A. And why dost thou hold a razor in thy right hand? B. As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge. A. And why does thy hair hang over thy face? B. For him who meets me to take me by the forelock. A. And why, in Heaven’s name, is the back of thy head bald? B. Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes its sore, take hold of me from behind. A. Why did the artist fashion thee? B. For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson.”]39

The bronze statue of Lysippus is additionally described in detail in prose by Callistra­ tus in his Descriptiones (ca. 4th century AD), here probably already in a copy: ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΕΝ ΣΙΚΥΩΝΙ ΑΓΑΛΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙΡΟΥ ἐθέλω σοι καὶ τὸ Λυσίππου δημιούργημα τῷ λόγῳ παραστῆσαι, ὅπερ ἀγαλμάτων κάλλιστον ὁ δημιουργὸς τεχνησάμενος Σικυωνίοις εἰς θέαν προὔθηκε: καιρὸς ἦν εἰς ἄγαλμα τετυπωμένος ἐκ χαλκοῦ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν ἁμιλλωμένης τῆς τέχνης. παῖς δὲ ἦν ὁ Καιρὸς ἡβῶν ἐκ κεφαλῆς ἐς πόδας ἐπανορθῶν τὸ τῆς ἥβης ἄνθος. ἦν δὲ τὴν μὲν ὄψιν ὡραῖος σείων ἴουλον καὶ ζεφύρῳ τινάσσειν, πρὸς ὃ βούλοιτο, καταλείπων τὴν κόμην ἄνετον, τὴν δὲ χρόαν εἶχεν ἀνθηρὰν τῇ λαμπηδόνι τοῦ σώματος τὰ ἄνθη δηλῶν. ἦν δὲ Διονύσῳ κατὰ τὸ πλεῖστον ἐμφερής: τὰ μὲν γὰρ μέτωπα χάρισιν ἔστιλβεν, αἱ παρειαὶ δὲ αὐτῷ εἰς ἄνθος ἐρευθόμεναι νεοτήσιον ὡραίζοντο ἐπιβάλλουσαι τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἁπαλὸν ἐρύθημα, εἱστήκει δὲ ἐπί τινος σφαίρας ἐπ᾽ ἄκρων τῶν ταρσῶν βεβηκὼς ἐπτερωμένος τὼ πόδε. ἐπεφύκει δὲ οὐ νενομισμένως ἡ θρίξ, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ μὲν κόμη κατὰ τῶν ὀφρύων ἐφέρπουσα ταῖς παρειαῖς ἐπέσειε τὸν βόστρυχον, τὰ δὲ ὄπισθεν ἦν τοῦ Καιροῦ πλοκάμων ἐλεύθερα μόνην τὴν ἐκ γενέσεως βλάστην ἐπιφαίνοντα τῆς τριχός. [“On the statue of Opportunity at Sicyon. I desire to set before you in words the creation of Lysippus also, the most beautiful of statues, which the artist wrought and set up for the Sicyonians to look upon. Opportunity was represented in a statue of bronze, in which art vied with nature. Opportunity was a youth, from head to foot resplendent with the bloom of youth. He was beautiful to look upon as he waved his downy beard and left his hair uncon­ fined for the south wind to toss wherever it would; and he had a blooming complexion, showing by its brilliancy the bloom of his body. He closely resembled Dionysus; for his fore­ head glistened with graces, and his cheeks, reddening to youthful bloom, were radiantly

39  Anthologia Graeca 16,275 (Posidippus), ed. and tr. Paton 1953, 324–325.

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beautiful, conveying to the beholder’s eye a delicate blush. And he stood poised on the tips of his toes on a sphere, and his feet were winged. His hair did not grow in the customary way, but its locks, creeping down over the eyebrows, let the curl fall upon his cheeks, while the back of the head of Opportunity was without tresses, showing only the first indications of sprouting hair.”]40

In classical antiquity, an important third one joins the two ekphraseis: a Latin epigram by the Roman poet Ausonius (4th century AD), who is strongly influenced by the Greek anthology and imitates some of the epigrams. In simulacrum occasionis et paenitentiae Cuius opus? Phidiae: qui signum Pallados, eius  Quique Iovem fecit; tertia palma ego sum. Sum dea quae rara et paucis occasio nota.  Quid rotulae insistis? Stare loco nequeo. Quid talaria habes? Volucris sum. Mercurius quae  Fortunare solet, trado ego, cum volui. Crine tegis faciem. cognosci nolo. Sed heus tu  Occipiti calvo es? Ne tenear fugiens. Quae tibi iuncta comes? Dicat tibi. Dic rogo, quae sis.  Sum dea, cui nomen nec Cicero ipse dedit. Sum dea, quae factique et non facti exigo poenas,  nempe ut paeniteat. Sic METANOEA vocor. Tu modo dic, quid agat tecum, quandoque volavi,  haec manet; hanc retinent, quos ego praeterii. Tu quoque dum rogitas, dum percontando moraris,  elapsam dices me tibi de manibus. [“For a Figure of Opportunity and Regret// Whose work art thou? Pheidias’s: his who made Pallas’ statue, who made jove’s: his third masterpiece am I. I am a goddess seldom found and known to few, Opportunity my name. Why stand’st thou on a wheel? I cannot stand still. Why wearest thou winged sandals? I am ever flying. The gifts which Mercury scatters at random I bestow when I will. Thou coverest thy face with thy hair. I would not be reco­ gnised. But – what! – art thou bald at the back of thy head? That none may catch me as I flee. Who is she who bears thee company? Let her tell thee. Tell me, I beg, who thou art. I am a goddess to whom not even Cicero himself gave a name. I am a goddess who exacts penalties for what is done and what undone, to cause repentance. So I am called Metanoea. Do thou now tell me what does she along with thee? When I have flown away she remains: she is retained by those I have passed by. Thou also whilst thou keepest asking, whilst thou tarriest with questioning wilt say that I have slipped away out of thy hands.”]41

In Posidippus’ epigram the dialogue climaxes pointedly in the last verse: only there does the reader get to know who is talking to whom and where the conversation is

40  Callistr. Stat. 6, ed. and tr. Fairbanks 2000, 395–397. 41  Aus. Epigr. 33, ed. and tr. White 1985, 174–177.



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 39

taking place. The statue is situated in an entrance hall and has a conversation with a passing stranger. Ausonius extends the dialogue into a “trialogue”: apart from Occasio also Metanoia, repentance, enters into the dialogue with the observer. It is rather improbable that Ausonius was here describing a sculptural group by Phidias that actually existed at one time because nothing else is known of such a work of the sculptor42; it is much more probable that he created an imaginary ekphrasis in imi­ tation and variation of Posidippus, a practice not uncommon in classical antiquity. Around 1500, the above-mentioned epigram belonged to the most popular ones from the Anthology. It was translated many times, among others by Thomas More in his Epigrammata of 1518.43 It also became a popular object of philological interest and commentary, with humanist philologists acting as mediators between the clas­ sical sources and their visual realisations, compiling, comparing, commenting and reviewing the ekphrastic records.44 In conjunction with this new humanistic recep­ tion Politian’s Miscellanea of 1489, which also play an important role in the history of philology, should be mentioned above all others. He has included the poem in his commentary and contrasted it comparatively with the two other preserved ek­­ phraseis under the title: Contentio epigrammatum Graeci Posidippi et Latini Ausonii super Occasionis imagine tum pulcherrima ecphrasis Graeci Callistrati.45 The lemma Nosce tempus as it was first to be found in the 1508 edition of Erasmus’ voluminous collection of proverbs, his Adagia, proves dependent on Politian. Erasmus mentions Politian as his source, translates the epigram of Posidippus and places the one by Ausonius next to it, which he understands as dependent on the Greek model. In doing so, he notes differences between the two, especially, of course, that the Greek god of opportunity is male.46 The philologists were indeed aware of the fact that, in spite of the similarities, a variation in the attributes of the divine personification of oppor­ tunity already existed in classical antiquity. Alciato’s knowledge of Politian’s writing is likely, but it is certain that he knew Erasmus’ Adagia.47 The Selecta Epigrammata Graeca of 1529 gathers nearly all the relevant humanist parties interested in the poem: the Greek Kairos poem is first followed by the Latin translation by Erasmus, then the one by More, in-between Ausonius, until at last the circle is completed by a transla­ tion of Cornarius and the one by Alciato (Selecta Epigrammata Graeca Latine versa, ed. Alciatus et al. 1529, 372–375). Signets as well as emblems subject the Greek god Kairos to a gender transfor­ mation. Lysippus’ statue turns into the Roman goddess Occasio probably echoing

42  Rüdiger 1966, 129. 43  Bradner and Lynch 1953, 99. 44  Pastore Stocchi 2004, 139–164. 45  Politianus 1489, cap. 49. 46  Erasm. Adag. 670, ed. van Poll-van de Lisdonk and Cytowska 1998, 195–198. 47  Rüdiger 1966, 142–143.

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Ausonius. Here, the supposed reconstruction of the original artefact from classical antiquity is interpreted rather freely – the actual work of art is neglected in favour of a generalising symbolism. While the subscription of Alciato’s emblem transformed Posidippus’ poem into Latin, the signets are more enigmatic. All they offer is a gnomic sententia. Tracing back the signet to the classical ekphrasis requires much more expertise. Despite of the tendency towards a Latinisation of culture, printer’s signets preserve their Greek heritage when they place a gnomic motto, giving it in the Greek language and thus, as it were, acknowledging its origin in the Greek ekphrasis. In the signet of the Cologne printer Eucharius Cervicornus (1517) one can accordingly see a female Occasio with long hair covering her face, a bald back of the head, a razor blade, winged feet, balancing on a cartwheel, but equipped with the Greek device “Γνϖθι Καιρόν” [= know the opportunity] (Figure 1).48

Figure 1: Aldus Manutius: De litteris Graecis, Cologne, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1517.

The female Occasio with a Kairos-device! The Greek god Kairos has at least been preserved in the motto, even though the pictura clearly shows a female Occasio. The question of the speech situation that characterizes these gnomic sentences is also intriguing. If one does presuppose the epigram, the statue itself would be talking to a passing traveller and observer. Accordingly, the gnomic sentence of the signet could quite possibly come from the mouth of the depicted statue of Occasio. It would then, with the imperative character of the gnomic sententia evident, be addressed to the reader and observer, especially as the motto is added in on head level, and the statue even seems to point into the direction of the lemma with her index finger. It is, so to

48  Grimm 1965, 244–246.



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

 41

speak, a gestural nota bene, comparable to the recurrent hands in the marginalia of printed texts, which literally point towards the remarkable and noteworthy within the text: the digitus argumentalis. There is one respect in which the printer’s marks are more exact in their recon­ structive efforts in regard to the statue than the emblems. Posidippus gives Sicyon as the hometown for the artist Lysippus; for Callistratus it is even the place in which the statue was located. It has been suggested in research that the statue really stood in Pella, the residence of Alexander the Great who was a patron of the artist. It remains unclear how Grimm could arrive at the conclusion that Posidippus’ poem would call the place where the conversation between the traveller and the statue takes place a “palaestra in Olympia”.49 Probably he contaminated different sources here for although Pausanias mentions a Kairos altar, which was erected in close proximity of the stadium in Olympia, there is no indication that this would have been Lysippus’ famous statue: Quite close to the entrance to the stadium are two altars; one they call the altar of Hermes of the Games, the other the altar of Opportunity. I know that a hymn to Opportunity is one of the poems of Ion of Chios; in the hymn Opportunity is made out to be the youngest child of Zeus.50

In the epigram, in any case, the statue itself mentions an entrance hall (προθύροις) as its location. In his emblem, Alciato translated this into Latin as pergula aperta.51 In the first edition of his emblem book of 1531, however, the Occasio is now represented as hovering freely above the sea, and other emblematists such as Corrozet subsequently position her on the sea as well. This takes something away of the statuary charac­ ter of the Occasio. Here, the printer’s marks orientate themselves much more pre­ cisely on the classical model52: they show the Occasio – as befits a statue – within an architectural frame, mostly between two columns, above which often an arc rises. An open landscape offers itself to the eye of the beholder in the background, giving the impression that he was looking from the inside to the outside. The statue is placed, as it were, in an open atrium of columns or a kind of arcade walk, possibly in the style of Renaissance courtyards of statues, or gardens of Antiquities. Cervicornus seems to be the one who most clearly indicates something like a pedestal on which the statue is standing, even though the pedestal is crowned with the wheel. She stands in front of an aedicula in an architectural alcove in Cratander’s signet in 1535, here, however, not on a pedestal but on a sphere. Only much later signets, like the ones of the Frankfurt printer Nicolaus Bassaeus from the 1570s to the 1590s, seem to be influenced more strongly by emblems in their positioning of Occasio on the sea. The statue of Occasio on the sea displays an

49  Translated from Grimm 1965, 242: “Palästra in Olympia.” 50  Pausanias 5,14,9, ed. Jones and Ormerod 1955, 463. 51  Alciatus 1977 [1531], A8. 52  Wolkenhauer 2002b, 216–225.

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 Andreas Bässler

effective syncretic crossing with the Fortuna tradition, since the inconstant sea with its incessant up and down can be viewed as a symbolic embodiment of the fickle goddess of fortune. The Occasio-signet thus combines in an ideal manner the learned background, the familiarity of the proverb, and the ease of recognizing a verbal image with the appellative character of a gnomic sentence.

Lucian’s Calumny of Apelles Guarino Guarini discovered a manuscript with works by Lucian in Constanti­nople around 1400, and was the first among the humanists to translate the Calumny of Apelles into Latin.53 A first edition of the dialogues and speeches of Lucian was ­published in Florence in 1470, the editio princeps of his works in 1496.54 In 1506 the important rendition of Lucian into Latin by Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More was printed by Badius in Paris. The significance of Lucian for the humanists can also be gathered from the quick succession of translations into the vernaculars. As early as 1435/1436, Leon Battista Alberti used Lucian’s Calumny of Apelles in his treatise on art and painting, De pictura, to “remind the painters that their attentiveness should be centred on the creation of such inventions” [quo pictores admoneantur eiusmodi inventionibus fabricandis advigilare oportere].55 Ekphraseis are recommended to paint­ers as sources of pictorial motifs.56 Alberti’s appeal to the painters to use clas­ sical ekphraseis only yielded noteworthy results nearly half a century later. The first verified visual appearance of the Calumny of Apelles is in 1470/1472 in a miniature of a manuscript, a translation of the Lucian text by Bartolomeo Fontio for the Duke Ercole d’Este.57 A somewhat broader range of the reception of the pictorial motif started with Botticelli’s painting (1494/1495). Visualisations accompany the text, in panel paint­ ings, murals, especially in council halls, on maiolica, in the form of woodcuts and engravings. Juridical interpretations of this ekphrasis, and interpretations with a court-critical tendency are quite common and are subsequently to be found in corre­ sponding contexts of the time. The visualisation had already established itself by the time the Antwerp printer Wilhelm Spyridopoeus formed a printer’s mark out of it from 1536 onwards, which appears, e. g., in a Lucian edition. In the same year the printer Eucharius Cervicornus adopted the ekphrasis as his printer’s mark (Figure 2).

53  Altrocchi 1921, 454–491. 54  Massing 1990, 469–474. 55  Alberti, De pictura, ed. and tr. Bätschmann and Schäublin 2000, 294: “den Malern in Erinnerung, dass sie ihre Achtsamkeit auf die Herstellung solcher Erfindungen richten müssen”. 56  Alberti, De pictura, ed. and tr. Bätschmann and Schäublin 2000, 297. 57  Massing 1990, 47.



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 43

Figure 2: Johannes Dryander: Anatomiae pars prior, Marburg: Eucharius Cervicornus, 1537.

Dürer’s study for a mural for the Nuremberg council hall can be seen as a direct iconographical influence on the signet.58 The variations of the signet as compared to other kinds of visualisations are interesting. In Lucian’s text a painting by Apelles is described, which features ten figures, i. e. personifications.59 In revisualisations by painters the setting is mostly transported into a more or less architecturally designed interior of a royal court in which King Ptolemy receives the arrivals as a judge. As we are dealing with a multi-figured scene, such a visualisation in a panel painting would seem adequate. In Corrozet’s emblem, by contrast, the group of figures already appears to be very much squeezed into the picture; it only shows five figures, some, as the invidia, are missing.60 In Cervicornus’ signet, the process of concentration goes further, and leads to two figures only: Calumny, on the one hand, and on the other, the figure of the slandered person who is seized by his shock of hair and identified as a young man. The group of two is vaguely situated in the open air. The reduc­ tion from the many-figured scene to a constellation of only two figures results in a representation – comparable to that of the Occasio-signet – that is more similar to a statuary group. Such a medial change from the figure in a painting to a statue would be nothing unusual. Lucian’s Gallic Hercules, too, originally depicted as a figure in a

58  Wolkenhauer 2002b, 368. 59  Lukian, Cal. 4–5, ed. Harmon 1995, 365–367. 60  Henkel & Schöne 1996, 1573.

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 Andreas Bässler

painting, did sometimes appear as a statuary Hercules during the Renaissance.61 And vice versa: pictures and drawings of statues are certainly not uncommon in the early sixteenth century. A further aspect shows a certain closeness to the Occasio-signet. The figure of Calumny does bear the typical attribute of the long torch, but another very untypical attribute has been added to it, which does not appear in the classi­ cal ekphrasis. This is certainly in keeping with the Renaissance custom to introduce innovations and variations, rather than pictorially realising the text in a sacrosanct manner: Calumny here balances on an imperial orb topped with a cross. This is not based on the text of the original ekphrasis, nor can it be found among the attributes of Calumny elsewhere. Such a balancing act on a (terrestrial) sphere is, however, entirely in accord with the tradition of Fortuna or, as has been shown, of Occasio, i. e. Kairos, and other personifications of symbolic picturae. Since Cervicornus had already refer back to a classical ekphrasis for his Occasio-signet in 1517, an analogous positioning of Calumny would perhaps not have been be surprising, but his Occasio does balance on a wheel and not, as Cratander’s, on a sphere. The pictorial figures in drawings, engravings, and woodcuts of the Calumny of Apelles, such as those by Girolamo Mocetto (ca. 1500) and Ambrosius Holbein (1523), are often identified by corresponding inscriptions, which also facilitates the identifi­ cation of the entire subject matter. But it should not be forgotten that the iconography of the scene at this point in time could already look back on a 70-year-old tradition, which, one may assume, closely controlled the recognisability of the depicted scene. Occasionally, and in keeping with that tradition, the title of the ekphrasis is given as the caption of the pictorial representation. Our signet follows this tradition in the naming of the image figures by means of tituli, but it does not give the title of the ekphrasis, because it, of course, lacks a sentential structure. While the proverbial didactic warning of the Occasio-signet – “seize opportunity with both hands”62 – does offer itself naturally, for the Apelles-signet of Cervicornus a concise sententia – Nullum adversus sycophantae morsum remedium – first has to be carved out of the theme of the text itself. While signets are to be tailor-made individually for specific persons, this is not the case with emblems. Since they are more easily generalized they can also be more easily transported from one context into another. However, both signets discussed in this paper were, in keeping with emblematic practice, adopted by one printer from the other. Individualising interpretations can, of course, be controlled by appropriate textual components like the tituli, but an identical pictorial subject is rather harmful to the idea of the unique trademark.

61  Bulst 2003, 96–100. 62  The proverbial German expression ‘Ergreife die Gelegenheit beim Schopfe!’ can be translated literally as ‘Grab opportunity by the hair!’



Ekphrasis and Printer’s Signets 

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List of Illustrations Figure 1: Aldus Manutius: De litteris Graecis, Cologne, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1517. Figure 2: Johannes Dryander: Anatomiae pars prior, Marburg: Eucharius Cervicornus, 1537.

Bibliography Alciatus, Andreas, Ottmar Luscinius & Janus Cornarius, eds., Selecta Epigrammata Graeca Latine uersa, ex septem Epigrammatum Graecorum libris. Basle: Ex aedibus Io. Bebelii, 1529. Alciatus, Andreas, Emblematum liber. Mit Holzschnitten von Jörg Breu. Augsburg: H. Steyner, 1531. (Reprint: Hildesheim & New York: Olms, 1977). Altrocci, Rudolph, “The Calumny of Apelles in the Literature of the Quattrocento.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 36 (1921): 454–491. Arnulf, Arwed, Architektur- und Kunstbeschreibungen von der Antike bis zum 16. Jahrhundert. München & Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2004. Barkan, Leonard, Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1999. Bässler, Andreas, Die Umkehrung der Ekphrasis. Zur Entstehung von Alciatos Emblematum liber (1531). Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2012. Bätschmann, Oskar & Christoph Schäublin, eds., Leon Battista Alberti: Das Standbild. Die Malkunst. Grundlagen der Malerei. Herausgegeben, eingeleitet, übersetzt und kommentiert. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000. Boehm, Gottfried & Helmut Pfotenhauer, eds., Beschreibungskunst – Kunstbeschreibung. Ekphrasis von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. München: Fink, 1995. Boriaud, Jean-Yves & Francesco Furlan, eds., Leonis Baptistae Alberti Descriptio urbis Romae. Florence: L.S. Olschki, 2005. Bradner, Leicester & Charles A. Lynch, eds., The Latin Epigrams of Thomas More. Edited with Translations and Notes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953. Bulst, Wolfger A., “Hercules Gallicus, der Gott der Beredsamkeit. Lukians Ekphrasis als künstlerische Aufgabe des 16. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, Frankreich und Italien.” In: Pfisterer, Ulrich & Max Seidel, eds., Visuelle Topoi. Erfindung und tradiertes Wissen in den Künsten der italienischen Renaissance. München & Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2003, 61–121. Cast, David., The Calumny of Apelles. A Study in the Humanist Tradition. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1981. Daly Davies, Margaret, Archäologie der Antike. Aus den Beständen der Herzog August Bibliothek, 1500–1700. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994. Drysdall, Denis L., “Filippo Fasanini and his ‘Explanation of Sacred Writing’ (Text and Translation).” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13 (1983): 127–155. Evelyn-White, Hugh G., ed., Ausonius. In Two Volumes. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1985. Fairbanks, Arthur, ed., Philostratus: Imagines. Callistratus: Descriptions. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 2000. Förster, Richard, “Die Verläumdung des Apelles in der Renaissance.” Jahrbuch der Königlich Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 8 (1887): 29–56, 89–113. Förster, Richard. “Wiederherstellungen antiker Gemälde durch Künstler der Renaissance.” Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 43 (1922): 126–136.

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Goldschmidt, Ernst P., “The First Edition of Lucian of Samosata.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1951): 7–20. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Halsall, Albert W., Art. “Beschreibung.” In: Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vol. 1. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992, 1495–1510. Harms, Wolfgang, Homo viator in bivio. Studien zur Bildlichkeit des Weges. München: Fink, 1970. Harmon, Austin M., ed., Lucian. In Eight Volumes. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1995. Heckscher, William S. & Karl A. Wirth, Art. “Emblem, Emblembuch.” In: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte. Vol. 5. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1967, 85–228. Heenes, Volker, Antike in Bildern. Illustrationen in antiquarischen Werken des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stendal: Winckelmann-Gesellschaft, 2003. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Taschenausgabe. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996. Hirsch, Barbara, “Ins Bild gesetzt – Rezeption der Tabula Cebetis in der Kunst der Renaissance.” In: Hirsch-Luipold, Rainer et al., eds., Die Bildtafel des Kebes. Allegorie des Lebens. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005, 183–193. Howard, Seymour, Antiquity Restored. Essays on the Afterlife of the Antique. Vienna: IRSA, 1990. Hutton, James, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1935. Jones, William H. S. & Henry A. Ormerod, eds., Pausanias: Description of Greece. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1955. Jöns, Dietrich W., Das ‚Sinnen-Bild’. Studien zur allegorischen Bildlichkeit bei Andreas Gryphius. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1966. Landfester, Manfred, Art. “Altertumskunde.” In: Der Neue Pauly. Suppl. Vol. 9: RenaissanceHumanismus. Lexikon zur Antikerezeption. Stuttgart & Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2014, 22–32. Ludwig, Walther, “Klassische Mythologie in Druckersigneten und Dichterwappen.” In: Guthmüller, Bodo & Wilhelm Kühlmann, eds., Renaissancekultur und Antike Mythologie. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999, 113–148. Marek, Michaela J., Ekphrasis und Herrscherallegorie. Antike Bildbeschreibungen bei Tizian und Leonardo. Worms: Werner, 1985. Massing, Jean M., “The Illustrations of Lucian’s Imago vitae aulicae.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987): 214–219. Massing, Jean M., Du texte à l’image. La Calomnie d’Apelle et son iconographie. Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 1990. Massing, Jean M., ed., Erasmian Wit and Proverbial Wisdom. An Illustrated Moral Compendium for François I. Facsimile of a Dismembered Manuscript with Introduction and Description. London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1995. Müller, Rainer A. & Klaus Schreiner, eds., Ulrich von Hutten: Eines deutschen Ritters Dialog über den Hof. Transl. Ernst Wenzel. Kiel: Christian-Albrechts-Universität, 2008. Neuhausen, Karl A., “Die vergessene ‘göttliche Kunst der Totenerweckung’. Cyriacus von Ancona als Begründer der Erforschung der Antike in der Frührenaissance.” In: Schweikhart, Gunter, ed., Antiquarische Gelehrsamkeit und Bildende Kunst. Die Gegenwart der Antike in der Renaissance. Cologne: W. König, 1996, 51–68. Pastore Stocchi, Manlio, “Kairos, ‘occasio’: appunti su una celebre ecfrasi.” In: Venturi, Gianni & Monica Farnetti, eds., Ecfrasi. Modelli ed esempi fra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Vol. 1. Rome: Bulzoni, 2004, 139–164. Pataki, Zita Á., Nympha ad amoenum fontem dormiens (CIL VI/5, 3*e). Ekphrasis oder Herrscher­ allegorese? Studien zu einem Nymphenbrunnen sowie zur Antikenrezeption und zur



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politischen Ikonographie am Hof des ungarischen Königs Matthias Corvinus. 2 vols. Stuttgart: ibidem-verlag, 2005. Paton, William R., ed., The Greek Anthology. Vol 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1953. Politianus, Angelus, Miscellaneorum centuriae primae. Florence: A. Miscominus, 1489. van Poll-van de Lisdonk, Maria L. & Maria Cytowska, eds., Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami II,2: Adagiorum chilias prima. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1998. Praz, Mario, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. Vol. 1. London: Warburg Institute, 1939. (Second edition [Sussidi eruditi 16] Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1964.) Rombach, Ursula & Peter Seiler, eds., Imitatio als Transformation. Theorie und Praxis der Antikennachahmung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012. Rosand, David, “Ekphrasis and the Generation of Images.” Arion 1 (1990): 61–105. Rüdiger, Horst, “Göttin Gelegenheit. Gestaltwandel einer Allegorie.” Arcadia 1 (1966): 121–166. Schade, Kathrin, Zentren und Wirkungsräume der Antikerezeption. Zur Bedeutung von Raum und Kommunikation für die neuzeitliche Transformation der griechisch-römischen Antike. Münster: Scriptorium, 2007. Schleier, Reinhart, Tabula Cebetis oder “Spiegel des Menschlichen Lebens / darinn Tugent und untugent abgemalet ist”. Studien zur Rezeption einer antiken Bildbeschreibung im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Mann, 1973. Scholz, Bernhard F., Emblem und Emblempoetik. Historische und systematische Studien. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002. Scholz, Bernhard F., “A Whale That Can’t Be Cotched? On Conceptualizing Ekphrasis.” In: Arvidson, Jens et al., eds., Changing Borders. Contemporary Positions in Intermediality. Lund: Intermedia Studies Press, 2007, 283–320. Schöne, Albrecht, Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock. München: Beck, 1964. Schweikhart, Gunter, ed., Antiquarische Gelehrsamkeit und Bildende Kunst. Die Gegenwart der Antike in der Renaissance. Cologne: W. König, 1996. Sebastiani, Valentina, “Die kulturelle, geistige und materielle Bedeutung des Bündnisses zwischen Humanismus und Druckwesen im Basel der frühen Neuzeit (1477–1513). Eine Studie zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen Johannes Heynlin und Johannes Amerbach.” In: Christ-von Wedel, Christine et al., eds., Basel als Zentrum des geistigen Austausches in der frühen Reformationszeit. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014, 79–95. Till, Dietmar, “Der ‘Hercules Gallicus’ als Symbol der Eloquenz. Zu einem Aspekt frühneuzeitlicher Rhetorikikonographie.” In: Füssel, Stephan et al., eds., Artibus. Kulturwissenschaft und deutsche Philologie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Festschrift für Dieter Wuttke zum 65. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994, 249–274. Volkmann, Ludwig, Bilderschriften der Renaissance. Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen. Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1923. Vuilleumier Laurens, Florence, La raison des figures symboliques à la Renaissance et à l’age classique. Etudes sur les fondements philosophiques, théologiques et rhétoriques de l’image. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2000. Wagner, Peter, ed., Icons – Texts – Iconotexts. Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 1996. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Druckerzeichen und Embleme von Alciato bis Rollenhagen. Eine Geschichte wechselseitiger Anregung.” In: Harms, Wolfgang & Dietmar Peil, eds., Polyvalenz und Multifunktionalität der Emblematik. Akten des 5. Internationalen Kongresses der Society for Emblem Studies. Vol. 2. Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 2002a, 845–866. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002b.

Luuk Houwen

Beastly Devices: Early Printer’s Marks and Their Medieval Origins Towards the end of the sixteenth century (1592) the printer1 Thomas Scarlet used a device depicting a large bird holding a smaller one in its talons while flying towards a promi­ nent sun on the top right-hand side of the frame with a mountainous landscape in the background (Figure 1). A little earlier Henry Bynneman employed several devices fea­ turing a mermaid rising from the sea holding a comb and looking at a mirror (Figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

A  cursory knowledge of the medieval bestiary tradition would help to identify either device without too many problems. In the Second-Family bestiaries, which are predo­ minantly of English origin, we can read that the eagle tests its chicks by exposing them to the sun and only accepts them as his own when they can gaze at it without flinching: Asseritur quoque quod pullos suos radiis solis obiciat, et in medio aeris ungue suspendat. Ac si quis repercusso solis lumine intrepidam oculorum aciem inoffenso intuendi vigore servaverit, is probatur quod veritatem naturae demonstravit. Qui vero lumina sua radio solis inflexerit, quasi degener et indignus tanto patre reicitur, nec estimatur educatione dignus, qui fuit indignus sus­ ceptione. Non ergo cum acerbitate naturae, sed indicii integritate condemnat. Nec quasi suum abdicat, sed quasi alienum recusat.

1  Unless otherwise stated all printers are London based. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-003

50 

 Luuk Houwen [“And it is claimed that exposes its chicks to the rays of the sun, and suspends them by a claw in mid-air. Thus, if any vigorously maintains a calm focus of vision, a steady gaze at the light cast by the sun, it is judged to have demonstrated the reality of its nature. But the one that turns its eyes from the sun’s ray, is rejected as degenerate and unworthy of such a father, nor is the one that was unworthy in the test deemed worthy of education. Thus, condemns not with a severity of nature, but with a soundness of judgement. And he does not renounce his own , but rejects it as an alien .”]2

The idea was quite ubiquitous and similar accounts may be found in medieval ency­ clopedias, as well as moral-didactic and literary texts.3 Similarly, Bynneman’s mermaid with comb and mirror is almost a stock image in the later Middle Ages and that includes the bestiaries. The latter relates how their song lures sailors to a certain death and exemplifies the pleasures of the world.4 It is only natural to postulate a line of descent for these and similar printer’s marks with animals that originates in the broader medieval tradition, at the heart of which are the Physiologus and the bestiaries. This holds particularly true when the imagery used is very similar to descriptions and/or illustrations found in such texts. If it can be established that printer’s devices are textually or iconographically indebted to such a medieval tradition it would open up the possibility of a symbolical interpretation along Physiologus or bestiary lines of their devices. The aim of this article is to evaluate the validity of such a hypothesis and to shed some light on how printers and stationers in the early period of printing a ­ cquired and used animals in their devices. The scope of this study is limited to English and ­Scottish printers and stationers from 1485 to circa 1640.5 Inevitably, these ­temporal and ­geographical limitations are somewhat arbitrary and at least in part influenced by the interests and expertise of the researcher. On the other hand, when one is trying to evaluate a possible tradition in the dissemination of knowledge it makes sense to limit oneself to beginnings, the more so since the practice of using animal devices becomes increasingly complex and derivative towards the end of the seventeenth century. This is not only true for the fifteenth century as Avis notes when he observes that “[b]etween the marks of Caxton and Faques there is a very wide gulf in feeling, design and workmanship,”6 but the more so for the sixteenth century and later. This explains why I shall be mainly concerned with the earlier period.

2  Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, 166–167. 3  Isidore Origines 12.7.11, ed. Lindsay 1987; Albertus Magnus, De animalibus 23.7 (II.1433), ed. Stadler 1916; Bartholomaeus Anglicus, On the Properties of Things 12.2 (I.603), ed. Seymour 1975; St. Am­ brose, Hexameron, trans. Savage 1985, 209; Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini lines 1311–1315, ed. and tr. Clarke 1973; Odo of Cheriton, Fables, fable 17, ed. and. trans. Jacobs 1985. 4  Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, 179 (n. 285); George & Yapp 1991, 99; McCulloch 1962, 169. 5  This study is based on the material collected by McKerrow 1913. It is supplemented by Ferguson 1958, 201–203, Lavin 1968, 191–205 and a few single finds mentioned elsewhere in the footnotes. ­McKerrow lists some 428 devices, but it should be noted that this number refers to cuts and that ­different cuts of the same device are counted separately. 6  Avis 1964, 23.



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Although the practice of incorporating animals in devices did not originate in England and bestiaries were not limited to England, the latter were very popular there, especially in the thirteenth century, and formed a well-established tradition that helped popularise animal iconography and its interpretation.7 Consequently, if  there is one country ideally suited to bear witness to an unbroken tradition of animal imagery and descriptions it would have been England.

Methodological Considerations Before commencing on the actual discussion of the devices there are several caveats to consider. First, there is the matter of printers, publishers and stationers. It is not always easy to distinguish clearly between printers and publishers and many prin­ ters were both. When it is clear, however, that a device did not belong to a printer, but was used by a bookseller then this fact has either been mentioned or the device is ignored altogether. To complicate matters further, bona fide printers also used the sort of ornaments used by publishers and stationers and it is not always easy to distinguish between an ornament and a device, especially when it appears in a single work only. The complexity of later (compartmentalised) devices creates problems of its own in that it is not always easy to distinguish clearly between which part of it constitutes the printer’s device and what belongs to the contents. Richard Grafton, for example, used a compartment consisting of four pieces which surrounded the title (#92).8 His mark – held up by two putti – appears in the bottom compartment; the ones on the sides seem to go with that, but the one at the top, containing two semi-human monsters with fish-tails and floral arrangements, appears to have been part of a longer arrangement cut to size. Since this is the only part that contains “animals” it has therefore not been considered further.9 What matters to this study is not whether a cut contains animals but whether these animals are part and parcel of the printer’s device. Whether a cut is a printer’s device or just an ornament cannot always be unequi­ vocally be decided either. Animals in coats of arms are one such case, especially when the arms in question are not the printer’s own. A sure sign that a particular cut was really a device and not just an ornament is when it is used by other printers. Devices often passed from one printer to another, whether by inheritance, purchase or other means, and some are known to have had a long shelf-life. Take the griffin device first used in England by Thomas Creede in 1587 (#246). This device was passed on from Creede to his apprentice Richard Field a year later and from him to George Miller and

7  Cf. e. g. Hassig 1995, 1; Clark 2006, 12; Baxter 1998, 147–148. 8  Unless otherwise noted all hashed numbers refer to McKerrow’s numbered entries. 9  See also for example #85 & #86, and #92.

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 Luuk Houwen

Richard Badger in 1624. The last known printer to use it was Abraham Miller in 1646, and thus this device had been in use for almost a 100 years. It will be clear that from our perspective the later use of a particular device is of less interest than its original use, except perhaps when the device is altered as it is handed down, as indeed hap­ pened to one of Henry Bynneman’s devices with a mermaid (#168) which appears to have passed to Henry Denham in 1583 and thereafter to numerous other printers until well into the first half of the seventeenth century but losing the mermaid in the compartment on the way.

Introduction Like their continental colleagues from whom they adopted the practice and, as we shall see, also many a device, English printers used special ornaments or designs to distin­ guish themselves from others. The first device that we know of was that of the St Albans Press (c. 1485), followed shortly thereafter by Caxton’s device in 1487 or 1488.10 As some of the caveats already suggest it is not easy to define what a printer’s device is. What most previous authors agree on, however, is that it is a picture, design or ornament found in a prominent position in a printed book, which associates it with its printer or publisher.11 In these devices the natural world plays a prominent part both on the British Isles and on the continent: plants, flowers, leaves and trees are often represented and so are animals, even if they do not always stand at the centre of the design. The fauna represented is diverse and ranges from the domestic to the exotic and from the mythological to the fan­ tastical. There are the familiar heraldic beasts like lions, eagles, wyverns and martlets; exotic animals like tigers and e­ lephants; a fair number of mythological animals, among them the centaur, phoenix, Pegasus, faun, griffin, and satyr. Among the fantastical crea­ tures we could categorise wild men and women. A wide range of domestic and native animals also make an appearance. Among the former we find the ass, chicken (cock and hen), dog, goat, horse, ox, sheep; the latter encompass bear, deer, finch, fox, hare, hawk, kingfisher, nightingale, owl, pheasant, smeath, snail, stork, swan, toad, wolf. And then there are those that straddle both categories like doves, falcons, geese and swans. All in all, among the 429 devices listed by McKerrow some 70 different animals make an ap­­ pearance, and they do so 280 times.12 This does not mean that 280 devices have animals

10  McKerrow 1913, xi. 11  For some useful attempts at a definition see McKerrow 1913, xii-xiii and Davies 1935, 12–16. 12  This includes the device of Hugo Goes which McKerrow lists in the appendix “Untraced, ­Misdescriptions, and Ghosts,” but which has since come to light, see Scholderer 1947, 74–76. I have also taken into account a device recently identified by Johnston and somewhat misleadingly called ­McKerrow 57a by Shaw, suggesting it is an altered version of an existing cut when in actual fact it is a new one modelled on another; see Johnston 2005, 153–157; Shaw 2010, 468–473. The additions by



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in them, only some 189 do, but in many devices more than one animal appears. Of these animals only about 40 also make an appearance in the traditional Latin bestiaries.13 In what follows only those devices with animals the meaning or ­iconography of which could conceivably be traced back to the medieval tradition will be considered. This means that when the iconography of a particular device belongs to the Renaissance rather than the Middle Ages, even when the animal concerned is sometimes also found in the medieval tradition, it will be disregarded. This rules out such popular Renaissance creatures as satyrs (#109, #242, #252, #254), fauns (#147, #196), sea-goats or capricorni (#249), and Pegasuses (#87, #316, #317, #318), none of which are present in the bestiaries or feature large in medieval iconography. The same applies to a large number of serpents and snakes that coil around anchors (#176, #178; #335, #366, #390) – a device first used by the Geneva printer Jean Crespin; make up the caduceus with its associations with Mercury and trade and commerce (with or without cornucopias) (#112ab, #273, #316, #317, #318, #402, #403), are coiled around hands emerging from clouds (#355, #370), or around rods held by hands emerging from clouds (#340). It also applies to such emblematic devices as Bellerophon defeating the chimaera (#117)14; a palm tree at the foot of which crawl serpents and toads and the motto “Il vostro malignare non giova nvlla” [“Your malig­ nity will gain nothing”], used by John Wolfe in some of his Italian books with fictitious imprints (#226)15; Triptolemus or Demeter steering a carriage drawn by dragons (#188); Britannia (?) with two horses which may have alluded to the printer Nicholas England (#138); Mercury’s winged hat on a caduceus with two cornucopias and a sea-scape, used by the Eliot’s Court printing house in London (#293)16; Jove seated on an eagle wielding a thunderbolt with two oak trees in the background, the device of the printer Nicholas

Ferguson do not add any more devices but merely extend the number of texts in which McKerrow’s ­devices are found: Ferguson 1958, 201–203. The 70 different animals do not refer to species but to types (as in types and tokens), hence the mermaid and merman are two different types; similarly, sheep, ram and lamb are counted separately. 13  Those traditionally subdivided into four “Families” and associated with northwestern Europe and especially England. For a discussion and classification see Clark 2006, 1 and Baxter 1998, chapters 1 and 3. 14  Not “a cut of St George and the Dragon” (pace McKerrow), even if William Powell printed in Fleet Street at the sign of St George and the device closely imitates its iconography. The device is very ­similar to an emblem in Alciati’s Emblemata (1550); see Henkel & Schöne 1996, 1661. 15  The device is quite similar to no. 9 in Adrianus Junius’s Emblemata (1569); see Henkel & Schöne 1996, 195. Peter S. Donaldson suggests it may have been cut specifically for Wolfe’s print of Machiavel­ li’s Il principe in which it is used for the first time, and more particularly to echo the preface in which Machiavelli’s bad reputation is attributed to slander. The palm, he notes, represents eternal memory which “rises above venom and calumny”: Donaldson 1988, 94. He does not address the fact that the cut appears in two other books printed by Wolfe and was subsequently passed to Adam Islip who also used it on a few occasions. 16  Quite similar to emblem 65 Virtuti Fortuna comes [“Fortune, the companion of virtue”] in the 1567 Frankfurt edition of Alciati which includes a sea-scape; see Alciato at Glasgow; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A67a065].

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Okes (#367); a pair of scales with a leopard(?) being outweighed by a serpent, the whole surmounted by a crowned goose(?) whose beak is ringed, with a cornucopia attached to the pillar, and a shield and helmet at the base, and the motto Quibus respublica conservetur [“The things that preserve a republic”] (#309, #324) used by Adam Islip between 1598 and 161317; and the dolphin wrapped around an anchor with the initials “I D” on either side, and the motto Princeps subditorum incolumitatem procurans [“The prince caring for the safety of his subjects”] (#414), which John Dawson used in some of his books in the first half of the seventeenth century.18 The relative importance of the animals to the device varies considerably. There are devices that only consist of an animal and others where they dominate because they are prominently placed at the centre, such as for example the pelican in its piety, used in several different devices by Richard Jugge (#123, #125ab, #137) and later copied by Alexander Arbuthnet (#225, #228),19 or the swan used by the puritan printer Robert Waldegrave (#227). Yet in many a device the animals are marginal at best, but that need not mean they are unimportant: many a rebus depends for its decipherment on a relatively unimportant animal placed away from the centre of the device. In order to create some order among the animals used by British printers they have been grouped into some seven categories based on their known and perceived sources and use. I have broadly distinguished between imitations of the devices of other printers (34), emblems (10), (pseudo-) heraldry (107), location signs (46), puns and rebuses (37), religious imagery (24), and those for which no immediate source can be suggested (30). Many devices fall into two or more categories.

Imitations As Silvanus Thompson noted in the late nineteenth century, successful printer’s devices were habitually imitated and copied:

17  The emblem appears in Joannus Sambucus’s 1564 edition of the Emblemata; see French Emblems at Glasgow; accessed 24 February 2017 [www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/emblem. ­ php?id=FSAb080], where the opening lines of the accompanying poem explain that it is not enough to “wear the titles and insignia of kings, the crown and magistracies, for the constitution to stand, the laws to remain firm, and the state to be full of fine things” (Non satis est Regum titulos, insigne, coronam, / Atque magistratus gerere, ut Respublica firma / Stet). Unfortunately, the symbolism of the animals is not explained, nor is the choice of leopard elucidated (neither in the 1564 nor in the 1567 edition does it have spots). Cf. also Henkel & Schöne 1996, 1433. 18  The device goes back to one of Alciati’s emblems found in numerous editions. The closest parallel I could find is emblem XXI in the 1556 Stockhamer Lyon edition; see Alciato at Glasgow; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A56a021]. Aldus Manuti­ us also used a dolphin and anchor, but it is not that close to Dawson’s device. For the latter’s device see Victoria and Albert Museum 1962, pl. 6. 19  Cf. #132, which may once have had a pelican.



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Any study of printers’ Marks, however slight, will show that whenever any of the early printers had succeeded in establishing a reputation, his Mark at once became the object if not of direct piracy at least of very close imitation.20

British printers were no exception and several of the English and Scottish devices are copies of those by other, often continental, printers. One of the earliest and also one of the most interesting from a medieval point of view is the device of the Scottish printer Walter Chepman who uses the established image of a shield with his initials suspen­ ded from a tree on either side of which we find a very hairy wild man and woman (#29; Figure 3). Woodwoses do not just appear in medieval romances like Chrétien’s

Figure 3

Yvain or the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but are a regular feature in the margins of medieval manuscripts, on misericords, pilgrim badges, in paintings and prints, on candlesticks and stove tiles, on drinking cups, house signs, beams and playing cards.21 They do not, however, normally appear in the bestiaries or the Physiologus. Although they can be quite fierce, fighting lions for example, by the very late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance they are “tamed” and become almost “noble savages”.22 It is thus that they appear in Chepman’s device, which is a close copy of a device of the Parisian printer and stationer, Philippe Pigouchet.23 A few decades later another Edinburgh printer, Thomas Davidson, also copied this design, though his cut

20  Thompson 1898, 109. 21  Bernheimer 1952, 2; see also the plates following p. 48. For manuscripts see Randall 1966, 16, 17. 22  Malcolm Jones’s term in The Secret Middle Ages, 2004, 64. 23  For the latter see Bernheimer 1952, pl. 48.

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is a lot cruder (#65) and he used two bearded males rather than a man and a woman and included several owls to boot. A little of their wild heritage can be seen in the device of the Southwark printer Peter Treveris (#60) whose wild man and woman are both armed with longbows and arrows rather than set against a backdrop of flowers. A crossbow is placed between them.24 Treveris’ choice of this design was likely inspi­ red by the fact that he lived over the bridge at Southwark at the sign of the Woodwose.25 The “bird of Arabia” as the bestiary calls the phoenix, is always shown with out­ stretched wings rising from a fire in the six devices in which it appears. According to the bestiary when it has grown old it builds itself a funeral pyre and turning “toward the sun’s ray, with a flap of its wings of its own volition, it sets itself afire, and burns itself up”, only to arise from the ashes on the ninth day.26 It is a symbol of the resurrection and is usually depicted gathering herbs or engulfed by flames.27 The device used by Henry Bynneman in the years 1578–1579 actually shows the phoenix looking at the sun in eagle fashion (#203). The device is modelled on one used by Gabri­ele Giolito de’ Ferrari but omits the winged globe and the motto.28 Another phoenix design by Giolito de’ Ferrari is used by John Wolfe (#252). It is a close copy and shows the phoenix on top of an urn with the Giolito initials (“G G F”) and mottos (“De la mia morte eterna vita io vivo” [“Through my death, I live eternal life”] and Semper eadem [“Ever the same”]) supported on the shoulders of two satyrs. A cruder version of this but with the initials replaced by “T O” was used by Thomas Orwin towards the end of the sixteenth century (#254). The mottos allude to the typological interpretation first encountered in the Physiologus. Three other phoenix devices are found in the period under discussion, one was used by Cuthbert Burby (#297), who uses the Giolito motto, the other by Richard Badger (#417), who integrates it in a mag­ nificent heraldic display,29 and the last by Richard Field.30

24  Despite using two males the overall design is quite close to that of Pigouchet and so is Davidson’s tree. See also Avis 1971. Avis discusses a fourth printer, William Middleton, but his two supporters are animal-human hybrids with serpentine tails, not woodwoses. 25  Blayney 2013, 191–192. Cf. also Duff 1905, 158–159. 26  Dum se viderit senuisse, collectis aromatum virgulis rogum sibi instruit, et conversa ad radium solis, alarum plausu voluntarium sibi incendium nutrit seque urit. Postea vero die nona avis de cineribus suis surgit. Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, 175. 27  McCulloch 1962, 160; George & Yapp 1991, 186; Payne 1990, 70–71. 28  “Giolito de’ Ferrari, Gabriele” in Printers’ Devices at the University of Barcelona; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.bib.ub.edu/cgi-bin/awecgi?db=imp_eng&o1=query&o2=exact& x1=IMP&k1=giolito+de%27+ferrari,+gabriele]. 29  For an illustration and discussion of this device see McCullough 2008, 305–307. 30  Field’s device is not recorded by McKerrow, but see Kirwood 1931, who suggests the bird with outstretched wings may also be a “splayed eagle” (26) which would later be the sign of Field’s shop. Since the phoenix tends to be modelled on the eagle in western designs it is difficult to tell, but the bird appears to be engulfed by flames.



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When we encounter the pelican in a device it is shown in its piety, that is, it shows the scene first encountered in the Physiologus where the pelican sheds its own blood in order to revive its little ones. It is one of the most popular medieval images and is ubiquitous.31 The Edinburgh printer Alexander Arbuthnet uses it in two different devices (#225, #228) both copied from Richard Jugge’s devices (#123, #125 respec­ tively), who in turn employed it in several other devices as well (#137, #165, #181). In both cases it occupies the centre of the device and is surrounded by several mottos and adages, as well as his name and initials.32 It is tempting to speculate that Jugge may have adopted this device because he worked at the Sign of the Pelican, but he did not.33 His sign was that of the Bible in St Paul’s Churchyard, an apposite one for someone who was awarded a Chancery patent to print a revised version of the New Testament in 1551 and went on to print a variety of bibles.34 The German printer Sebastian Gryphius (1493–1556) printed in Lyon and adopted a griffin as his device.35 It shows a griffin with outstretched wings looking backward ­ iceronian on a stone from which a winged orb is suspended. It is accompanied by the C motto Virtute duce, comite fortuna [“Good fortune will abide with him who has virtue as his guide”]. The device also appears in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s second book of emblems with the same motto. In George Wither’s English rendering from 1635 (A Collection of Emblemes) the first two stanzas of the accompanying verses shed some light on the symbolism36: The Gryphon, is the figure of a creature, Not found within the Catalogues of Nature: But, by those Wits created, who, to shew internall things, externall Figures drew: The Shape, in which this Fiction they exprest, Was borrow’d from a Fowle, and, from a Beast; Importing (when their parts were thus combin’d) The Vertues, both of Body, and of minde: And, Men are sayd on Gryphons backes to ride, When those mixt Vertues them have dignify’d. The Stone (this Brute supporting) may expresse The firme abiding, and the solidnesse

31  For the manuscript tradition see Randall 1966, 16, figs. 552–553. 32  “Love keepyth the lawe, obeyeth the kynge and is good to the common welthe” and Pro lege rege, et grege [“For the law, the king, and the people”]. These are also copied from Jugge. 33  Three Parisian printers who also used the pelican in their device, all did work at the Sign of the Pelican: Harman 1943, 64. 34  Blayney 2013, 732. 35  Illustrated in Warner 2013, fig. 30; also “Gryphius, Antonius, 1527–1599”, Printers’ Devices; ­accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.bib.ub.edu/cgi-bin/awecgi?db=imp_eng&o1=query&o2=­exac t&x1=IMP&k1=gryphius,+antonius,+1527-1599]. 36  Wither 1635, 139. Cf. Rollenhagen 1613, no. 5.

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Of all true Vertues. That, long-winged Ball, Which doth appeare fast-linked therewithal!, The gifts of changing Fortune, doe implye: And, all those things together, signifie, That, when by such-like Vertues Men are guided, Good Fortune cannot be from them divided.

Gryphius’s device was closely imitated by the London printers Thomas Vautrollier and Thomas Creede (#246, #339) in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although the griffin appears in the bestiaries, few details are offered apart from it being a quadruped with feathers that partakes of the lion and the eagle and inhabits the Hyperborean mountains, details already mentioned in Isidore’s Etymologiae on which this description is based.37 George and Yapp declare that it is best left to works on heraldry,38 where indeed it is encountered very frequently.39 Several other British printers used the griffin as part of their devices, and all depict it in a heraldic fashion. John Skot (#75) uses two magnificent griffins segreant (=rampant) as supporters of a shield with his monogram suspended from a rose tree with a dog at its foot, the motto “A l’aventure tout vient à po[in]t qui peut attendre” [“By fortune all things come to him who can wait”] and his name and initials. It is a close copy of the device and motto of the Parisian bookseller and printer Denis Roce whose name helps explain the use of a rose tree.40 John Beale (#374) uses a griffin’s head erased (with jagged edge of the neck), surrounded by coats of arms41; William Griffith, who in the early 1570s ran a small shop in St Dunstan’s Churchyard which may have borne the sign of the griffin,42 uses three different devices with a griffin passant (#144a, #157, #158). When Griffith was still at the sign of the Falcon in Fleet Street he also used a device with a griffin segreant (#144). The bookseller Thomas Gubbins, who traded at the sign of the griffin in Paternoster Row, used both a griffin statant (#262) and a griffin segre­ ant (#284) and it has been suggested the latter may also have been taken from one of the griffin devices of Sebastian Gryphius.43

37  Isidore, Origines 12.2.17. 38  George & Yapp 1991, 146. 39  Cf. Dennys 1975, 175–176 and London 1956, 17–19. 40  Skot was not the only one to copy Roce’s device; the Spanish printer Carles Amorós also did. For Roce’s device see Harman 1943, #31; for Amorós see Victoria and Albert Museum 1962, #14 and “Amorós, Carles.” Printers’ Devices; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.bib.ub.edu/cgi-bin/ awecgi­?db=imp_eng&o1=query&o2=exact&x1=IMP&k1=amoros,+carles]. Earlier Skot had also used two griffins segreant to support a shield with his mark (#59a, #59b). 41  For a heraldic example that closely resembles this device see Fox-Davies 1985, 167, fig. 421. 42  Blayney 2013, 795. Duff 1905, 61 bluntly states that Griffith printed at the sign of the Griffin in Fleet Street before he moved to the Falcon. 43  McKerrow 1913, #262. If McKerrow has something like the penultimate device listed on the Prin­ter’s Devices site in mind (cf. note 35), I am not convinced because the only thing they then share is posture at a time when griffins passant were a common feature in heraldry.



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Emblematic Devices The earliest printer’s devices antedate the emblem books, but that some cross-fertilisa­ tion would take place between these books and their printers is only to be expected. The earlier account of the griffin of Sebastian Gryphius, which reappears in Rollenha­ gen’s emblem book, may well be an example of how a printer’s device can influence an emblem.44 On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that they may just go back to a shared model.45 The device first used in England by William Williamson in 1573 of a boyish Triton blowing on a conch shell (#166) illustrates some of these observations. In Williamson’s device the Triton and dolphin are encircled by a snake swallowing its tail and this, in turn, is surrounded by the motto “Immortality is gotten by the stvdy of let­ ters”.46 A close parallel to this can be found in Guillaume Rouillé’s 1548 Lyon edition of Alciato’s Emblemata which also has the same motto (Ex literarum studiis immortalitatem acquiri) and snake, but a more mature Triton.47 On the other hand, Williamson may also have been inspired by the device of Jean Waesberghe who printed in Antwerp and Rotter­ dam between 1557 and 1588.48 As one would expect, all devices that resemble emblems exhibit distinct Renaissance characteristics and are therefore not discussed further.49

Heraldic Devices Animals feature prominently in heraldry which by the end of the Middle Ages had not only become well-established but was also pretty much ubiquitous, so much so in fact that it was thought necessary to combat some of the worst excesses.50 Its sophistica­ ted iconographical tradition lent itself well for use in emblems and devices not just because of its iconographical richness but also because it carried so much distinc­ tion, and thus printers (and others) were eager to make use of it. Moreover, when Fust and Schöffer first chose their devices they most likely modelled them on so-called ­Bürger-Wappen, and heraldry has left its mark on printers' devices ever since.51 Heraldic

44  The influence of printer’s devices on emblems is acknowledged by Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010, 112–113. 45  Davies 1935, 89. He adds that “naturally in many cases the later devices such as English [sic] are copied from those of earlier printers and not derived direct from the emblems.” 46  McKerrow identifies the central image as a “boy seated on a dolphin”; since the Williamson cut is rather crude this mistake is easily made. The serpent devouring its own tail can be traced back to the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, a work which left its mark on the emblem books; see Harman 1943, 67. 47  Rouillé 1548, 108. Cf. also Alciato at Glasgow; accessed 24 February 2017 [www.emblems.arts.gla. ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A50a132]. 48  But Waesberghe’s device is mirrored; see Silvestre 1867, #1223. Cf. also Daly 1988, 29. 49  For a listing see pp. 55-56. 50  Wagner 1956, 118–119. 51  Moran 1978, xi.

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animals feature in our devices in a number of different ways and can easily be identi­ fied as such by the heraldic postures adopted or by their heraldic attributes, such as crowns, collars and the like. Coats of arms are used in several different ways. We find printers incorporating the Royal Arms with its three English lions (passant and guardant) quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France into their devices, sometimes as a marketing device, sometimes merely to signal their location, sometimes both.52 The Cambridge printer John Siberch, for example, not only used the Royal Arms in his device (#45), he also printed at the Sign of the Royal Arms.53 The ostrich feathers that feature in the Prince of Wales’s badge are used in a similar way to the Royal Arms (#37, #105, #354), and so is the crowned falcon with sceptre which was the badge of Queen Elizabeth (#401).54 Edward Raban, who printed at Aberdeen in the first half of the seventeenth century, uses the city arms of Aberdeen with its two leopard supporters and motto “Bon Accord” as a device (#394) because that is where he printed, just as Rowland Hall used the arms of the city of Geneva – half-eagle and key on a shield with the motto Post tenebras lux [“After darkness, light”] – as his device and his sign in the 1560s (#136).55 Others ­integrate the arms of their patrons into their own devices,56 whereas still others use their own arms or crests featuring animal charges.57

52  Edwards and Meale 1993, 103, fig. 3. One of the first to use the Royal Arms in this way is Richard Pynson who as early as 1492, 16 years before he became the King’s Printer, used a cut of an angel surmounting a shield with the arms of France and England surrounded by the Tudor badges of the rose and the Beaufort portcullis, and supported by the Tudor dragon and greyhound (#35). For other examples see #37, #105, #109, #116, #115 (Arms of Edward VI), #169, #171, #181, #185, #204, #220, #221 (Queen’s arms), #230, #243. 53  Siberch had another device (#57) in which the Royal Arms is placed in the centre with a dragon and a dog as supporters. A variant of this device, not recorded by McKerrow but found by Johnson, was cut in Paris for books intended for booksellers in St Paul’s Churchyard; see Shaw 2010. 54  McKerrow notes it may just be an ornament. 55  Starting a tradition that lasted almost a 100 years and seems to have ended with Thomas Cotes, in whose device it is but one of several coats of arms (#370). 56  Christopher Barker uses the tiger’s head, the crest of his patron, Queen Elizabeth’s “spymaster”, Sir Frances Walsingham, in different devices (#184, #185, #191, #194, #212); it is also used by others without known link to Walsingham (cf. #296, #323), although in the latter case McKerrow suggest the device may once have belonged to Barker. Henry Denham uses the Burghley arms (#162). Henry Bynneman uses the hind found in the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton as his device (#229). Edward Aggas uses the wyvern rising from a ducal crown (#199), which is the crest of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. John Haviland used the two-headed eagle (#361) which feature in the arms of William Barlow, bishop of Lincoln in a book written by the bishop, but no connection between the bishop and either the printer Haviland or the publisher Law is known, so McKerrow concludes it is unlikely to be a device. Yet it would seem that the printer William White did regard it as such since he copied it and used it as a device in several of his books (#362). 57  Richard Pynson was made King’s Printer in 1509 and was then given the right to bear arms. He  used a coat of arms with three eagles and a crest with a demi-eagle as a device in books



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When heraldic animal imagery does not appear in coats of arms and crests advertising and authorising printed works, associating printers with their patrons or a particular location, or identifying printers or institutions themselves, it is often adopted to complement an otherwise unheraldic device, very often in the form of supporters. Such pseudo-heraldic devices are indebted to heraldry in style and/or execution of the device without actually representing a true coat of arms. In one of Wynkyn de Worde’s devices (#30), for example, William Caxton’s mark is held up by a centaur carrying a bow and a greyhound. This use of supporters is in and of itself already a sign of heraldic influence, but the two animals themselves are also wellknown heraldic charges with which specific attributes are often associated. Thus the centaur often carries a bow and dogs are often collared, just as they are here.58 In all of these cases, though, the animals used are by necessity heavily standardi­ sed and determined largely if not wholly by convention and therefore leave little or no room for additional interpretation.59 The only exception to this are two owls perched on a shield of Henry Middleton (#215). Owls are not a heraldic bird and their appear­ ance on an otherwise pseudo-heraldic device may be explained with reference to their Renaissance rather than medieval symbolism. If owls were regarded as symbols of the Jews and harbourers of doom in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance started to depict them as symbols of wisdom.60

Devices and Signs Another realm in which we encounter many an animal is that of printers’ devices in­ spired by or modelled on the signs used for their shops. Until the eighteenth century

­ rinted ­between 1509 and 1526 (#35). Other examples are George Clifford (#199: wyvern), John Day p (#200: eagle), Thomas East (#206; #209: horse), Christopher Barker (#213: bird), the University of ­Cambridge (#234, #399: lion), Richard Day (#245, #245*: eagle), Gregorie Seton (#261: martlets), and John Beale (#374). 58  Cf. Fox-Davies 1985, 172, 154. Moran even regards the use of the smaller animal charges in some of de Worde’s devices (unicorn and centaur or hound and centaur) as being influenced by heraldry (57). Cf. #19, #20, #21, #23a, #24, #25. Other examples include Walter Chepman’s device (#29) discussed above; Richard Faques (or Fakes), who used a shield with a woman’s head supported by two unicorns (#31a, #31b), and John Skot’s shield with his mark suspended from a tree, surmounted by a helmet and supported by what look like two griffins (#59). 59  Among the heraldic animals we find the heraldic antelope with its serrated horns (#66, #87), eagles (#35, #44(?), #136, #200, #245, #409), the legless blackbird or martlet used in heraldry both as a charge and to indicate difference (#244, #261); numerous lions in various heraldic postures (#63, #153, #204, #215, #220, #230, #234, #240, #399), satyrs (#109, #242, #252, #254), the stag (and hind) (#36, #229), unicorns, especially in the earlier devices (#12, #18a, #31, #56, #66, #374), and two-legged heraldic dragons or wyverns (#45, #155, #199, #373). 60  Rowland 1978, 115–120.

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the poor standard of education and literacy made the use of such signs a necessary, if sometimes quite dangerous, means of identifying and locating particular houses and establishments.61 For a printer it would have been quite natural to imitate the shop sign from which he operated and it might even have made some (commercial) sense to establish a connection between his sign and his device. There is abundant evidence that from the first beginning some printers did precisely this. This raises the difficult question of what came first, the sign or the device. The little evidence we have sug­ gests at least that in some cases it may well have been the sign that came first.62 Several printers used animals also found in the bestiaries in their devices. The stationer Henry Wykes used an elaborate device at the heart of which was an image of Christ carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders with a rampant heraldic lion at the bottom of the frame and faces at the top and on the sides (#153a). Below it all is a small elephant, a reference to the sign of the “Oliphaunt” at which Wykes printed.63 The printer John Windet worked at the sign of the White Bear until about 1589 and, like Wykes, he adds the animal below a framed device showing Time with a wheats­ heaf and a bible (#243). Valentine Simmes printed at the sign of the White Swan and used the same as his device (#303). A cut with a lamb and the text “Sacrifizio Agnello

61  The 1770 London Directory provides numbers for three-quarters of the listed houses whereas five years earlier they had still been rare: Garrioch 1994, 37. See also Blayney 2013, 974. Signs were usually hung far above the pavement and, if badly maintained, could form a threat to the public passing below them. 62  Wynkyn de Worde added a sun (and stars) to his devices after he moved to Fleet Street where he had a shop at the sign of the Sun (#12, #19, #20, #21, #23a, #24, #25, #30, #49), which was subsequently used by a long line of other printers. Henry Pepwell, who printed at the sign of the Trinity in St Paul’s Churchyard, had not just taken over the premises from Henri Jacobi and Joyce Pelgrim, but also their device of the Trinity (#34a, #34b). This device, which features a crucified Christ, the Holy Ghost as a dove hovering above, and God the Father embracing them, was not an original design either, but a Parisian woodcut from a Book of Hours used in books printed by Hopyl and Kerver, and its use sug­ gests Jacobi and Pelgrim tried to find a design that matched the location. Reyner Wolfe, who started printing in London in 1542 originally used a device that showed children throwing sticks at an apple tree. After he had been appointed King’s Printer in Latin, Greek and Hebrew and had moved to St Paul’s Churchyard he also started using his shop’s sign, The Brazen Serpent, in his device in the form of a serpent on a rod, though not exclusively so (#118, #119, #120). That the sign was a valuable asset is shown by the fact that it is specifically mentioned in the will of Wolfe’s wife Joan who bequeathed it to her son, Robert, which also shows that in some instances a sign could be the property of the printer. For Wynkyn de Worde see Blake 1976, 126; Davies 1935, 18, and Blayney 2013, 241; for Pepwell see Plomer 1925, 207 and Davies 1935, 18; for Wolfe see Larwood and Hotten 1900, 7 citing Dibdin. For the use of signs in devices see also McMurtrie 1930, 11. 63  McKerrow 1913, xxxvi–xxxvii, notes that several subsequent printers kept the elephant until it was eventually removed by Henry Middleton together with the faces and the rampant lion in the border and replaced by ornaments, apparently largely for aesthetic reasons. For copies of this device without the elephant, see #153b, #202, #207. Unlike many (but not all) medieval depictions the animal is quite realistic.



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­ alvazione Mvndo” is otherwise unidentified but may allude to the bookseller Clement S Knight who traded at the sign of the Holy Lamb in St Paul’s Churchyard (#371). Henry Bynneman’s mermaid device (#149 [Figure 2], #155, #168) touched upon at the beginning of this article is somewhat puzzling. If his mermaid had only been a mermaid, it would have been easy to dismiss as just one more example of an image that, because it is so common, need not necessarily be indebted to the bestiaries, but it is not. Bynneman’s mermaid also has wings, though no legs, and it is as a siren that the Physiologus and the bestiaries usually describe her.64 The miniatures, on the other hand, sometimes show her as half woman, half bird, sometimes as half woman and half fish and sometimes as both and this is reflected elsewhere in art as well, although the mermaid type is by the far the most popular.65 This raises the question whether Bynneman’s device might not have been influenced by the bestiary tradition and this cannot be ruled out; but what would appear even more likely is that the adoption of this device was motivated by his location, since he traded at the sign of the ­Mermaid.66 So did John Rastell whose device shows a mermaid and a merman holding up a shield with his monogram (#37). Despite the fact that the mermaid is combing her hair, the pairing of the two resembles that of Chepman’s woodwoses and their benign facial expressions and the merman’s lack of weapons underscores a decorative rather than moral function.67

64  Both the Physiologus B, Y and most Theobaldi versions describe her as human to the navel, bird below and so do the Second Family bestiaries. Despite referring to the Physiologus as his source ­Barthomaeus Anglicus interprets her as a mermaid. Apart from manuscript illuminations, the ­mermaid with comb and mirror is also a popular topic in carvings and appears, among other ­places, on ­capitals, misericords, and benchends, to name but a few of the more popular locations. For the Physiologus see Physiologus Latinus. Éditions Préliminaires Versio B, ed. Carmody 1939, ch. XII; ­Physiologus Latinus Versio Y, ed. Carmody 1941, ch.XV; Theobaldi Physiologus, ed. and tr. Eden 1972, ch. IX. Henkel notes that some Theobaldi versions depict her as a fish: Henkel 1976, 125. Cf. also Houwen 1996. For the bestiary tradition see Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, ch. LXX and George & Yapp 1991, 99–100. For the non-bestiary tradition, see for example Bartholomaeus ­Anglicus’s encyclopedia: On the Properties of Things II.1248, ed. Seymour 1975. Mermaids on miseri­ cords are discussed in Grössinger 1997, 140–141. 65  For an overview of the iconographical tradition, see Leclercq-Marx 1997, Supplément illustré. Cf. also Rachewiltz 1987, 93. 66  Maureen Bell notes: “[...] Bynneman printed first in Paternoster Row at the sign of the Black Boy, but by 1567 had adopted his familiar sign of the Mermaid, moving to premises first in Knightrider Street (1568–1575) and later in Thames Street near Baynard’s Castle (1579–1583). As well as his main printing house and shop he rented shops in St Paul’s Churchyard, one of them run by his former ap­ prentice Nicholas Ling also under the Mermaid sign”: Bell 2004. It is interesting to speculate whether the shop sign also had a mermaid with wings, but since the mermaid without wings was by far the most popular this would seem unlikely. 67  For Rastell’s shop sign see Clough 2004. Mermaids and mermen are found paired on for example medieval misericords, but then the merman is usually shown preparing for battle with a shield and

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From a medieval perspective the device used by Richard Faques is very i­ nteresting. Richard succeeded his kinsman William Faques sometime between 1505 and 1509 and moved his business to the sign of the Maiden’s Head in St Paul’s C ­ hurchyard.68 Of the two devices he used one showed a shield with a maiden’s head suspended from an arrow and held up by two unicorns against a background of foliage and flowers (#31a,b). The other replaces the maiden’s head with his initials (#56). The unicorns on this punning device are well chosen. First, because as traditional ­heraldic supporters they help dignify the device. Second, because according to the medieval bestiaries a unicorn could only be captured by putting a (naked) maiden in the forest as bait. Her presence would attract the unicorn who would become docile when it places its head in her lap, allowing the hunters to come forward to kill or capture it. In his choice of design, however, Faques (or Fakes) did what many others did as well, namely copy a device of another printer, in this case that of the Parisian printer Thielman Kerver the elder.69 Another traditional image is that of St George and the Dragon. As a sign this was so popular in London that it was used by three different printers and booksellers at the same time. Richard Pynson resided there in Fleet Street, John Reynes in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Robert Redman, first occupied a premise that went by this name outside Temple Bar, then in St Dunstan’s and finally in Fleet Street itself, no doubt to the chagrin of Pynson.70 However, only Reynes and Redman used St George as a device (#61; #64) and the first was a stationer rather than a printer.71 Redman’s cut of St George and the dragon shows St George piercing a dragon through the mouth with a lance, against a backdrop of a town with a church (Figure 4). That the cut is not an original McKerrow acknowledges when he suggests that it may well be an old block, to which he adds that the colophon with the name of the book and the date is separate from the cut (#64). That it was indeed an old block is revealed by the fact

a club or a sword; see the works by Block 2003, 147; Block 2004, 81; Block 2010, 30, 91; Grössinger 1997, 140. 68  This may have been the same building in which Thomas Petyt used the same sign for some 20 years from 1536: Blayney 2013, 72. 69  McKerrow 1913, xxv. For Kerver’s device see “Kerver, Thielman” Printers’ Devices; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.bib.ub.edu/cgi-bin/awecgi?db=imp_eng&o1=query&o2=exact&x1=IM­ P&k1=kerver,+thielman]. Rampant unicorn supporters had also been used by William Bretton to prop up a coat of arms (#18a). 70  Blayney 2013, 241. 71  Blayney 2013, 241. See also Blayney 2013, 158, 240(A) and Wang 2004, 370–401 (375). Wang notes that since Pynson does not use the sign as a device it “seems to have been for locational purposes only.” He also adds that documentary evidence suggests that Pynson did not choose the sign himself, because the 60 year lease he signed already refers to the house as “the George”. Blayney (2013, 241) does not discuss McKerrow #64 at all, but merely states that “Like Pynson, Robert Redman [...] never used a device or border depicting St George.” Whether or not one regards Redman’s use of St George and the dragon as a device, it is interesting to note that whenever he moved he took his sign with him.



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Figure 4

that it had already been used by Julian Notary in his 1515 printing of the St Albans Chronicle.72 Many a printer combines the location sign with other elements in his device, such as arms, but every now and then a printer seems to have gone out of his way to be as precise about his location as he can be; after all, a mere sign without a street name does not normally suffice. Thomas Dawson is such a printer. His device, used between 1587 and 1607, shows three cranes among a vine (#236, #241) which refers not just to his sign, the Three Cranes, but also the ward or district in London in which this location could be found, namely Vintry Ward. Although the crane is a bestiary bird its iconography there is quite different; most bestiaries depict them in a group resting, with one keeping guard, holding a stone in its foot as surety against falling asleep.73 However, it is one of the commonest birds in medieval manuscripts, it also appeared on playing cards,74 and was (and is) a popular name for pubs. Dawson’s

72  This detail appears to have gone unnoticed by both McKerrow and Wang. Since the latter bases his discussion of devices on the Duff’s list of London printers he only discusses the two St George and the dragon cuts used in books printed for Redman by John Skot, neither of which are regarded as devices by McKerrow who excluded them from his book (cf. Blayney 2013, 241 A). Yet Wang very helpfully prints and measures the St Alban’s cut in his fig. 2, and even a cursory comparison between this figure and McKerrow #64 shows that the two are identical. Wang’s measurements only help to confirm this (67×43 mm whereas McKerrow measured 67×44 mm). For Wang’s discussion of Redman’s use of another St George and the dragon scene see p. 385. Note that although Wang suggests Redman used the image “in his books to represent his own publishing business”, he is probably not thinking of a printer’s mark here, nor is it listed as such by McKerrow. 73  George & Yapp 1991, 124–125. 74  van Buren & Edmunds 1974, fig. 12.

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 Luuk Houwen

c­ ontemporary Ben Jonson makes fun of men who frequent such pubs in Bartholomew Fair (1614): “A pox o’ these pretenders to wit, your Three Crane, Mitre and Mermaid men, not a corn of true thought, not a grain of right mustard amongst them all.”75 The use of shop signs in devices suggests first and foremost that printers were keen on exploiting their locations and this also explains why different printers kept on using the same premises. Then, as now, a convenient location would have been good for business.76 The fact that printers inherited or bought premises with which a particular sign and possibly even a device was associated does not provide us with much interpretative scope though. Even when they were able to choose their own signs to use in their devices they were in practice somewhat limited since, as Blayney puts it, “the majority of signs were taken from a comparatively small number of stock images”,77 and this is borne out by this study as well.78

Rebuses Rather than allude to one’s location, some printers preferred to allude to their own names non verbus, sed rebus in the form of puns on names. Rebuses in the form of canting arms had been a common practice in medieval heraldry and the practice spread beyond heraldry in the later Middle Ages and especially in the Renaissance.79 The oldest animal device thus employed in Britain is that of Hugo Goes, a printer at York at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His device shows a goose-like bird with webbed feet within a rectangular field that also contains the letter “h”.80 Richard Pynson uses a bird perched on a helmet above a shield in some of his devices (#6, #9a, #32, #41, #44). The bird probably represents a finch and thus alludes to the Norman word “pynson” for this bird.81 Ursyn Mylner, who replaced Hugo Goes in

75  The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, ed. Bevington, Butler and Donaldson 2012, IV. 335 (lines 29–32). 76  Not everyone took advantage of this: Richard Bankes (1539–1542) had his printing works at the White Hart in Fleet Street, yet his device is a monogram without any figurative elements at all: Avis 1965, 12. 77  Blayney 2013, 240. 78  There are a few other animal devices that reflect the location at which the printer worked but which do not appear in the bestiary or do not reflect a bestiary iconography. One of these is the bra­ zen serpent used by Reyner Wolfe who named his shop in St Paul’s Churchyard after his device; see Pettegree 2004, and Blayney 2013, 707. Another is the eagle; both Robert Wyer and John Butler used the image in their devices and both follow the traditional iconography of the seated saint writing his gospel with his symbol, the eagle, nearby (#67 & #68; #72). 79  Danesi 2002, 60; cf. also Jean Céard and Jean-Claude Margolin 1986. 80  Cf. note 12. 81  In some versions the finches look more like eagles. See Duff 1968, 168; Avis 1964, 17.



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York, uses a device of a shield hanging from a tree, supported by a bear and an ass (?) with a mill and a sun on the shield (#38, #39). The mill and the bear (L ursus) both allude to his name. On the title page of the New Testament printed in 1549 Reyner Wolfe’s device of the brazen serpent is supported by a fox and a wolf (#120), thereby alluding to both his first and his last name, both of which are also spelled out above the animals. Henry Bell also uses a rebus to refer to both his first and last name with the depiction of a hen, rye and a bell (#386, #388; Figure 5). Richard Harrison’s last

Figure 5

name is signalled by means of a sheaf of rye from which a hare peeps out with the sun towering above (#143).82 John Oxenbridge’s device leaves little to the imagina­ tion (#288, #289), and neither does Thomas Woodcock’s with its magnificent cock on top of a woodpile (#247). Richard Jugge’s is a little more taxing with its incor­ poration of a nightingale in a bush (#181, #182). The reference is an onomatopoeic one in that one of the notes produced by the nightingale (and some other birds) is named “jug”.83 Nicholas Ling’s device of a honeysuckle entwining a fish (#301) can only be (partly) explained when one realises that the ling is a fish found in northern European waters that was eaten either salted or split and dried.84 The halcyon or kingfisher as a symbol of fair weather is shown catching fish in the device of Thomas Fisher (#321), where it is accompanied by the motto Motos soleo componere fluctus

82  Cf. also John Harrison (#275, #286, #319, and possibly #343). 83  “jug, n.3”. OED Online. December 2016. Oxford University Press, accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/101931?rskey=ZgQzv2&result=3&isAdvanced=false]. 84  “ling, n.1”. OED Online. December 2016. Oxford University Press; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/108652?rskey=5VJxH6&result=1&isAdvanced=false]. See also Davis 1987, 188; Woolgar and Serjeantson 2006, 102–130. The honeysuckle has not yet been explained (a shop sign?).

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 Luuk Houwen

[“I am used to calm the raging waves”]. The publisher and stationer John Smethwick uses a framed device of a duck holding a scroll in its beak with the word “wick” (#368, #376) for some texts printed for him between 1609 and 1640. The duck is likely to be a smeath.85 That things can become complicated is illustrated by William Grif­ fith whose name and sign may both be responsible for his use of a griffin in his device (#144a, #144, #157, #158). That his device indeed alludes to his name is made explicit by the fact that the griffin in the device holds a sprig of flowers in its beak, which only makes sense if the flowers are Sweet William (dianthus barbatus) and thus allude to his first name.86 Some of the rebuses presented here are straightforward and allow the viewer to reconstruct the name of the printer, sometimes helped by verbal clues in the device. Others, however, are much more opaque and cannot be deciphered without further clues, and consequently appear to be largely intended for the amusement of their bearers and others who are “in the know”. It may be straightforward to associate a bird with webbed feet with a goose, but a similar looking animal bearing a scroll with “wick” does not automatically result in “Smethwick”, nor does the mere depiction of a fish call to mind the ling. What is most clearly apparent in almost all cases is that whatever symbolism may have been associated with some of the rebus animals in the Middle Ages, their use here is determined by their names. The only exception is the halcyon device of Thomas Fisher. The motto reflects the account of the halcyon found in some bestiaries (derived from a similar account by St Ambrose in his Hexa­ emeron, 5.13.40) that the halcyon is capable of calming stormy seas when it is ready to breed.87

Religiously Inspired Devices When the puritan Rowland Hall adopted the arms of the city of Geneva as his sign and device (#136) he paid an indirect tribute to his protestant faith when he used the arms of the city where he had gone to after the death of Edward VI and where he printed the so-called “Geneva Bible”. After his return he continued to print predom­

85  “smeath, n.” OED Online. December 2016. Oxford University Press; accessed 24 February 2017 [http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/182517?redirectedFrom=smeath]. First recorded in 1622; also spelled “smieth”, “smethe” and “smeeth”. 86  Nor is he the only one; the stationer William Norton’s device depicts Sweet William growing from a tun inscribed with the letters “nor”; Roberts 1893, 89. 87  Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, 174. I have ignored those animals in devices that do not actually contribute towards the rebus. Their function tends to be heraldic (supporters) or large­ ly decorative. For examples see #93, #102, #201, #261, #367.



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inantly religious and theological texts.88 More overt religious references in devices are those to the Trinity, which sometimes includes a representation of the Holy Ghost as a dove (#34, #52). It is also found with the emblems of the four Evangelists in the corners (#16, #33). Another is that of the brazen serpent; Reyner Wolfe makes the reference explicit by printing “NVM” and “XXI” on either side of the Tau cross (#119). The reference is to Numbers 21.8: “And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live.”89 One of John Day’s devices shows Christ rising from the tomb with a palm branch in his right hand, trampling a skeleton and a wyvern underfoot, representing death and the devil respectively (#208). This typological scene alludes to Psalm 90:13 super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis et conculcabis leonem et draconem [“Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon”]. Some bestiaries make the same connection in the chapter on the asp. Here the asp, often with two legs and wings, is depicted together with the enchanter holding a book, stick, or banderole. In a bestiary in the British Library (MS Harley 4751) the banderole in the hands of the enchanter cites the text from Psalm 90.90 This Psalm may also have been the inspiration behind the compartment with the Royal Arms in one of Siberch’s devices, where the arms are supported by two winged boys trampling wyverns (or asps) underfoot (#45). Apart from Jugge’s and Arbuthnet’s device of the pelican in her piety discussed above, we also encounter a reference to the parable of the prodigal son in the form of Christ carrying a sheep on his shoulders framed by the motto Periit et inventa est [“He was lost, he is found”], which both Henry Wykes (#153) and Henry Middleton (#202, #207) used. A somewhat puzzling device which is likely to have some religious significance although it is not yet clear what, is that of a sheep at the foot of a plant around which a scroll bears the words Virgula divina (#223).

Other The somewhat surprising outcome of the attempt at a classification is that there are very few devices with animals that cannot be assigned to one or more of the previ­ ous categories. In a few cases it is not even clear whether the animals in question are part of the device at all. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Julian Notary uses a compartment with his device at the centre where the border is filled flowers, birds, a butterfly and even two monsters in the style of late medieval border minia­ tures (#26). Wynkyn de Worde embeds his device in a headpiece with two birds with

88  Barnard and McKenzie 2002, 738. See also Roberts 1893, 84–85. 89  Et locutus est Dominus ad eum fac serpentem et pone eum pro signo qui percussus aspexerit eum vivet (all references are to the Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims translation). 90  McCulloch 1959, 9–10.

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outstretched wings on either end (#49). A device by George Eld from the end of the period under consideration has two birds perched on either side of the central em­blematic device (#375). Of others the significance is not clear. One example would be the device of Walter Lynne, who specialised in works by continental refor­ mers, which shows a goat and ram facing each other (fighting?) and bearing his initials (#103). It does not look as if it refers to a location though, because we know that Lynne lived on “Somers Keye, by Byllinges gate” and that his works were sold in St Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of the “sprede Egle”.91 Another puzzling device is that of Robert Waldegrave which consists of a swan standing within a border of intertwined snakes (#227). More obviously political is John Windet’s device in which an old man receives gifts from the clouds with two doves at his feet and an encircling motto that reads “Thov shalt labor for”. The doves hold scrolls with the words “Peace” and “Plentie” (#282) that complement the phrase. The significance, if it has one at all, of Robert Ward’s device of a pheasant on a wreath within an orna­ mental frame with his initials on the side (#238) is not so clear.92

Conclusion It is time to assess whether the data presented here bears out the working hypothesis that the medieval animal world left its mark on the devices of English and Scottish printers. Unfortunately, the evidence is far from straightforward. At first glance, it would unambiguously support the view that except for a few solitary animals the bulk of the devices do not serve a symbolic but a more practical purpose. Many a printer is more than happy to model his device on that of earlier printers and some­ times does not even bother to make the small adjustments needed to personalise them, like change the initials. Many others resort to heraldry to raise their status, to flatter their patrons, or to sell their wares. The imagery associated with it tends to conform to the demands made upon it by the conventions of the genre, and this applies equally to those devices that merely imitate such heraldic conventions as the use of shields, charges, crests and supporters. The emblematic devices show even less (direct) medieval influence and appear to embrace wholeheartedly the wonderful world of Renaissance iconography, populated by the creatures of classical mythology who in the Middle Ages hardly played any part at all. The devices inspired by rebuses or shop signs are largely utilitarian; they help identify their owners or the location of their premises and while the more religiously inspired devices might tell us something

91  Blayney 1990, 57. 92  George & Yapp (1991, 157–158) note that there is no evidence that the pheasant was known in Britain before 1300 and none of the bestiaries of the first three Families have an entry for it. It is men­ tioned in the encyclopedias. Isidore merely notes that is named after the Greek island Phasis (12.7.49).



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about the faith of their owners, the animals used to help convey that message are even more conventional than those encountered in heraldry. This leaves us with only a few examples of a possible influence. Yet, even if a more or less direct influence cannot be established there are some areas in which one can get a glimpse of the medieval bestiary world. Although the realm of heraldry is not on the whole much indebted to bestiary iconography,93 there is at least one clear exception to this among our devices and that is the heraldic ante­ lope. According to the bestiary it has horns like a saw with which it can cut down trees but which can also become entangled in bushes. When the animal then cries out the hunter finds it and kills it.94 These serrated horns also end up in heraldry and that is how the animal is depicted in William Marshall’s device (#87). The other field that must have shown such an influence are the shop signs, the names of which reveal that they must have ransacked the natural world and the animal kingdom in particular for names and images. There we also find the sort of rebuses that also make it into our devices.95 Although in most cases it is well-neigh impossible to prove a direct bestiary influence, much bestiary imagery was wide-spread and the medieval tiles, carvings, house-hold implements, stained-glass windows that abound with mermaids, phoeni­ xes, unicorns, owls and the like are clearly indebted to that tradition, to which printers’ devices also bear witness. In short, the bestiary tradition does not appear to have had much of an impact at all at the symbolic level, but left some traces, even if indirect, on the iconography of printers’ devices.96 In short, my conclusion is quite similar to that of Dietmar Peil who examined the possible impact of the Physiologus tradition on the emblem writers and their work and had to conclude at the end of a meticulous study that although some influence could not be ruled out, “[t]he theory that the Physiologus widely influenced the emblematic tradition cannot be maintained”.97

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Device of Thomas Scarlett from the title page of John Norden, A christian familiar comfort and incouragement vnto all English subiects, not to dismaie at the Spanish threats [...] (London: T. Scarlet & J. Orwin for J. Brome, 1596). STC (2nd ed.) 18604. From Ronald B. McKerrow. Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1913), #280.

93  I have ignored so-called heraldic bestiaries here in which descriptions of heraldic animals are given a chivalric “moralisation”. For a list see Dennys 1975, 212–217; they are discussed briefly in Hou­ wen 1994, xviii–xix. 94  Medieval Book of Beasts, ed. and tr. Clark 2006, 125. Cf. also Druce 1919, 64–68. 95  Larwood and Hotten 1900, 5–6. 96  Cf. Harman (1943, 69) who bluntly states: “Thus, the Physiologus, Horapollo, and the emblem books furnished many ideas for printers.” 97  Peil 1996, 121.

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 Luuk Houwen

Figure 2: Mermaid device of Henry Bynneman from the title page of Epictetus, The manuell of Epictetus, translated out of Greeke into French, and now into English, conferred with two Latine translations. (London: H. Bynneman, 1567). STC (2nd ed.) 10423. From Ronald B. McKerrow. Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1913), #149. Figure 3: Walter Chepman’s woodwose device from the title page of William Dunbar, The ballade of ane right noble victorius & myghty lord Barnard Stewart lord of Aubigny erle of Beaumont [...] (Edinburgh: H. Chepman and A. Myllar, 1508). STC (2nd ed.) 7347. From Ronald B. McKerrow. Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1913), #29. Figure 4: Robert Redman, Modus tenendi unum hundredrum sive curiam de recordo. (London: Robert Redman, c. 1527). From Ronald B. McKerrow. Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1913), #64. Figure 5: Henry Bell device from the title page of Henry Greenwood, Tormenting Tophet. Joyfull tractate of the most blessed baptisme. (London: George Purslowe for Henry Bell, 1616). STC (2nd ed.) 12327. From Ronald B. McKerrow. Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1913), #386.

Bibliography Albertus Magnus see Stadler (ed.) Avis, Frederick C., English Printers’ Marks of the Fifteenth Century. London: Glenview Press, 1964. Avis, Frederick C., English Printers’ Marks of the Sixteenth Century. London: Glenview Press, 1965. Avis, Frederick C., “The Wodewose Device in Early British Printing.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 46 (1971): 116–121. Barnard, John & Donald F. McKenzie, eds., The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol 4: 1557–1695. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bartholomaeus Anglicus see Seymour (ed.) Baxter, Ron, Bestiaries and Their Users in the Middle Ages. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1998. Bell, Maureen. Art. “Bynneman, Henry (b. in or before 1542, d. 1583)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/4266, accessed 24 Feb 2017]. Bernheimer, Richard, Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study in Art, Sentiment, and Demonology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. Bevington, David M., Martin Butler & Ian Donaldson, eds., The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Blake, Norman F., Caxton: England’s First Publisher. London: Osprey, 1976. Blayney, Peter W. M., The Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard. (The Bibliographical Society: Occasional Papers, Vol. 5.) London: The Bibliographical Society, 1990. Blayney, Peter W. M., The Stationers’ Company and the Printers of London, 1501–1557. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Block, Elaine C., Corpus of Medieval Misericords: France. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003. Block, Elaine C., Corpus of Medieval Misericords: Iberia. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004. Block, Elaine C., Corpus of Medieval Misericords: Belgium and the Netherlands. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. Buren, Anne H. van & Sheila Edmunds, “Playing Cards and Manuscripts: Some Widely Disseminated Fifteenth-Century Model Sheets.” The Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 12–30. Carmody, Francis J., ed., Physiologus Latinus. Éditions préliminaires versio B. Paris: Librairie E. Droz, 1939.



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Carmody, Francis J., ed., “Physiologus Latinus Versio Y.” University of California Publications in Classical Philology 12,7 (1941): 95–134. Céard, Jean & Jean-Claude Margolin, Rébus de la Renaissance : Des images qui parlent. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986. Clark, Willene B., ed. & tr., A Medieval Book of Beasts: The Second-Family Bestiary. Commentary, Art, Text and Translation. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006. Clarke, Basil F.L., ed. & tr., Geoffrey of Monmouth: Life of Merlin. Vita Merlini. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973. Clough, Cecil H., “Rastell, John (c.1475–1536)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23149, accessed 24 Feb 2017]. Daly, Peter M., The English Emblem and the Continental Tradition. (AMS Studies in the Emblem 1) New York: AMS Press, 1988. Danesi, Marcel, The Puzzle Instinct. The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Davis, Simon J. M., The Archaeology of Animals. London: B.T. Batsford, 1987. Davies, Hugh, Devices of the Early Printers, 1457–1560: Their History and Development. With a Chapter on Portrait Figures of Printers. London: Grafton & Co., 1935. (Reprint: Folkestone: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974). Dennys, Rodney, The Heraldic Imagination. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1975. Donaldson, Peter S., Machiavelli and Mystery of State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Druce, G. C., “The Medieval Bestiaries and Their Influence on Ecclesiastical and Decorative Art.” The Journal of the British Archaeological Association NS 25 (1919): 41–82. Duff, E. Gordon, Early Printed Books. London: Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893. (Reprint: New York: Haskell House, 1968). Duff, E. Gordon, A Century of the English Book Trade. London: Bibliographical Society, 1905. Eden, Peter T., ed. & tr., Theobaldi Physiologus. Leiden: Brill, 1972. Edwards, A. S. G. & Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England.” The Library 6th ser. 15 (1993): 95–124. Ferguson, W. Craig, “Some Additions to McKerrow’s Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices.” The Library 5th ser. 13 (1958): 201–203. Fox-Davies, Arthur C., A Complete Guide to Heraldry. Revised and annotated by J.P. Brooke-Little. London: Orbis, 1985. Garrioch, David, “House Names, Shop Signs and Social Organization in Western European Cities, 1500–1900.” Urban History 21 (1994): 20–48. Geoffrey of Monmouth see Clarke (ed.) George, Wilma & Brunsdon Yapp, The Naming of the Beasts: Natural History in the Medieval Bestiary. London: Duckworth, 1991. Grössinger, Christa, The World Upside-Down: English Misericords. London: Harvey Miller, 1997. Harman, Marian, “Classical Elements in Early Printers’ Marks.” In: Abbot, Kenneth et al., eds., Classical Studies in Honor of William Abbot Oldfather. Urbana, Ill.: Illinois University Press, 1943, 60–72. Hassig, Debra, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Taschenausgabe. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1996. Henkel, Nikolaus, Studien zum Physiologus im Mittelalter. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1976. Houwen, Luuk A. J. R., ed., The Deidis of Armorie. A Heraldic Treatise and Bestiary. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1994. Houwen, Luuk A. J. R., “Sex, Songs and Sirens. A New Score for an Old Song.” The Profane Arts of the Middle Ages 5 (1996): 103–122.

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Isidore of Seville see Lindsay (ed.) Jacobs, John C., ed. & tr., The Fables of Odo of Cheriton. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1985. Johnston, Hope “Catherine of Aragon’s Pomegranate, Revisited.” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 13 (2005): 153–174. Jones, Malcolm, The Secret Middle Ages. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2004. Jonson, Ben, see Bevington (ed.) Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Emblematic Tradition in Renaissance Printers’ Devices in Poland.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2010, 112–135. Kirwood, A. E. M., “Richard Field, Printer, 1589–1624.” The Library 4th ser. 12 (1931): 1–39. Larwood, Jacob & John C. Hotten, The History of Signboards from Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Chatto & Windus, 111900. Lavin, Joseph A., “Additions to McKerrow’s Devices.” The Library 5th ser. 23 (1968): 191–205. Leclercq-Marx, Jacqueline, La sirène dans la pensée et dans l’art de l’Antiquité et du Moyen Âge: Du mythe païen au symbole chrétien. Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 1997. Lindsay, W. M., ed., Isidori hispalensis episcopi etymologiarvm sive originvm libri XX. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911 (repr. 1987). London, Hugh S., Royal Beasts. East Knoyle: Heraldry Society, 1956. McCulloch, Florence, “The Metamorphoses of the Asp in Latin and French Bestiaries.” Studies in Philology 56 (1959): 7–13. McCulloch, Florence, Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962. McCullough, Peter, “Print, Publication, and Religious Politics in Caroline England.” The Historical Journal 51 (2008): 285–313. McKerrow, Ronald B., Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland, 1485–1640. London: Printed for the Bibliographical Society at the Chiswick Press, 1913. McMurtrie, Douglas C., Printers’ Marks and their Significance. Chicago: Eyncourt Press, 1930. Moran, James, Heraldic Influence on Early Printers’ Devices. Leeds: Elmete Press, 1978. Odo of Cheriton see Jacobs (ed.) Payne, Ann, Medieval Beasts. London: British Library, 1990. Peil, Dietmar, “On the Question of a ‘Physiologus’ Tradition in Emblematic Art and Writing.” In: Flores, Nona C., ed., Animals in the Middle Ages. A Book of Essays. New York: Garland, 1996, 103–130. Pettegree, Andrew, Art. “Wolfe, Reyner (d. in or before 1574)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2011 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/29835, accessed 24 Feb 2017]. Plomer, Henry R., Wynkyn de Worde and his Contemporaries from the Death of Caxton to 1535. A Chapter in English Printing. London: Grafton & Co., 1925. Rachewiltz, Siegfried de, De Sirenibus: An Inquiry into Sirens from Homer to Shakespeare. New York: Garland, 1987. Randall, Lilian M. C., Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Roberts, William, Printers’ Marks. A Chapter in the History of Typography. (Ex-libris series) London & New York: George Bell and Sons, 1893. [www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25663]. Rollenhagen, Gabriel, Selectorum emblematum centuria secunda. Utrecht/ Arnhem: Janson, 1613. Rouillé, Guillaume, ed., Emblemata Andreæ Alciati. Lyon: Rouillé, 1548. Rowland, Beryl, Birds with Human Souls: A Guide to Bird Symbolism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978.



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Savage, John J., trans., Saint Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel. (The Fathers of the Church 42) Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985. Scholderer, Victor, “An Unrecorded Psalter of Hugo Goes.” The National Library of Wales Journal 5 (1947): 74–75. Seymour, Michael C., Bartholomaeus Anglicus: On the Properties of Things. John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum. A Critical Text. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press Press, 1975–1988. Shaw, David, “An English Bookseller’s Device Used in Paris in c. 1512: Bibliographical Note.” The Library 7th ser. 11 (2010): 468–473. Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques: ou recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rèbus, et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimérie, en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des libraires et imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française. Vol. 2. Paris: Renou et Maulde, 1867. Stadler, Hermann, ed., Albertus Magnus: De animalibus libri XXVI nach der Cölner Urschrift. 2 vols. Münster: Aschendorff, 1916. Thompson, Silvanus P., “Peter Short, Printer, and His Marks.” Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 4 (1898): 103–128. Victoria & Albert Museum, Early Printers’ Marks. (Small Picture Book 56) London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1962. Wagner, Anthony R., Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages: An Inquiry into the Growth of the Armorial Function of Heralds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21956. Wang, Yu-Chiao, “The Image of St George and the Dragon: Promoting Books and Book Producers in Pre-Reformation England.” The Library 7th ser. 5 (2004): 370–401. Warner, Patrick, ed., Medieval Manuscripts and Early Print Works at Memorial University Libraries: Selected from the Holdings of Archives & Special Collections and the Centre for Newfoundland Studies. St Johns, Newfoundland: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2013. Wither, George, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne. London: Printed by Augustine Mathewes for Robert Milbourne, and are to be sold at the Grayhound in Pauls Church-yard, 1635. Woolgar, Christopher M. & Dale Serjeantson, “Fish Consumption in Medieval England.” In: Woolgar, Christopher M., Dale Serjeantson & Tony Waldron, eds., Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 102–130.

Hubert Meeus

From Nameplate to Emblem. The Evolution of the Printer’s Device in the Southern Low Countries up to 1600 A printed book has two creators, the author, who writes the text, and the printer or publisher, who takes care of the production and distribution. In the early centuries of printing, the printer usually was also publisher and bookseller. Just like scribes, the first printers put their name and address at the end of the work in the colophon. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the custom to add a title page was gradually established. The author’s name was usually quite prominent on the title page; the printer’s name was mentioned in the imprint at the bottom of the page in small type. The information in the imprint was limited to commercial data: name and function of printer or publisher and the location of the shop. In addition, the printer or publisher was often more prominently present on the title page with his printer’s mark.1 The fact that printers from 1500 onwards put their name and mark more often on the title page, testifies to the growing self-assurance about their role in the creation of a book. With the printer’s mark the printer could first of all make clear that he was the manufacturer and also often the financer of the book. The printer’s mark established a personal connection between the printer and his work and it could both serve as a recommendation and as a kind of copyright protection. Because of its recognizability the printer’s mark also had a promotional effect.2 It enabled the reader or buyer to gain an impression of the printer. The printer’s mark also allowed printers to communicate a disguised ideological message by means of an allegorical picture. That the message is not always obvious, is demonstrated by the criticism of the compasses on the Labore et Constantia mark of Plantin by the Amsterdam merchant Roemer Visscher in his emblem book Sinnepoppen (1614). In Visscher’s view, his own picture, a hand-turned auger that goes through a thick beam is more appropriate to this motto.3 The disadvantage that the message may be less clear had for printers and publishers the advantage that they could leave the interpretation to the recipient and that they were less visible as messengers.4 This article wants to show the evolution till 1600 in the way printers in the South­ ern Low Countries used their printer’s mark as a means of communication and to examine what messages they disseminated.

1 Since before 1600 the functions of printer and publisher were often not clearly separated, for the ease of use I will always call it a printer’s mark, although it was very often a publisher’s mark. 2 Grimm 1965, 12, 343. 3 Muntendam 1936; Roemer Visscher 1949, ed. Brummel, 124, “Derde Schock, II”. 4 Stollberg-Rilinger 2004, 506. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-004

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The Printer’s Mark as Identification Mark Soon after the start of the printing press in the Southern Low Countries in 1473 prin­ ters added their marks to the colophon. Apart from Germany, the Low Countries were the first region in Europe where printers regularly used a printer’s mark.5 Two early Leuven printers of German origin, Joannes and Conradus de Westfalia, used a cameolike oval woodcut portrait of themselves, probably inspired by their signet ring, and cut by Conradus.6 However, the use of a portrait was highly exceptional.7 In 1488, the Leuven printer Ludovicus Ravescot used a mark showing a man kneeling in prayer at the feet of the Virgin with the Child, with on a banderole the plea assit ad inceptum sancta Maria meum [“Holy Mary help me in the undertaking I have begun”], a saying that scribes also placed above their work.8 This is not surprising since Ravescot was also active as illuminator of manuscripts and bookbinder before he turned to prin­ ting.9 However, it is not quite sure whether the saying referred to the printer or to the author.10

Heraldic Printer’s Marks Most printers reached for a more widespread means to communicate their name and whereabouts. From the second half of the fourteenth century onwards citizens and artisans in the cities also began to carry a coat of arms.11 Arms not only refer to a name, but also suggest a higher status, excellent quality, durability and reliability.12 It was the strongest visual symbol of a person and it expressed in the most profound way the identity and the inner drive of the owners.13 The German, Johannes Veldener, printing in Leuven around 1480, was the first to use a heraldic mark consisting of two shields hanging on a branch, surrounded with some foliage. The left escutcheon shows his own merchant’s mark, the other one shows the arms of Leuven.14 His printer’s mark clearly imitates the mark of the first printers, Peter Schöffer and Johann Fust of Mainz.15 With their mark the printers

5 Grimm 1965, 23. 6 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 80, 253. Sabbe 1932, 83–84. 7 Grimm 1965, 282. Corsten 1973, 131; Mees 1973, 257. 8 Nielson 1952, 19–20. 9 Indestege 1960, 109–110; Indestege 1971, 16–18; Colin 1999, 356–357. 10 Kok 2013, 464–465. 11 Augustyn 2005, 43. 12 Neubecker 1977, 77; Ragen 1994, 27. 13 Melsaeter 2013, 46. 14 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 73, 234–235. 15 Grimm 1965, 15, 20; Davidson 1996, 41.



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wanted to spread both their name and that of the town where they were working. The use of two coats, of which one referred to a town and the second to a more personal image, corresponded to the custom of clerics and scholars who did not belong to the nobility.16 Already in the incunabula era, Antwerp was an important printing centre. Many printers wanted to emphasize this by incorporating the coat of arms of the city or even a stylized picture of Antwerp in their mark. Local authorities will certainly have appreciated that printers who settled in their town, propagated the name of the city. From 1485 onwards Antwerp printers often added an oversized printer’s mark of one hundred millimeters’ height or even more to the colophon, which almost filled an entire page of an octavo edition. Gheraert Leeu was the first to use such a large mark with an image of the city of Antwerp, with flags of the German emperor, the Margravi­ ate and the city at the towers. Purely personal references were missing here. Therefore it was no problem for Dirk Martens to put this mark on his own editions after Leeu’s death.17 Escutcheons traditionally hang on a tree or a branch,18 but after 1500 all kinds of shield bearers appeared such as unicorns (Eckert van Homberch, Zangrius), lions (Leeu, Kaetz), griffins (De Bonte), savages (Van der Goes, Hillenius), Adam and Eve (De Gheet), putti (Lettersnijder, Van Liesvelt), virgins (De Keysere) and bears (De Croock, De Clerck, Ravescot). On one of his marks the Leuven printer Ludovicus Ravescot por­ trayed himself as shield bearer of his own escutcheon, flanked by a bear with the arms of Leuven.19 The habit of using two shield bearers, such as the two greyhounds in Van Ghelen’s mark, came from France.20 Some printers combined arms of the city with those of the country or with an escutcheon with their own merchant’s mark. Willem Vorsterman used the imperial coat of arms, an eagle with an imperial crown on top of it and the arms of Antwerp in small format on its breast. His later marks show the emperor himself, holding his sword upright. The bear with the coat of arms of Bruges on Pieter de Clercq’s mark is also holding the flag of Flanders in his right paw.21 Sometimes arms were incorporated into a larger picture. In Leeu’s mark the arms are on the flags fluttering on the towers of the city. Van der Goes puts the arms of the German empire and of Antwerp on flags flying at the mast of a caravel, on the one at the stern his own merchant’s mark, and aside from the ship the coat of arms of the pro­ vinces and cities in the North referring to Vander Goes’s origins.22 Printers ­primarily

16 Grimm 1965, 15–16. Some printers came from the goldsmiths craft and German goldsmiths were required to use their sovereign’s mark next to their own. 17 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 34, 150. 18 Davidson 1996, 44. 19 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 34–35,103, 151, 210. 20 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 118–121; Grimm 1965, 23. 21 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 103, 239–249. 22 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 123; Cockx-indestege 1973, 368–369.

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wanted to incorporate their merchant’s mark, a monogram usually combined with a cross drawn as a “4”, somewhere into their printer’s mark. The merchant’s mark mainly had a practical purpose. It was used to mark a consignment of goods, in the book trade usually tons or baskets, but it was not exclusive to the book trade. By incor­ porating their merchant’s mark into their printer’s mark, the printers were able to show that they were also active in the book trade.23 Although words or letters on coats of arms are often considered bad heraldry, there were still printers who designed their own coat of arms in this way.24 The Bruges printer Colard Mansion, who pro­duced luxury books since 1477, used a coat of arms with his initials “CM” on it.25 Printers such as Jean Thibault and Ruremunde put themselves more central and added next to the coat of arms of the town their merchant’s mark on a shield. Matthias van der Goes, the first printer in Antwerp, inserted his merchant’s mark almost ­unobtrusively between the grass below the shield of Brabant.26

The Name of the Printer Depicted Christoffel van Ruremunde put his full name on his mark along with a coat of arms with three lilies and his merchant’s mark. Roeland van den Dorpe also wrote his full name on a banderole on one of his printer’s marks. This is exceptional, because until then printers only put their merchant’s mark on their escutcheon. In the sixteenth century, a lot of printers, however, depicted their name on their mark as a kind of rebus that can often be considered as a pun,27 although it is not always very sophis­ ticated and subtle. A “mol” [mole] on Jan Mollijns’s and a “kauw” [jackdaw] on Jan Cauweel’s mark are very straightforward and will hardly qualify as a pun. The name of the printer is not always the central motif in the mark. Some prin­ ters portrayed a scene from a story in which a character with their first name occurs. Roeland van den Dorpe referred to his first name with a picture of Roeland, the main character from the Chanson de Roland, blowing his horn. The Brussels printer Michiel van Hamont has an image of Saint Michael, which refers both to his first name and to the patron saint of Brussels. Daniel Vervliet shows in his mark the prophet Daniel in the Lion’s den.28 Some printers subtly incorporated a reference to their name into a picture, which also had a broader meaning. Gheraert Leeu [lion] has a lion as shield bearer. The

23 Grimm 1965, 14 24 Ragen 1994, 21. 25 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 39, 160. 26 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 122. Cockx-Indestege 1973, 367–368 . 27 Simoni 1980, 449–451. 28 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 17, 116, 130, 238.



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“rad” [wheel] in the mark of Gillis van den Rade is part of the imaged vision of Ezekiel 1: 16: “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.”29 Jasper Troyens lived “In the tin pot” and his mark shows a pot in the foreground and in the background a landscape showing the siege of Troy with the Trojan horse and the burning city (Figure 1). In an exceptionally

Figure 1

long device along the edge, he explains: “Troia sterk brack duer verraet als een pot om haer misdaet” [“Strong Troy broke through treachery like a pot, for her crime”]. Very exceptionally a motto refers to a name, as in the case of the Ghent printer Victor Dayn, with the French motto “Sans D Dayng” [without disdain] which phonetically alludes to his name.30

My Home is My Castle In the early sixteenth century printers used their printer’s mark to give a more precise indication of their location. Instead of the coat of arms of the city, their printer’s mark depicts the sign with the name of the store. The commercial insight had grown that for the local market it was more important to announce the name of their store. Because the printers laid more emphasis on their store and their name, the role of shields and heraldic elements grew less prominent. Moreover, at the beginning of the sixteenth

29 Van Asselt 1938, 56. 30 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 113, 234.

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century there were so many printers in Antwerp, that the name of the city hardly made any distinction. Henrick Eckert van Homberch placed a winged unicorn with the coat of arms of Antwerp under the arms of Delft, the signboard of his shop “Het schild van Delft” [“The arms of Delft”] (Figure 2).31 Govaert Back, who took over the printing business

Figure 2

Figure 3

after the death of Mathias van der Goes in 1492, used the name of the house “Het vogel­ huys” [“The birdcage”] as mark. The cage does not contain a bird, but the merchant’s mark of Mathias van der Goes. From 1496 onwards Back personalized his mark by placing his own merchant’s mark in the cage and the arms of Antwerp on the outside (Figure 3). In this way, the printer’s mark became his real calling card.32 Arnold Birck­ man depicted the name of his shop called “De vette Hinne” [“The fat hen”] and to some marks he also explicitly added his name on a banderole.33 Adriaen Berghen supposedly depicted the house “die grote gulden mortier” [“the big golden mortar”] on the market square in Antwerp, where his print shop was located.34 He adorned the facade of the house with three coats of arms: in the center the arms of Antwerp

31 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 18, 117. Verheyden 1938, 114. 32 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 85–88. 33 Van Havre 1883, I, 75, 77. 34 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 6, 92; Nielson 1952, 24.



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combined with the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, right two spoons to cast type and left Berghen’s merchant’s mark. The mark of the Ghent printer Pieter de Keysere is the only one in the Southern Low Countries showing his own activity, namely a printing workshop at which he also puts his name and his merchant’s mark. The printers Van Ghelen worked in “De Witten Hasewint” [“The white greyhound”] and their printer’s mark shows two greyhounds bearing a shield with their merchant’s mark.35

More than a Signboard Around the middle of the sixteenth century printers were going to assign an additio­ nal, sometimes religious, meaning to the image shown on their signboard, often by adding a motto. The Ghent printers Adriana Teypins, the widow of Gislenus Mani­ lius, and her brother Gualtherus Manilius printed in “De Witte Duyve” [“the White Pigeon”], but their printer’s mark shows a dove with an olive branch, a clear reference to Genesis (8: 11) and thus a sign of hope. Guilliam van Parijs and Peeter de Vriese both have a pelican in their sign board, but the image of a bird feeding its young with his blood by piercing his chest, is also an allegorical representation of Christ.36 Their respective mottoes Verus Pellicanus alit suo sanguine [“The real pelican feeds with its own blood”] and Sine sanguinis effusione non fit remissio [“Unless blood is shed, there can be no remission of sins”] (Hebrews 9: 22) make this even more explicit.37 A mother hen with chicks perfectly portrays the Leuven printer Merten Verhasselt’s sign “De Vette Hinne” [“The fat hen”], but because of the motto Amor Fervens [“Pas­ sionate Love”] it gets an extra dimension. The mark of Johannes Bogardus, who printed in Leuven “inden Gulden Bybel” [“in the golden Bible”], shows an open bible above a winged heart. With his motto Cor rectum inquirit scientiam [“A righteous heart seeks after wisdom”] he emphasizes his links with the University of Leuven. Emanuel ­Philippus Trognesius printed in Antwerp “int Gulden Cruys” [“in the golden cross”] and had a mark with the image of a cross with the motto In hoc signo vinces [“In this sign you will conquer”].38 The mark of the Masius family, printing in Leuven “Int Groen Cruys” [“In the green Cross”], shows a cross with a crown of thorns on top and a skull at the foot of it with the motto Fulget Crucis Mysterium [“The mystery of the Cross does gleam”].39

35 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 6, 118–121, 146. 36 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 173 , 229. 37 Van Havre 1883, II, 71; Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 250. 38 Eusebius, Vita Constantini I, 28: ἐν τούτῳ νίκα. 39 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 99–101, 164, 233, 237.

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Printer’s Marks with a Message or From Business Card to Impresa By adding a motto to their printer’s mark sixteenth-century printers joined the new fashion of the French devises and the Italian imprese, which already came into vogue in the fifteenth century and became very popular in the sixteenth century. As with heraldry, imprese remained not only the privilege of noblemen. They were also used by other social classes, mainly in cities, as personal devices which expressed something about their individual bearers.40 The word impresa refers to imprendere, [“to enterprise”], and fits perfectly with a young industry like the printing press where entrepreneurship was important and necessary.41 Italian imprese, in which an image was combined with a motto, also lay at the basis of emblematics.42 Imprese have their origin in individual Selbstbestimmung [“self-determination”] as an expression of a personal goal and this in contrast with emblems pursuing a general validity.43 The combination of image and word in an ingenious way offered more oppor­ tunities to formulate a message.44 In the courtly context in which the original imprese functioned, they were vehicles for demonstrating one’s wit45 and at the same time offered the possibility to communicate ambitions in a subtle way.46 In the sixteenth century imprese were regarded as signs of identity and expressions of human thought.47 Printers have not been guided by theoretical treatises on imprese, which actually only appeared after 1550.48 On the other hand it appears that most printer’s marks with a motto meet the five basic rules for imprese that Paolo Giovio formulated in his treatise Dialogo dell’Imprese militari et amorose (1555): 1 a good proportion between motto and image; 2 not too obscure, but also not too obvious and plain so that everyone under­ stands it just right; 3 the images should be beautiful, showing rare plants and animals or celestial bodies, so that everyone looks at them with pleasure and delight; 4 no human figures; 5 the motto should be in a language other than the inventor’s mothertongue, so that the meaning is more hidden.49 Only against the fourth rule sixteenth century printers sometimes sinned, mostly in printer’s marks with a religious meaning. Giovio also added two rules for the motto: it should be short, preferably only two or three words, unless it is a literary quotation, but not so short that it becomes unclear,

40 Caldwell 2001, 232; Warncke 2005, 41. 41 Porteman 1977, 18; Caldwell 2001, 39. 42 Heckscher and Wirth 1967, 98; Porteman 1977, 17–19. 43 Schöne 1968, 45. 44 Heckscher and Wirth 1967, 98; Caldwell 2001, 234. 45 Caldwell 2001, 234. 46 Manning 2004, 76–77. 47 Caldwell 2001, 232. 48 Warncke 2005, 37–38. 49 Schöne 1968, 43–44; Caldwell 2001, 24–27; Manning 2004, 75–76.



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and it should show meaningful brevity.50 A short motto is also essential to a printer’s mark since it has to fit as circumscription or caption within the dimensions of the image. The new literary genre of the emblem, which only started flourishing in the Low Countries after the editions by Plantin in the 1560s, has not immediately had much impact on the printer’s marks in the sixteenth century. However, Plantin wrote in the preface “au lecteur vertueux & debonaire” [“to the virtuous and mild reader”] to the French edition of Sambucus’ Emblemes (Antwerp 1567) that the work could be a source of inspiration for all artistic professions.51 By omitting the subscription from emblemata, one can easily reduce emblems to imprese.52

Ideology of Entrepreneurship In the sixteenth century most printers in the Low Countries were located in Antwerp, at that time the commercial metropolis of Western Europe. Adventurous entrepre­ neurs from all over Europe came to Antwerp to try their luck. They faced all sorts of obstacles and dangers which could threaten the survival of their business. That certainly applied to printers and publishers, who united in one company both labour and trade. They were artisans and merchants at the same time. In the first half of the sixteenth century printing was still a relatively young industry, in which many entre­ preneurs still lacked the experience to assess the market, which involved the neces­ sary risks. Many printers were very aware of the risks and in their printer’s marks they explicitly referred to the vicissitudes of fortune, which threatened their business, but simultaneously they referred to ways to cope with that threat. That these ideas were commonplace, was also shown in other literature, such as the plays staged by the rhetoricians at the Antwerp “landjuweel” [“theatre festival”] in 1561. In the plays and particularly in the poetic “puncten” [“propositions”], a kind of tableau often inspired by emblematics, the rhetoricians formulated an answer to topical questions.53

Self-knowledge In his early years Jan van Doesborch had used the printer’s marks of the widow of Roeland van den Dorpe, which he had adjusted by removing the name. However, from 1508 onwards Van Doesborch used his own large, almost full-page printer’s mark, which was innovative. His mark shows a blindfolded Vrou Aventure [“Lady

50 Caldwell 2001, 24. 51 Joannes Sambucus, De Emblemata, ed. Voet and Persoons 1982, 34. 52 Schöne 1968, 43. 53 Porteman 2005; Vandommele 2011, 302–360.

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Adventure”]. Her face is half black and half white, she holds a scepter and a wheel in her hand and sits between two musicians, Fortune and Misfortune (Figure 4). Van

Figure 4

Doesborch got his inspiration from a picture in Van den drie blinde danssen [“The three dancing blind men”], a translation of Pierre Michault’s La danse aux aveugles, printed by Gheraert Leeu in 1482 in Gouda,54 where Vrou Aventure organizes a ball. Therefore there are two musicians: Fortune, playing on a silver trumpet, and Mis­ fortune, playing on a wooden flute. The caption in pseudo Greek letters, aiming at a humanistic scholarly public, refers to self-knowledge, as the means to withstand the vagaries and vicissitudes of Vrou Aventuere, by detaching himself from all worldly desires.55 Van Doesborch, who also printed for the British market and knew the risks of export by sea, had the faith of an entrepreneur because he indicated that one can overcome Fortuna with the help of reason.56 Tempus, Occasio and Fortuna The Van Doesborch mark still had medieval roots. The printers after him switched to more Renaissance representations of Fortuna. The inconstancy of fortune threatened

54 De Keyser 1935, 66–67; Franssen 1990, 138. 55 De Keyser 1934, 45, 49; De Keyser 1935, 65, 68. 56 De Keyser 1934, 57; De Keyser 1935, 73–74; Franssen 1990, 138–140.



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the printers, but simultaneously time and opportunity offered chances for those who managed to grasp them. Occasio and Tempus, [“time”], often have the same or similar attributes as Fortuna, suggesting that their meaning was closely related.57 Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten evolved from a heraldic mark, via a mark which showed his sign board “de rape” [“turnip”], towards a picture of time as an old man with wings standing on a cloud, a sickle in his right hand and a laurel wreath in his left, a woodcut attributed to Dirk Vellert. The printer apparently feared that the public would not be able to interpret such an image and therefore he added the word Tempus. From 1536 onwards, he used a new version of the mark with an image of Kronos [“time”] as an old man with a scythe and a small child in the right hand, but without text. An hourglass in the left hand of Kronos was probably clear enough to identify him (Figure 5).58 Nevertheless, in the last phase of his career, in the 1540s, Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten added the word Tempus again, as well as separate text in the edges of the mark, emphasizing the characteristics of time. Kronos is in a position to mow with a scythe and he has an hourglass at his feet. On one mark he is naked with wings (Figure 6), on the other version he has no wings and wears a bil­ lowing garment (Figure 7).59 For the first time, in 1526, Johannes Hillen van Hoochstraten and Hadrianus Tilia­ nus put onto the title page of an edition of Godefridus Harmelas Theophilus, Disticha memorialia,60 a printer’s mark showing the name and an image of Occasio on a winged wheel with a razor and a banderole.61 Occasio is a variant of Fortuna. She was known because she was mentioned in the Disticha Catonis and Erasmus had included her in his Adagia. Already in the early sixteenth century, Occasio was popular as a printer’s mark among German printers. The motive cannot come from Alciato’s emblem book since it was already earlier in use as a printer’s mark than the publication of Alciato in Germany.62 Frans Birckman, active in Antwerp in the twenties, has in his printer’s marks only a picture of his merchant’s mark and his name, but his Latin mottoes: Fortuna cum blanditur, tunc vel maxime metuenda est [“When Fortuna flatters, then she is most to be feared”] and Brevis hora ima permutat summis [“But one short hour will change the lot of the highest and of the lowest”] refer very explicitly to Fortuna.63 In 1540, the Antwerp printer Jean Richard was the first to use an image of a winged Fortuna standing on a globe. In the following years she evolved, possibly under Italian

57 Grimm 1965, 269. 58 Wolkenhauer 2002, 328–337. 59 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 26, 132–136, 137 mark 15 and 16, 139 mark 19 and 20. 60 Nijhoff and Kronenberg 1919, 3112. 61 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 131; Grimm 1965, 231; Wolkenhauer 2002, 58. 62 Grimm 1965, 243–250, 252; Wolkenhauer 2002, 216–225. 63 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 9, 99.

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Figure 5

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Figure 6

Figure 7

influence, into a woman without wings standing in a shell and holding a cloth as a sail with the motto Fortuna rotat omne Fatum [“Fortune commands every destiny”].64 Already in 1540 Hendrick Peetersen van Middelburch placed her on a fish with the inscription Fortuna. Later on Hans Coesmans put her in a shell with the motto Fortuna Favente [“By the favour of Fortune”].65

64 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 212; Grimm 1965, 228; Wolkenhauer 2002, 51. 65 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 107, 175.



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In the printer’s mark of Joannes Bellerus, Fortuna is prominent, albeit always in combination with trade. Under the motto In Dies arte ac Fortuna [“Every day compe­ tence and luck”] she sits in a boat behind the mast to which a banner waves with the merchant’s mark of Bellerus. Up front sits Mercury, the god of commerce (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Thus he makes it clear that Fortuna drives the boat of trade, but without the commer­ cial competence sitting in front, it will not sail a good course. If it would still go wrong, one must undergo it stoically as Joannes Bellerus shows in a mark depicting a ship­ wreck with the motto Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum Ferient ruinae [“Were the vault of heaven to break and fall upon him, its ruins would smite him undismayed”].66 The printer’s mark of Guillaume Simon, an image of a man swarmed by bees with the motto Dulcia Mixta Malis [“Good and bad are mixed”] demonstrates a stoic attitude to life.67 Erasmus Querceus feels protected by God. His printer’s mark shows a ship with the inscription Verbum Dei [“The word of God”] on the mast and at a banderole between the sails: Si deus nobiscum Quis contra nos [“If God be with us, who shall be against us”] (St Paul, Romans 8: 31), an answer to the text around the mark: Si Fortuna tonat nolito mergi [“If Fortune frowns, do not sink into despair”].68

Printers Who Know How to Overcome Fortuna Fortuna can be overcome with the help of many virtues.69 With their printer’s mark many printers indicate how they can overcome the vagaries of Fortuna. The Antwerp and Liege printer Gualterus Morberius literally shows Patientia, holding a cross in

66 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 90; Nielson 1952, 46; Hor. carm. 3,3,7–8, transl. Bennett 1968, 179. 67 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 221. 68 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 210. 69 Kirchner 1970, 80–93.

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her right hand and buoys in her left, standing on the defeated Fortuna with the motto Victrix Fortunae Patientia [“Patience, victress over Fortune”].70 With a sower and the motto Spes alit agricolas [“Hope nourishes farmers”] Hans de Laet expresses the hope of the farmer, but also of the printer, who hopes to reap the fruits of his labor. The anchor on the first mark of the Leuven printer Servatius Sassenus Diestensis undoubtedly expresses the same message. An even more Christian interpre­ tation presented Jean Thibault with the motto Spes mea deus [“My hope is God”] and an image of a Christian knight, and Joannes Coccius with a naked man, who clings to a sword held by a hand from a cloud to escape from the fire below his feet, with a motto from Lucanus Pharsalia (Book II, l15): Liceat sperare timenti [“Let it be permitted to the fearful to hope”].71 However, patience and hope are too passive. Those who want to achieve something have to work for it. This work ethic inspired the most famous printer of that time, Chris­ topher Plantin. In the preface to the first part of his Biblia Polyglotta, he explains that one leg of the compasses stands for Constantia, the other leg turns around and stands for labour. Through constancy and hard work, Labore et Constantia, he has been able to expand his business.72 Jan Moretus later on flanked the compasses with a farmer (labore) and a woman with a cross, faith (constantia) (Figure 9)73 The other son in law,

Figure 9

Gilles Beys, added a lily, his sign board in Paris, and amplified the motto: Labore et Constantia, Casta placent superis [“Chaste things please the powers above”].74 Jan (I) van Keerberghen probably drew inspiration from his competitor for his tautological motto Labore et industria [“Labour and industry”]. That the gods reward labour is also shown by Gerard Smits with three blacksmiths forging iron under the motto Dii laboribus omnia vendunt [“The gods give everything in return for effort”]. In the later printer’s

70 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 168. 71 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 104, 148, 219. 72 Voet 1969, 31. 73 Imhof 2014, 890–903. 74 Tibullus, 2,1,13.



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marks of Joannes Bellerus, God, later on reduced to a hand from the clouds, gives the corona iustitiae [“crown of justice”] with as a motto the advice of St. Paul Sic currite ut comprehendatis [“So run, that you may obtain (the prize)”] (1 Corinthians 9: 24).75 To be effective, labour has to be directed by intelligence. Niclaes Soolmans high­ lights the importance of ratio with a standing crowned lion holding a pillar with the motto Ingenio superatur [“Overcome by genius”]. The Leuven printer Reinerus Velpius refers in his printer’s mark to Plutarch’s story of Quintus Sertorius. By pulling out of a warhorse’s tail one hair at a time, a small puny-looking man succeeded to pull out the whole tail, whereas a strong warrior had not managed it in one go. With the motto Multa quae uno impetu superari non possunt paulatim superantur. Ingenium plus quam vires [“Many things that cannot be solved in a single attack, can be gradually over­ come. Ingenuity more powerful than force”] he illustrates the theme of slow persever­ ance over hasty violence. The Leuven printer Hieronymus Welleus senior portrays a hunter with the motto Qui duos insectatur lepores neutrum capit [“If you run after two hares, you will catch neither”].76 Some printers emphasized the importance of collaboration. Jan Verwithagen, who collaborated with several printers and publishers, shows the blind carrying the crippled with the motto Mutua defensio tutissima [“Mutual protection is the surest”], a maxim of Erasmus’ Adagia (Erasm. adag. 2771) (Figure 10). Jan Roelants illustrates the collabora­ tion with a kind of ivy that winds around a supporting dead tree with the motto Amor vincit omnia [“Love conquers everything”]. Petrus Bellerus emphasized the result of

Figure 10

75 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 90, 95, 141, 222. 76 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 222, 235, 252.

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Figure 11

 Hubert Meeus

Figure 12

collaboration with the motto Fructus Concordiae [“The fruit of concord”], illustrated by two hands, holding a caduceus flanked by two cornucopia.77 Petrus Bellerus often col­ laborated with the Steelsius family. They too had a mark in which loyalty was the central motif, with the motto Concordia res Parvae crescent [“Small things will grow great by concord”], illustrated by two crows on either side of a sceptre-like column, sometimes with a globe with the signs of the zodiac, and a flock of birds in flight78 probably in­spired by Alciato (Figure 11). Labour also served to support the family, such as the mark of ­Martinus and Philippus Nutius illustrates with a male stork feeding a female with a fish or an eel, which at the same time refers to their address “in de twee Oeyvaerts” [“in the two storks”] (Figure 12).79 Gregorius de Bonte calls to support parents with a picture of Pero and Cimon and a motto borrowed from Valerius Maximus lib. 5, Diligere parentes, prima naturae lex [“To love one’s parents is the first law of nature”]. But the poor should also be supported, as Gregorius de Bonte shows in his mark where Justitia gives alms, under the motto Graviora legis ­misericordia, fides, iudicium [“The weightier matters of the law: compassion, faith, justice”], an adaptation of Matthew 23:23. Joannes Grapheus showed Charitas [“Charity”], a woman with three small children.80 The business climate is also crucial to success. Peace is a very important con­ dition. The Ghent printers Cornelius and Gislenus Manilius have a heraldic helmet surrounded by bees on their mark with the motto Ex bello pax [“Peace succeeding to war”]. After peace was won, a helmet of a fearless soldier was used as a hive for

77 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 91, 215, 238. 78 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 223–228; Léon 1976, 85; Henkel & Schöne 1976, 883. 79 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 169–171; Peeters-Fontainas 1957, 19–29; Léon 1976, 84. 80 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 101–102, 127, printer’s marks 1 and 2.



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bees. This image was also used by Alciato in his Emblemata.81 Gislenus will later on use a peace dove with an olive branch in its beak and a motto, probably inspired by Erasmus, Pax optima rerum, quas homini natura dedit [“No boon that nature ever gave to man, may be compared with peace”].82 In combination with the “Engelenborch” [“castle of angels”], a reference to his address, Rutger Velpius shows in his Leuven mark also a picture of Iustitia and Pax as two women, with the motto Iustitia et Pax osculatae sunt [“Justice and Peace have kissed”] (Psalm 84/85: 11).83

A Religious Message In an age when religion was an important point of discussion, it is no wonder that this discussion was also reflected in the printer’s marks. The Leuven printer Stepha­ nus Valerius used a printer’s mark with the Pythagorean Y, which refers to the choice between the narrow path of virtue and the wide road to hell, with the motto Humanae vitae speciem praeferre videtur [“It seems to show a reflection of human life”].84 From a commercial perspective, it is important for a printer to bring a not too explicit religious message with his printer’s mark. On the one hand, in order not to draw to itself the attention of a government prone to censorship, on the other hand to serve the widest possible clientele. Before Plantin put into use his Labore et Constantia mark in 1557, he had used two other printer’s marks, both with a vine winding around a supporting tree, one with the motto Christus vera vitis [“Christ, the true vine”] and the second one on which there was also a pruning gardener with the motto borrowed from Vergil’s Georgica Exerce imperia et ramos compesce fluentes [“Exercise severe dominion over them and check the loose straggling boughs”].85 Both printer’s marks were clearly inspired by the religious beliefs of Hendrik Niclaes and the Family of Love.86 However, Plantin soon understood that it was safer to use a neutral printer’s mark. There is also a pruning gardener on the printer’s mark of the Catholic printer Libertus Malcotius with the motto Virescit vulnere virtus [“Virtue, when wounded, flourishes”] a line from the Roman poet Furius Antias quoted by Aulus Gellius.87 Some printers consciously displayed a certain ambiguity as to their religious beliefs in their printer’s mark. From the thirties onwards Joannes Grapheus refers to

81 Henkel & Schöne 1976, 1489–1490. 82 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 158–159. 83 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 236; Rouzet 1975, 231. 84 Anthologia Latina 632; Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 130, 234. 85 Vergil Georgica 2,370. 86 Voet 1969, 31. 87 Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 18,11,4; Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 158; Nielson 1952, 20.

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his name with a hand writing a note, accompanied by his suggestive motto Scrutamini scripturas [“Search the Scriptures”] (John 5: 39). Later in the century Willem Silvius limited himself to Scrutamini [“Search”]. Willem Silvius used printer’s marks carved by Arnold Nicolai, which were clearly religiously inspired, showing an angel with a scythe holding a book.88 Merten de Keyser and his widow have some printer’s marks with a clearly reli­ gious message. By adding to their printer’s mark a coat of arms with the typical attributes of a letter cutter, a file and a spoon to cast type, and the motto Sola fides sufficit [“Faith alone is enough”] a line from a Gregorian chant Pange lingua [“Sing tongue”], they also left open the possibility to understand it as sola fide [“by faith alone”] a clearly Lutheran message. Merten also had a printer’s mark with a motto that incites: Per patientiam vestram possidete animas vestras [“In your patience possess ye your souls”] (Luke 21:19) depicting faith as a woman with a cross who puts her foot on an orb.89 Jan Roelants took over the printer’s mark with the image of faith and the motto from the widow of Merten de Keyser. As he also showed his Protestant mind in his other printer’s marks, it is not surprising that he was arrested for printing banned books and that he deceased in prison.90 The Ghent printer Joos Lambrecht, who also spent some time in prison as a follower of Luther and finally fled to Germany, shows in his mark a mower in the grain, beside an oak tree with the motto Satis quercus91 [“Enough acorns (let’s harvest good wheat from now on)”].92 Gerard Speelmans has an elaborated mark with a landscape in the background and adorned with angels and foliage. It depicts an open book on a lectern, with a pigeon representing the Holy Ghost, sitting on top of it. Below the book, on a sign attached to the lectern bearing the inscription Sicut columbae, sit two pigeons, ­threatened by two snakes that wind around the foot of the lectern (Figure 13). Sicut columbae [“as doves”] are the final words of a Bible verse of Matthew (10: 16) of which the preceding words estote prudent(es) ut serpent(es) et simplices [“be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves”] are in the border around the image.93 It is striking that no saints are depicted, in contrast to German printer’s marks where they occur still more frequently in the sixteenth century.94 Jan (I) van den Steene has an image of the risen Christ standing on his tombstone. In 1554 Jan (II) translated the image of Christ into the Pelican with his merchant’s mark underneath. However, in 1585 Jan (III) used again the mark of Jan (I). Jan (II) probably replaced

88 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 127–128, 220–221. 89 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 144 printer’s mark 2 and 145 printer’s mark 6. 90 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 21; Rouzet 1975, 191. 91 Erasmus, Adagium 302. 92 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 149; Rouzet 1975, 117. 93 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 223. 94 Grimm 1965, 55.



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Figure 13

the image of Christ by the allegorical figure of the pelican under the influence of the new religious views. Peeter van Keerberghen and Mattheus van Roye depicted God as a bearded man between the clouds, albeit during the reign of Alva and after 1585, the years in which the authorities were strictly Catholic.95 Hendrick Peetersen van Middelburch and Adriaen Kempe de Boechout used a printer’s mark with Saint Paul, who holds next to a sword and a Bible a pair of scales (symbol of secular law and divine justice) in his hand. In one scale a rod and whip is weighed, in the other the crown of righteousness. The motto on the banderole Bene naufragium feci refers to Paul 2 Timothy 4:7 [“I have fought a good fight, I have fin­ ished my course, I have kept the faith”] but also to Erasmus adagium 1878 [“I have learned from my mistakes”] and it presumably reflected their own situation.96

A Sign for the Content Printers who had specialized in a particular kind of books, often used a printer’s mark that matched with the content of the works they printed. The Bruges printer Hubertus Goltzius, who published luxurious editions about classical antiquity on the basis of numismatics, portrayed a woman in an alcove pouring out coins from a besser cornucopia. Besides, his printer’s marks, which stand out for their classic design, are copper engravings, whereas most of the sixteenth century printer’s marks are woodcuts.

95 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 141–142, 216, 228–229. 96 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 144; Veldman and Van Schaik 1989, 18–19.

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 Hubert Meeus

The Leuven printers Martinus Rotarius and Petrus Phalesius refer with their printer’s marks to their specialism as music printers with an image of the muse Mel­ pomene and a verse from Ecclesiaticus 32. 6: “Comme l’escarboncle en or enclin, Ainsi Musique est en convive de Vin” [“As a signet of an emerald set in a work of gold, so is the melody of music with pleasant wine”]. Petrus Phalesius used the same motto but in Latin and combined it with the pagan Melpomene as well as with the biblical King David playing the harp. Jan (I) van Waesberghe’s first printer’s marks show a triton blowing a conch shell framed by a ourobouros, symbol of eternal glory on earth. Later on he replaced the triton by Fama with a trumpet in her right hand and a ourobouros in her left hand. His motto refers to literature: Literae immortalitatem pariunt [“Literature procures immortality”]. Gerardus Rivius, who has a lot of Latin literature in his publisher’s list, used a printer’s mark with the prancing Pegasus, who causes the spring of inspiration to flow from mount Helicon. On another printer’s mark he also added the nine Muses singing at the foot of the mountain and the motto Totum sic irrigat orbem [“This way it irrigates the whole world”].97

Conclusion The early printers in the Southern Low Countries were mainly inspired by heraldry when they designed their printer’s mark. From displaying the name and the city in a heraldic way, the printer’s mark evolved into a more exact representation of the location, particularly the sign of the store. Approximately one fourth of the printer’s marks contain a clearly recognizable link with the name of the printer’s store. Most printers also included their merchant’s mark in their printer’s mark. In the first half of the sixteenth century, printers increasingly added a motto to the image of their signboard, which gave their printer’s mark a wider meaning. The printers usually chose Latin mottoes, probably because of the international nature of Latin, but also because many printers had close contacts with humanists who were both suppliers of texts and customers. They found their inspiration particularly in schoolbooks, such as the Dicta or Disticha Catonis, commonplace books and proverb collections such as Erasmus Adagia.98 In this way printer’s marks evolved to imprese and heraldic motifs disappeared almost completely. Printer’s marks became more sophisticated and evolved from purely business address data to reflection on their own situation, often in a commercial context, some­ times in a religious one. The printer’s mark conveyed a message which was closely

97 Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 124–126, 175–176,213, 250–251. 98 Grimm 1965, 337.



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connected with the person of the printer, while it also expressed more in general the concerns of entrepreneurs in the sixteenth century. Printer’s marks with biblical images and mottoes often had little more to do with the printer or his activity itself.99 Although in commercial terms it was wise to be neutral, some printers allowed their religious affiliation to be hinted at in their mark. As printers were going to specialize in specific genres, they also reflected this in their printer’s mark. The rise of emblematics brought about no immediate change in the sixteenth century, however, the number of printer’s marks inspired by emblems increased towards the end of the century.100 In the second half of the sixteenth century printer’s marks, like those of Nutius, Steelsius and Bellerus were often inspired by emblems of Alciato. Although printer’s marks lacked the typical triple structure of the emblem, they represented a sort of emblem of which printers provided the motto and the pictura. The context of the real book trade with ample examples of success and failure as an entrepreneur offered the explanation or subscription of the emblem.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Printer’s mark of Jasper Troyens from the title page of Peeter Dathenus, Een christelijcke verantwoordinghe op die disputacie, ghehouden binnen Audenaerde, tusschen M. Adriaen Hamstadt, ende Jan Daelman. Antwerp: Jasper Troyens and Niclaes Mollijns, 1582. Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus: R 23.4. Figure 2: Printer’s mark of Henrick Eckert van Homberch from Jean Boutillier, Somme ruyrael. Antwerp: Henric Eckert van Homborch, 1503. Antwerp, Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience: E 53958. Figure 3: Printer’s mark of Govaert Back from Antonius Grassus de Bononia, Ars notariatus. Antwerp: Goovaert Back, [1499-]. Antwerp, Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience: 603817. Figure 4: Printer’s mark of Jan van Doesborch from Dekeyser 1934, 46. Figure 5: Printer’s mark of Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten from fol. H8v in Publius Ovidius Naso, De tristibus libri quinque. Antwerp: Michael Hillenius, 1540. Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus: A 3300. Figure 6: Printer’s mark of Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten from the title page of Q Horatii Flacci Duo Epistolarum libri. Antwerp: Michael Hillenius in Rapo, 1545. Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus: A 3300. Figure 7: Printer’s mark of Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten from fol. SS5v Desiderius Erasmus, Adagiorum epitome. Antwerp: Michael Hillenius, 1545. Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus: A 2531. Figure 8: Printer’s mark of Joannes Bellerus from the title page of Ioannes Michaël Brutus, De rebus a Carolo V. cæsare Romanorvm imperatore gestis [...] oratio. Antwerp: Joannes Bellerus, 1555. University of Antwerp, University Library: P 11.224.

99 Grimm 1965, 306–307. 100 For the history of the relation between printer’s devices and emblems see Wolkenhauer 2002, 53–71 and this volume, p. 13 ff.

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Figure 9: Printer’s mark of Christopher Plantin and Jan Moretus from the title page of Justus Lipsius, Deux livres de la constance. Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1584. Antwerp, Museum PlantinMoretus: A 58. Figure 10: Printer’s mark of Jan Verwithagen from the title page of Figura seu Exemplaris forma novellis scolasticis erudiendis apprimè utilis ac fructuosa. Antwerp: Joannes Verwithaghen, 1553. Antwerp, Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience: 689398. Figure 11: Printer’s mark of Joannes Steelsius from the title page of Iacobus Meyerus Commentarii siue Annales rerum Flandricarum libri septendecim. Antwerp: Joannis Steelsius, 1561. University of Antwerp, University Library: P 14.827. Figure 12: Printer’s mark of Martinus Nutius from the title page of Thomas a Kempis, Opera omnia. Antwerp: Martinus Nutius, 1601. University of Antwerp, Ruusbroec Institute Library 3098 A 3. Figure 13: Printer’s mark of Gerard Speelmans from the title page of Antonius Mizaldus, Museum Plantin Moretus: A 4417. Antwerp: Gerard Speelmans 1555. Antwerp, Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience: 529992.

Bibliography Asselt, G.F.van, “Een opmerking over de beteekenis van het drukkersmerk van Gillis van den Rade.” Het grafisch museum 8 (1938/39): 55–56. Augustyn, Wolfgang, “Fingierte Wappen in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Bemerkungen zur Heraldik in den Bildkünsten.” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3. F. 56 (2005): 41–82. Bennett, Charles E., Horace. The Odes and Epodes. With an English Translation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1968. Buecheler, Franciscus & Alexander Riese, eds., Anthologia latina sive poesis latinae supplementum. Pars prior: carmina in codicibus scripta. Fasciculus II: relíquorum librorum carmina. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 21906. Caldwell, Dorigen, “Studies in Sixteenth-Century Italian Imprese.” Emblematica 11 (2001): 1–257. Cockx-Indestege, Elly, “Mathias van der Goes.” In: De vijfhonderdste verjaring van de boekdrukkunst in de Nederlanden. Brussels: Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I, 1973, 361–377. Colin, George, “A New List of the Bindings of Ludovicus Ravescot.” In: Davies, Martin, ed., Incunabula. Studies in fifteenth century books. Presented to Lotte Hellinga. London: British Library, 1999, 353–370. Corsten, Severin, “Johan van Westfalen.” In: De vijfhonderdste verjaring van de boekdrukkunst in de Nederlanden. Brussels: Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I, 1973, 129–142. Davidson, Peter, The Vocal Forest: A Study of the Context of Three Low Countries Printer’s devices of the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Academic Press, 1996. Franssen, Peter J.A., Tussen tekst en publiek. Jan van Doesborch, drukker-uitgever en literator te Antwerpen en te Utrecht in de eerste helft van de zestiende eeuw. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1990. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des 16. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung Kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Van Havre, Gustave, Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires anversois. 2 vols. Antwerp: Buschmann, 1883–1884. Heckscher, William S. and Karl-August Wirth, Art. “Emblem, Emblembuch.” In: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte.Vol. 5. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967, 98–100. Henkel, Arthur and Albrecht Schöne, Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967. Imhof, Dirk, Jan Moretus and the continuation of the Plantin Press: A Bibliography of the Works Published and Printed by Jan Moretus I in Antwerp (1589–1610). Leiden: Brill, 2014.



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Indestege, Luc, “Une activité inconnue de Louis Ravescot.” Scriptorium 14 (1960): 109–110. Indestege, Luc, “New light on Ludovicus Ravescot.” Quaerendo 1 (1971): 16–18. De Keyser, Paul, “Twee studies; I: Het ‘Vrou Aventure’-drukkersmerk van Jan van Doesborch; II: De houtsnijder van Gerard Leeu’s ‘Van den drie blinde danssen’ (Gouda, 1482).” Gentsche bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis 1 (1934): 45–68. De Keyser, Paul, “Het ‘Vrou Aventure’-drukkersmerk van Jan van Doesborch.” In: Handelingen van het derde congres voor boek- en bibliotheekwezen. Gent: Vyncke, 1935. Kirchner, Gottfried, Fortuna in Dichtung und Emblematik des Barock: Tradition und Bedeutungswandel eines Motivs. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1970. Kok, Ina, Woodcuts in Incunabula Printed in the Low Countries. Vol. 1. Houten: Hes & De Graaf, 2013. León, Pedro R., “Brief Notes on Some 16th Century Antwerp Printers with Special Reference to Jean Steelsius and his Hispanic Bibliography.” De Gulden Passer 54 (1976): 77–92. Manning, John, The Emblem. London: Reaktion Books, 2004. Mees, Léonide J., “Conrard van Paderborn.” In: De vijfhonderdste verjaring van de boekdrukkunst in de Nederlanden, 254-258. Brussels: Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I, 1973. Melsaeter, Torgeir, Zeichen der Macht, die Macht der Zeichen. Heraldische und para-heraldische Elemente in Kunst, Architektur und Literatur unter Papst Alexander VII. Chigi, 1655–1667. Antwerp: Universiteit Antwerpen, 2013. Muntendam, A.M., “Critiek van Roemer Visscher op Plantin’s drukkersmerk.” De Gulden Passer 14 (1936): 77–79. Neubecker, Ottfried, Heraldiek: bronnen, symbolen en betekenis. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1977. Nielson, A.C., Latijnse zinspreuken op Nederlandse boekmerken. Amsterdam: Ellerman Harms, 1952. Nijhoff, Wouter & Maria Elisabeth Kronenberg, Nederlandsche bibliographie van 1500 tot 1540. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1919–1971. Peeters-Fontainas, Jean, “L’officine espagnole de Martin Nutius à Anvers.” De Gulden Passer 35 (1957): 1–106. Porteman, Karel, Inleiding tot de Nederlandse emblemataliteratuur. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1977. Porteman, Karel, “La paix douze fois représentée: les ‘puncten’ poétiques au ‘landjuweel’ anversois (1561).” In: Saunders, Alison & Peter Davidson, eds., Visual Words and Verbal Pictures: Essays in Honour of Michael Bath. Glasgow: Department of French, University of Glasgow, 2005, 123–140. Ragen, Brian A., “Semiotics and Heraldry.” Semiotica. Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies 100 (1994): 5–34. Roemer Visscher. 1949. Sinnepoppen: naar de uitgave van 1614 bij Willem Iansz. te Amsterdam, edited by Leendert Brummel. The Hague: Nijhoff. Rouzet, Anne, Dictionnaire des imprimeurs, libraires et éditeurs des 15e et 16e siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1975. Sabbe, Maurits, “Le symbolisme des marques typographiques.” De Gulden Passer 10 (1932): 71–119. Schöne, Albrecht, Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock. München: Beck, 1964, ²1968. Simoni, Anna E.C., “Bearwood, Tree, Flatfish & Co.: Some Punning Dutch Devices.”In: Croiset van Uchelen, A. R. A., ed., Hellinga Festschrift/feestbundel/mélanges: Forty-Three Studies in Bibliography Presented to Prof. Dr. Wytze Hellinga on the Occasion of his Retirement from the Chair of Neophilology in the University of Amsterdam at the End of the Year 1978. Amsterdam: Israel, 1980, 447–466. Stolberg-Rilinger, Barbara, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne.” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 31 (2004): 489–527. Vandeweghe, Frank & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15de en de 16de eeuw binnen de grenzen van het huidige België. Marques typographiques employées aux 15e et 16e siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1993.

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Vandommele, Jeroen, Als in een spiegel: vrede, kennis en gemeenschap op het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561. Hilversum: Verloren, 2011. Veldman, Ilja M. and Karin van Schaik, Verbeelde boodschap. De illustraties van Lieven de Witte bij ‘Dat leven ons Heeren’(1537). Haarlem and Brussels: Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap and Belgisch Bijbelgenootschap, 1989. Verheyden, Prosper, “De Antwerpsche boekdrukker Henrick Eckert van Homberch alias Butzbach, ‘Bosbas’ en zijn ‘herdoopte’weduwe’.” De Gulden Passer 16–17 (1938): 103–121. Voet, Leon, The Golden Compasses. Amsterdam: Vangendt, 1969. Voet, Leon & Guido Persoons, eds., De Emblemata van Joannes Sambucus. (De Gulden Passer 60) Antwerp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1982. Warncke, Carsten-Peter, Symbol, Emblem, Allegorie. Die zweite Sprache der Bilder. Cologne: Deubner Verlag, 2005. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002.

Part B: Regions & Places

Konstantinos Sp. Staikos

Heraldic and Symbolic Printer’s Devices of Greek Printers in Italy (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries) From the early fourteenth century the Byzantine empire underwent a steady decline and its territories dwindled, until the final act of the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. This brought about changes in the European order of affairs; in addition, printing did not become widespread in the territories of the Ottoman Empire until much later; only some texts in Hebrew and Armenian were printed in Constanti­ nople and other cities after 1499 and books started to be printed in Greek only in the early seventeenth century.

Early Printing in Greek Greek texts were printed in Italy as early as the late 1460s, more concretely around 1469; these first editions in Greek continue a tradition of grammar textbooks in manuscript form, designed to teach Greek to non-native speakers. The production of tools for learning Greek was greatly stimulated by the fact that Greek was taught at the Studium of Florence since 1397, when the chancellor of Florence Coluccio Salutati founded the seat and entrusted the position to Manuel Chrysoloras. The first printed grammar textbook, titled Erotemata, was written by Chrysoloras himself; this was the primer with which eminent exponents of Renaissance humanism such as Ognibene Leoniceno, Leonardo Bruni, Pier Paolo Vergerio, Guarino Veronese and even Erasmus learned the Greek language. Until 1500, Greek books were printed only in Italy, with the exception of a bilin­ gual (Greek and Latin) textbook, Coniugationes verborum graecae, printed in Deven­ ter, the Netherlands, by Richard Paffraet in 1488.1 In the 1470s, Demetrios Damilas attempted to found a Greek printing press in Milan (1476) and Janus Laskaris made a similar effort in Florence, with the support of the Medici family (1494). However, none of these endeavors were fruitful. Systematic involvement with printing Greek books begins with Aldus Manutius and his Greek collaborators, especially Marcus Musurus, in Venice, from around 1494. Aldus’ objective was to create first editions of monumen­ tal works of Greek thought, such as the five-volume edition of Aristotle’s Complete Works (1495–1498) and Plato’s Dialogues (1513). From the total of early Greek editions, approximately eighty in number if one counts complete pages of Greek text included

1 BMC, IX, 50. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-005

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in Latin editions, only six bear a printer’s mark, the first being Isocrates’s Speeches, edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles and printed by Ulrich Scinzenzeler in Milan in 1493 [Figure 1 = Marks, 2–3 (1)] .2

Figure 1

Printers’ Devices The printers’ marks found in books represent a whole pictorial world, and the ear­ liest examples date from the first decade of printing (1450). They symbolize the work of a particular editor/publisher, serving as a warranty of the reliability of the recension, and they also draw attention to distinctive features of the typography and the techniques used in the typesetting and printing generally. In the early years of typography these devices were designs that framed or supplemented the colo­ phon, thus carrying on the manuscript tradition of codices: the identity of the book continued to be defined by the colophon, the list of publication particulars at the end of the book naming the author, the title, place of publication, printer and date of completion of the printing. Gradually, however, from 1500 on, it became normal for these particulars and the printer’s mark to be printed on the page that came to be known as the title page, though this did not mean that the colophon was necessarily dispensed with. There is no record of any statement giving specific reasons for making it standard practice to include a printer’s mark. It simply made it easier for the reader to recognize the publishing house at a glance and symbolized the full identity of the book, reflec­

2 BMC, IX, 50.



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ting the amicable collaboration of a large number of scholars, craftsmen and those operatives of the new technology for reproducing books, the typesetters. The devices served as identification labels for printing and publishing houses and also for book­ shops, which often worked with one particular publisher and sold only his books. At the end of the fifteenth century, in 1499, five Greek books embellished with printer’s marks were released: the first edition of the Dictionary of Suda (or Suidas), edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles and others, and published by the press of Gio­ vanni Bissoli and Benedetto Mangio in Milan3 [Figure 2 = Marks, 2–3 (2)] and four more books, printed by the press of N. Vlastos and Z. Kalliergis in Venice.4

Figure 2

The First Greek Press The first Greek printing shop was founded by Nikolaos Vlastos and Zacharias Kallier­ gis. Both came from Crete, as did all the other members of the workshop, who worked as codex copyists and also possessed a solid background of philological knowledge. Vlastos came from a family of nobles and worked with other calligraphers to enrich the library of Giorgio Valla in Venice. He was probably entrusted with the technical organization of this publishing venture and with the logistics, as he was factor and administrator of the Estate of the daughter of Loukas Notaras, Grand Duke of Constan­ tinople, Anna Notara, who financed this ambitious publishing project. The house of Vlastos and Kalliergis was in business for two years, from 1499 to 1500. They had needed at least five years to create the printing material; a special font was punched and cut; it was very elaborate and included a great number of letter clusters, based on Kalliergis’s writing style. In addition, headpieces of various sizes were designed

3 BMC, VI, 792; Wolkenhauer 2002, 159–164. 4 Staikos 1998, 391–443.

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alongside with initials, based on the embellishments of the manuscripts of Ioannis Rossos, the most eminent Greek calligrapher of the Renaissance.5 The four editions circulated by the House of Vlastos stemmed from the Byzantine lexicographic tradition and comprise a dictionary, two editions of the scholiasts of Plato and Aristotle and a medical treatise; Great Etymologicon (1499), Hypomnemata in Aristotelis Categorias by Simplicius (1499), Hypomnema in Quinque Voces [...] by Ammonius Hermiae (1500) and Of the Method of Curing Diseases by Galen (1500).6

Printer’s Devices of Vlastos and Kalliergis The Great Etymologicon is embellished with the devices of both Vlastos and Kal­ liergis respectively.7 Vlastos’s device is among the best known and most attractive in the era of early printing, and its design accomplishes two purposes: arranging the letters of the printer’s name in an artistically pleasing cipher or letter composi­ tion, something typical of early printing devices, and evoking the connotations of his name, “vlastos”, which in Greek means sprout. The composition is framed by a rectangle formed by a thick and a thin line. The central motif is the cipher com­ posed of the letters of Nikolaos Vlastos’s name based on a large capital N, which is encircled by two leafy vine-stems climbing symmetrically to the top of the rec­ tangle and filling the whole frame with their foliage. The composition is crowned by a Byzantine cross, on either side of which are engraved the initials “IΣ” (Jesus) and “ΧΣ” (Christ) respectively [Figure 3 = Marks, 4–5 (3)]. The device is printed in red ink, a characteristic of Venetian printer’s devices. Vlastos’s mark was probably designed by Kalliergis or Rossos. In contrast to Vlastos’s elaborate device, Kalliergis chose to use the emblem of the late Byzantine emperors and possibly the armorial bearings of a branch of his family: a crowned double-headed eagle, and Kalliergis’s intitials, Z and K, engraved on a shield on the eagle’s breast, the whole enclosed in a rectangular frame, printed also in red ink [Figure 4 = Marks, 4–5 (4)]. The device of Vlastos was placed in all four of his editions, while that of Kalliergis was only used in the Great Etymologicon and in Simplicius’s work.

5 No specialized study has been dedicated to the influence of Rossos’ work on early printing. How­ ever, codices written by Rossos, such as the magnificent Laurentianus Plut. 56. 11, fol. 12 ff. permit to establish the connection between Rossos’s writing and the headpieces and initials of Vlastos and Kalliergis. 6 See Staikos 1998, 392–403. 7 BMC, V, 580.



Figure 3

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Figure 4

Vlastos’s printer’s mark is not found in any other Greek book after 1500. However, the ini­ tials and headpieces of his press came to the possession of the printing press of Giunta, and were used first for the reedition of the Lexicon of Hesychius in Florence in 1520.8

The Contribution of Aldus Manutius to the ­Transmission of Greek Thought In 1494 Aldus Manutius started organizing his printing house in Venice, his primary objective being to publish original language editions of Classical Greek texts hitherto only known to Europeans through their Latin translation. His goal was to make the Greek language more widely known, so that the humanist public would be able to read in the original. To this end, he started by publishing grammar textbooks such as the Grammar of Constantine Laskaris, and monumental works of Classical Greek liter­ ature like the five-volume edition of Aristotle’s Complete Works, already mentioned

8 Hoffmann 1961, 261.

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(1495–1498), and Aristophanes’s Comedies (1498).9 In order to complete this gigantic task he counted with the help of eminent Greek philologists such as Marcus Musurus, Demetrios Doukas and others, who collated the manuscripts available and made the necessary emendations. From the early sixteenth century, the press of Aldus became very famous, not only in Italy but in the North as well, and came to be a necessary stopover for scho­ lars like Erasmus, who visited the cultural centres of Italy in order to further their humanist education. The activity of the House of Aldus expanded to the degree that it became imperative to organize his press at the academic level as well. This led to the foundation of the New Academy, the works of which were regulated by the Rules.10 Aldus’ printer’s mark is one of the best known and easily recognizable in the book world and especially among those interested in the editiones principes of Greek and Latin literature. Aldus started to systematically embellish his editions with printer’s devices approximately seven years after the publication of his first books, that is, from 1501/02 onwards.11 By 1499 he had chosen the emblem of his publishing house and in the 1499 edition of Opera, by Angelo Poliziano, he had made known both to his close colla­ borators and his reading public the maxim which would complete it: festina lente (hasten slowly), traditionally attributed to emperor Augustus, and already used in several printed editions.12 The maxim is graphically represented by a dolphin wrapped around an anchor: the dolphin stands for activity and the anchor for steadiness. The device of Aldus was first printed in the second volume of Poetae Christiani Veteres (in Latin), and for the first time in a Greek book in Sophocles’s Tragedies of 1502.13 Ever since, the device appeared in almost all Aldine editions, with some variations, usually as to its size. On either side of the anchor are printed sometimes the initials Al and DUS or ALDUS MA[nutius]. RO [manus]. This composition was usually printed in black ink except for rare cases when it was printed in red, such as Antiquarum lectionum by Ludovicus Caelius Rhodiginus (1516) and Sacrae Scripturae Veteris novaeque omnia (1518). After Aldus’ death, his heir Andrea d’Asola and later the sons of Aldus and of Andrea continued to use the Aldine anchor as their printer’s mark in their Greek and Latin editions, with some variations in design, and sometimes framed by the words ALDI FILII or Aldus Iunior [Figure 5 = Marks, 8–17].

9 BMC, V, 553, 555–556, 556, 556–557 and BMC, V, 559. 10 Staikos 2016, 122–123. 11 On the problem of establishing when exactly the device was first used see Wolkenhauer 2002, 165. 12 For a thorough exposition on the development of the device see Wolkenhauer 2002, 34–46; 165–185. 13 Renouard 1834, 34–36.



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Figure 5

Greek Letters in Rome After Giovanni de’Medici, the pupil of Janus Laskaris and a fervent lover of Greek letters, ascended the Papal throne as Leo X, a systematic effort was made to revive Greek studies and promote the Greek language, by, among other means, the pub­ lication of Greek books. To this aim, the members of the papal Curia invited the renowned printer Zacharias Kalliergis to print Greek books in Rome. Kalliergis was also a teacher at the Greek college founded by Leo X on Quirinal Hill. Several Roman patrons of letters and arts such as Agostino Chigi also embraced the Pope’s effort to support Greek letters. Chigi was counselled by Cornelio Benigni, an inspi­ red human­ist who was fascinated by the prospect of reviving classical studies. He worked hard with Kalliergis and financed the first steps of the latter’s publishing venture; this is corroborated by the fact that Kalliergis’s editions bear the printer’s mark of Benigni.

The First Greek Book Ever Printed in Rome The edition of Pindar’s Odes by Zacharias Kalliergis (1515) includes the ancient scholia,14 while the editio princeps of Aldus (1513) consisted only of Pindar’s text. The edition is distinguished by Kalliergis’s initiative to create a full title page, which in­­cludes almost all the elements of the work’s identity: title, author, date and place of publi­ cation, rights of exclusivity and printer’s or publisher’s device. The title page of the

14 Legrand 1885, 129–131.

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Odes is the most complete in comparison to all the other Greek editions hitherto pub­ lished in Italy and the ones in foreign languages circulated by the presses of Northern Europe. Next to the device of Kalliergis, which in this case is not enclosed in a rectangle, appeared for the first time the device of Benigni, which was probably designed by Kalliergis and evokes the caduceus or Kerykeion of god Hermes; two snakes intertwine symmetrically around a wand; their heads face each other at the top of the composi­ tion while their bodies form the symbol of the infinite. The wand is surmounted by a pair of outspread wings with a star in the hollow between them. The device of Benigni was printed in black ink and is only found in the editions of Kalliergis [Figures 6 and 7 = Marks, 6–7 (6–7)].

Figure 6

Figure 7

The Character of Greek Books In the early sixteenth century books were printed in Greek with two main objectives: first, to make ancient literature known and available to the humanist public of Italy, and provide the necessary books in order to teach Greek thought at the universities, and above all that of Padua; second, to produce books addressed to Greeks everywhere, in territories under Genoese or Venetian rule, such as Crete, Ottoman domains such as Constantinople and modern-day Greece, and Greek communities in Western Europe



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and the Greek-speaking regions of the East, so that the culture could be preserved alongside with the Orthodox faith. Thus, the Greeks active in Italy, and mainly Venice, realized that they had to cooperate with Italian printing shops which disposed of the necessary equipment and personnel, and could undertake editions on their behalf. These activities were sponsored by wealthy members of the Greek community of Venice mainly, who dealt with Greek populations of the Ionian islands and Crete, through Greek merchants active in the Mediterranean sea and the Bosporus. A very important market for Greek books, especially those with liturgical and theologi­ cal content were the huge monastic complexes of Mount Athos, with Great Lavra, Vatopedi and other monasteries, Meteora, Analipsis Monastery, and the Patriarchal centres of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. These monasteries’ libraries housed important liturgical as well as secular manuscripts and printed books from the begin­ nings of typography onwards.15 The printing and distribution of classical and Byzantine authors and of necessary textbooks for learning the Greek language was undertaken for the most part by two major publishing houses of Italy; that of Aldus Manutius and his heirs in Venice, and the house of Filippo Giunta and his successors in Florence. In fact the texts chosen for their editions became the model for all the publishing houses of Northern Europe, in Basle, Paris, Frankfurt etc., which thus supported the cultivation of Greek letters at European universities. In the sixteenth century, books destined exclusively to the Greek public were only published in Venice, as a result of the cooperation between Italian presses and Greek scholars and patrons. These books are of special interest, and testify to an important production of Greek editions, intended to serve the regions of East and West where Greek Orthodox centres existed. It is also remarkable that several Italian printers and publishers translated their names into Greek and created monograms which they used only in their Greek editions.

Greek Printers in the Venetian Publishing Scene The second decade of the sixteenth century saw the establishment of book production primarily addressed to the Greek element both in the West and the East. The prime mover of this activity was Andreas Kounadis, who came from Patras in the Pelopon­ nese, and was in Venice since 1616. His aim was to circulate editions that would serve to strengthen the bonds between the Greeks under trial, a great part of whom were enslaved by the Ottomans since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. A position gener­ ally accepted by Greek scholars at the time was that in order to maintain cohesion of

15 Staikos 2007.

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the Greek nation, it was necessary to cultivate Classical and Byzantine letters alongs­ ide modern language and literature through the Christian Orthodox tradition. Especially with regard to the Greek Orthodox tradition, there was absolute need of the liturgical books necessary to the church ritual after the Fall of Constantinople. These books are different from the corresponding ones of the Catholic Church, not only with respect to language (as they are written exclusively in Greek) but also as to the liturgies, hymns and psalms sung on each occasion. Thus, aside from the Gospels and Psalters, which were common to the Catholic and Orthodox church alike, there existed a series of other liturgical texts such the Menaia, Palakletikes, Triodia, Horologia, Pentekostaria, Octoechoi, Anthologies, Paschalia (Calendars of movable feasts) etc., which were exclusively used by Orthodox communities. Among them, most essential were the Menaia, each including the liturgies of one month; twelve Menaia cover the complete circle of the liturgical year, with the daily rituals and those of the stable des­ potic, theometoric and saints’ feasts of the year. In other words, in order to perform the liturgies in each of the innumerable churches of the Greek territories and the monaste­ ries from Calabria to Mount Athos and the Christian centres of the East, a Menaion, to be renewed yearly, was necessary. Thus the Menaion became the most essential book for Orthodox clerics and a major support in the endeavor to establish Greek printing, as publishers had subscriptions to at least fifteen thousand copies every year.

Greek Liturgical Books The only Greek liturgical books published during the early printing era (incunabula) were the Psalter, “[...] the Horologion and the Hours of the Virgin”, followed later on by the Octoechos (1520). The Psalter was first published with a parallel Latin trans­ lation by Buono Accorsi in Milan in 1472, subsequently by Laonicus and Alexander, two Cretans working in Venice (1486), and also in an edition of Ioustinos Dekadyos by the printing shop of Aldus Manutius, again in Venice, in 1486. The Horologion was first published by Zacharias Kalliergis in Venice in 1509 with the aid of publisher and bookseller Jacobus Pentius de Leuco. In 1515 Kalliergis transferred his business to Rome, where he issued the editio princeps of the Octoechos in 1520. The Hours of the Virgin, a miniature printing masterpiece, was circulated principally to meet the needs of the Greek community of Venice, some of whose members had embraced the Union of the churches. The first edition of the Hours is dated in 1497, while the text was republished in 1505, again from the press of Aldus. The Horologion and the Hours of the Virgin were published again by the Florentine house of Giunta, competitors of the Aldine press, in 1520 and 1521 respectively. After deciding to finance the printing of Greek books Kounadis needed to find a printer who could help make his vision come true. He chose the brothers Nicolini da Sabbio, who were the most knowledgeable in Greek printing in Venice in that age. At



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that time, however, around 1521, the da Sabbio were working for Andrea Torresano d’Asola, who had inherited the house of Aldus after the latter’s death in 1515. In order to tempt the brothers and convince them to abandon the Aldine press, Kounadis pro­ mised the brothers’ representative, Stefano da Sabbio, that he would become master printer in his printing shop. Kounadis’ projects were not limited to circulating liturgical books: he extended his programme to include works of Cretan literature, possibly having in mind the Cretan reader public aside from that of Venice. However, he did not live long enough to see the fruit of his pioneering endeavor, as he died in late 1522 or in the early months of the following year. His work was carried on by his father-in-law, Damiano Santa Maria, a textile merchant, who possibly was in some partnership with Kounadis from the very beginning of the latter’s editorial venture. While Kounadis was still alive, his press released three liturgical books, the Psalter of 1521, the Parakletike and the Triodion of 1522. After his death, his heirs sys­ tematically omitted to mention his name in the colophons of their editions. However, some of the editions of Damiano de Santa Maria bear Kounadis’ printer’s device.

Kounadis’ Printer’s Mark Kounadis’ printer’s mark first appeared in the Horologion of 1524 [Figure 8 = Marks, 32–33 (53)] that is, after his death. The central motif of its composition is a marten (kounavi or kounadi in Greek, thus a reference to the publisher’s name) rampant in

Figure 8

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a shield-shaped frame surmounted by a stylized flower. The motif is enclosed by a garland framed in a rectangle, with Andreas Kounadis’ name sometimes included.

Niccolini da Sabbio Brothers The brothers Nicolini da Sabbio or Sabio (Giovanni, Antonio, Stefano, Pietro and Gio­ vanni Maria, and later their nephew Cornelio) were the most active printers in Greek printing in Italy in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, that is, from 1521 to 1553. They came from the town of Sabbio, today Sabio Chiese, Brescia. It has been asserted that they learned the art of printing in Toscolano, though this is not entirely certain. It is also unclear when they moved to the Venice, but we know that by 1521 they had already been hired by Andrea Torresano. For some time their printing shop was in the neighbourhood of Santa Formosa, Venice. The first six editions circulated by the da Sabbio brothers are liturgical books: Signed by “Io Antonium and fratres des Sabio”, they are dated from 1521 to 1523. In the next year, 1524, the name of Stefano appears in a colophon for the first time (in aedibus Stephani a Sabbio), that of the first edition of the Rimada of Apollonios of Tyre, written by Gabriel Akontiano of Chania, Crete, in 1500, which was an adaptation of the well-known medieval romance of Apollonios of Tyre. The da Sabbio brothers established a partnership which was active in other cities of Italy besides Venice. At the invitation of bishop Gian Matteo Giberti (1495– 1543), they settled in Venice and installed their press at the diocese palace, next to the cathedral. Giberti had a new Greek typeface cut and punched, in which Εἰς τὰς Пαύλου ἐπιστολὰς ἑρμηνεία [“Exegesis of Paul’s Letters”] of Saint John Chrysostom was printed in 1529. The shop of Verona released two more editions, in 1531 and 1532, and then suspended its activities for unknown reasons. The da Sabbio brothers returned to Venice. They did not limit their activity to printing Greek books for Damiano de Santa Maria, but also worked for other publish­ ing houses which printed in Greek, such as Melchior Sessa’s. In 1535, Stefano and his brothers requested and obtained the rights of exclusivity for the publication of the works of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus. Around 1539 Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio probably started to design a new family of Greek type for cardinal Marcello Cervini, who planned to publish Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Vatican library. That year, Cervini approached the Roman typographer Antonio Blado and asked him to print the Greek texts. His cooperation with Blado lasted until 1543, and three editions were printed in the type cut by Stefano, with Blado’s name in the colophon: they include the four-­ volume edition of the Commentaries on the Iliad and Odyssey of Eustathius of Thes­ salonica (1542–1555) and the Interpretation of the Four Gospels of Theophylactus of Ohrid, also of 1542.



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Several of the books printed by the Nicolini da Sabbio brothers only bear the printer’s marks of their sponsors, such as the heirs of Kounadis and Melchior Sessa. However, some editions carry two of their own printer’s devices. The first appeared in Venice in 1521 (A. Achillinus, De humani corporis anatomia) and shows a cabbage (considered to be a Savoy cabbage) with a snake coiled around its bare stem and the word BRASICA (from Brassica, the cabbage and cauliflower genus) at its foot. This is enclosed in a shield-shape frame, which is itself surrounded by a decorative geo­ metric border with vegetable motifs, within a rectangle. The mark is also found with variations: often, for example, with the brothers’ names flanking the central element of the composition: IO AN TO ET FRA TELLI [Figure 9 = Marks, 42 (72)]. Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio also used a device of his own, none other than the coat of arms of his hometown Sabbio: a coronet above a bridge, with the name SABIOC at the foot. The emblem is enclosed in a frame which was usually flanked by the printer’s name, ∑ΤЕΦΑNΟ∑ ∑ΑΒІΟ∑ or ∑ΤЕΦΑNΟ∑ ∑ΑΒIЕY∑. The first appearance of this device was in the Gospel book (Еὐαγγέλιον) of 1539 [Figure 10 = Marks, 38 (65)].

Figure 9

Figure 10

Nikolaos Sophianos Nikolaos Sophianos was a major scholar, gifted with all the talents of a Renaissance humanist. Born into an aristocratic family of Corfu in the early sixteenth century, Sophia­ nos left his home island for Rome, where he studied at the Greek College of Quirinal Hill, a school founded by Pope Leo X in 1514, and directed by Janus Laskaris. It was probably

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at the College that Sophianos made the acquaintance of the famous printer Zacharias Kalliergis, who taught there and also had been working as master printer in Rome since 1515. Together with other gifted students of the College, such as Matthaios Devaris, Kon­ stantinos Rallis and Christophoros Kontoleos, Sophianos worked as calligrapher and copyist of Greek codices for cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi (1501–1550), nephew of Pope Leo X, who was an important collector of manuscripts and a bibliophile. For unknown reasons, Sophianos left Rome and settled in Venice, where he continued to work as a calligrapher. During his stay at the City of the Doges Sophianos became more interested in Greek language, mainly vernacular Greek. Around 1533 he wrote an essay in dialogue form, “The three tyrants”, which remained unpublished. Ten years later, in 1543, he was sent to Greece by Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, ambassador of Charles V in Venice. The aim of the journey was to collect Greek manuscripts, several of which ended up at the library of El Escorial. During his stay in Greece, Sophianos realized that the Greeks were poorly acquain­ ted with the ancient language; he thus took the initiative to translate a series of ped­ agogical works into modern Greek, such as Plutarch’s On the Education of Children. In order to make known the important Greek cities in East and West during the classical era, Sophianos drew and published a map of Greece titled Totius Graeciae descriptio. The original has not been preserved, but it is known that it circulated sometime between 1536 and 1543; the Map is preserved in a reedition of 1552. In the preface to the Map, Sophianos includes a table with the ancient sources he has drawn upon: Pausanias, Herodotus, Strabo and Ptolemy. In 1545 Sophianos published a Horologion with his printer’s mark in Venice. It depicts a lion rampant holding a sword in its forepaws in an approximation of the en

Figure 11



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garde position. The motif is enclosed by an oval frame with sprays of laurel or olive leaves placed symmetrically round it. This was the only edition of Sophianos to include this emblem, which under unknown circumstances came later to the possession of two Paduan printers, Giacomo Fabriano, who used in his editions from 1540 to 1556, and Lorenzo Pasquati, who did the same in an edition of 1577 [Figure 11 = Marks, 66 (123)].

Demetrios Marmaretos Demetrios Marmaretos appears only once on the map of Greek printing, that is, in 1549. He was born in Constantinople in the early 1530s and became a merchant. Due to his specialized knowledge on the economy of the Ottoman Empire he was chosen by the Capi of the Council of Ten of Venice to represent the Serenissima in its commer­ cial negotiations with the Sublime Gate. As a reward, Marmaretos was promised the position of scribano at Zara for the rest of his life. Simultaneously with his trading activity, Marmaretos and his brother Iakovos, who lived in Constantinople, provided manuscripts to several collectors in Europe, among them the French ambassador in Venice Guillaume Pellicier. According to the colophon of the Eirmologion of 1549, Marmaretos was then working with Vasileios and Ippolytos Valeris, who apparently financed this edition. The title page of the book is embellished with his printer’s device which appears here for the first and only time in the history of printing. The composition is evocative of antiquity, with a column and a spread eagle perched on the capital and the initials Δ and M to right and left. The frame surrounding the device is identical to that of Niko­ laos Sophianos [Figure 12 = Marks, 67 (124)].

Figure 12

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Ippolytos and Vasileios Valeris The family of Valeris (or Vareli) came from Corfu and some of its members were active in the Greek Brotherhood of Venice from the early sixteenth century onwards. Vasi­ leios, son of the affluent merchant of Venice Matthaios Valeris, worked as calligra­ pher and publisher of liturgical books, and also participated in the ceremonies of the Greek Church of Saint George as a priest. Another brother of his, Nikolaos, was also a ­calligrapher and provided Greek codices to the Court of Spain, as did the third brother, Ippolytos, who also worked as a scribe, publisher and book seller, and distrib­uted liturgical books in Crete as well as in other regions where secular or monastic Greek communities existed. Ippolytos and his brothers formed a partnership around the late 1540s. Aside from their bookselling and other commercial activity from 1564 to 1570–1571 they published at least 12 liturgical books, which they also distributed and sold. Two different marks, publisher’s rather than printer’s devices, distinguish the editions of the brothers Vasileios and Ippolytos Valeris. Both have the same oval frame surrounded by an extremely ornate border composed of feathers and vegetal motifs such as laurel sprays and garlands of fruit, with the name ΒΑΛEPIC at the foot. The difference between the two marks is in the central theme: that of Vasileios has two lions standing erect, holding up a wreath with their forepaws, while that of Ippo­ lytos has an eagle with outspread wings, perched atop a tree with an olive branch in its beak [Figures 13 and 14: Marks, 68–69 (125–126)].

Figure 13

Figure 14



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Antonios Vergis Antonios Vergis was also member on an affluent family of Corfu, active in Venice as merchants and ship owners. The Vergis family transported cotton, wheat and other goods all over the Mediterranean, all the way to England. Not many biographical data are avail­ able on Antonios Vergis, but his name appears in documents of the Greek ­Brotherhood in 1577, when he appears to have paid for two icons of the Prophets Moses and Elijah, commissioned to Michael Damascenus, for the church of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice.16 In 1565, Vergis turned his interest to the world of books and became a patron of letters. He acquired a family of Greek type, known by the name of parangon grec, which had been designed and cut by the French Robert Granjon for Christopher Plantin. Vergis also used a large number of religious illustrations, which he probably borrowed from presses which printed liturgical books of the Catholic Church. Vergis only published three books in 1578, an Octoechos, an Euchologion, and a Psalter. Antonios Vergis adorned the three books printed on his account with a mark similar in style to the one first used in Greek books by Andrea Spinelli, namely a monogram of the letters of an abbreviated form of the name ΑΝΤΩΝΙΟΣ ΒΕΡΓΗΣ, framed by a circle inscribed in a square [Figure 15 = Marks, 79 (142)].

Figure 15

Augustinos Gemelos Augustinos Gemelos and his son Antonios worked as book sellers in Venice and called themselves “librar”. Augustinos was married to Dionora Kounadis, daughter of Andreas Kounadis and granddaughter of Damiano Santa Maria. In 1561 ­Augustinos

16 See Chatzidakis 1987, 242–249.

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made a petition to the Council of Ten for an imprimatur which would allow him to publish and circulate Greek portolani. In his request, he pointed out that no other Greek portolano had been printed before, in Venice or elsewhere. Given this, his peti­ tion was accepted and he was granted rights of exclusivity for the editions of Greek portolani for ten years. The Portolano was finally published in June 1573, and the title page is embellished by the printer’s device of the Gemelos family, which appears in this edition for the first and only time: In a Renaissance-style ornate frame, somewhat resembling a coat of arms, stand two putti with a pair of crosses in the space between them and above their heads a fillet inscribed with the family name ΓEMEΛΟC. Members of the Gemelos family continued to publish Greek books, mainly liturgic, in collaboration with Italian printers of Greek books such as Giacomo Leoncini [Figure 16 = Marks, 78 (141)].

Figure 16

Printer’s Marks of Spinelli and Kounlis Finally, an example of a coexistence of a printer’s and a publisher’s mark, of an Italian printer and a Greek publisher respectively, is the edition of the Parakletike printed by Andrea Spinelli in Venice in 1559–1560. The brothers Giacomo and Andrea Spinelli were born in Parma. They lived and worked in Venice, and specialized in the edition of Greek liturgical books. However, at least for Andrea, printing was only a side occupation, as his main job was minting coins at the Mint of Venice. The Spinelli brothers printed at least sixteen Greek books, most of them liturgical, from 1548 to 1564.



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The Spinelli used two different marks for their editions: one was a “historiated crown”, a feature of a building in which they had their print shop and the other was a monogram composed of the letters of the name ANDREA SPINELLI. They also used the printer’s mark of Nikolaos Kouvlis, a member of an affluent family of Nafplio and the Greek Brotherhood of Venice. Kouvlis only financed the edition of the Parakletike already mentioned. It depicted a stylized domed birdcage in an elegant decorative frame [Figures 17–19 = Marks, 70–71 (129, 127, 130)].

Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19

Afterword From the early sixteenth century, systematic production of Greek books spreads beyond the borders of Venice and Italy. Greek books are published in major cultural centres of Europe such as Paris, Basle, Erfurt, Strasbourg, Alcalá de Henares etc. As in

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Italy, the main objective of the publishers’ work was to make Greek learning tools available and to propagate Greek literature by producing multiple copies of the works. In any case, Venice remained the main centre of Greek printing and publishing throughout the sixteenth century, more so than any other Italian city. More than twenty publishing and printing houses of the city circulated Greek books during that era.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: U. Scinzenzeler, device (5.5×7.7 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 2: I. Bissoli & B. Mangio, device (5.5×5.7 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 3: N. Vlastos, device (6.8×12.2 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 4: Z. Kalliergis, device (4.7×6 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 5: A. Manutius, device (4.8×5.2 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 6: C. Benigni, device (3.8×5.4 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 7: Z. Kalliergis, device (3.8×5.1 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 8: A. Kounadis, device (5.8×7.6 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 9: N. de Sabio, device (5×6.8 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 10: Stefano Sabio, device (8×4.8 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 11: N. Sophianos, device (5×7 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 12: D. Marmaretos, device (6.8×8.8 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009.



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Figure 13: V. Valeris, device (8.7×11.5 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 14: C. Benigni, device (8×11 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 15: A. Vergis, device (6.4×6.4 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 16: A. Gemelos, device (7.7×11.7 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 17: A. Spinelli, device (5.2×4.4 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 18: A. Spinelli, device (6.3×6.3 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Figure 19: N. Kouvlis, device (4.7×4.5 cm). Provenance of the illustration: Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. Athens: Oak Knoll Press & Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009.

Bibliography Ammonius Hermiae, Hypomnema in Quinque Voces Porphyrii, Venice: Nikolaos Vlastos, 1500. Aristophanes, Comoediae Novem, edited by Marcus Musurus, Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1498. BMC, Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the British Museum. 12 vols. London: London British Museum, 1908–1985. Chatzidakis, Manolis, Έλληνες Ζωγράφοι μετά την Άλωση (1450–1830). Vol. I. Athens: Kéntro Neoellēnikṓn Ereunṓn, 1987. Etymologicum Magnum, edited by Zacharias Kalliergis, Venice: Nikolaos Vlastos, 1499. Galen, Therapeutica, Venice: Nikolaos Vlastos, 1500. Hoffmann, Samuel F.W., Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesammten Literatur der Griechen. Vol. 2. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1961. Isocrates, Orationes, edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Milan: Ulrich Scinzenzeler, 1493. Legrand, Émile, Bibliographie Hellénique ou description raisonnée des ouvrages publiés en Grec par des Grecs aux XVe et XVIe siècles. I/1–5. Paris: E. Leroux, 1885–1906. Pindar, Pindari Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia [...], Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1513. Pindar, Pindari Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia [...], Rome: Zacharias Kalliergis, 1515. Plato, Omnia Opera, Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1513. Renouard, Antoine-Augustin, Annales de l’imprimerie des Alde, ou Histoire des Trois Manuce et de leurs éditions. Paris: Jules Renouard, 18343. Rhodiginus, Ludovicus Caelius (Lodovico Ricchieri): Antiquarum lectionum commentarii libri XVI, Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1516. Sacrae scripturae veteris novaeque omnia, Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1518. Simplicius, Hypomnemata in Aristotelis Categorias, Venice: Zacharias Kalliergis for Nikolaos Vlastos, 1499.

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Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Charta of Greek Printing. The Contribution of Greek Editors, Printers and Publishers to the Renaissance in Italy and the West. Cologne: Dinter, 1998. Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., The History of the Library in Western Civilization. Vol. 3. From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press/ Athens: Kotinos/ Nieuwkoop: Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2007. Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., Printers’ & Publishers’ Marks in Books for the Greek World. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press/ Athens: Kotinos/ Nieuwkoop: Hes & de Graaf Publishers, 2009. Staikos, Konstantinos Sp., The Greek Editions of Aldus Manutius and his Greek Collaborators (c. 1494–1515). New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2016. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002.

Anna Jakimyszyn-Gadocha

Jewish Printers’ Marks from Poland (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries) Introduction With Johannes Gutenberg inventing movable type printing in the 1440s, the manner in which texts were reproduced in the traditions of different cultures was changed forever.1 This was also the case for Judaism.2 The Jews soon learned the art of printing. They referred to Gutenberg’s invention as “holy” or even “divine” and to the profes­ sion of printing as “the highest of all trades”.3 As a result, the first Jewish book (incunable) was printed between 1469 and 1472, and only 30 years after movable type had been invented.4 The printing technique arrived in Poland in the sixteenth century, and the first Jewish printing house was opened in the 1530s. Over the next two centuries, Jewish publishing activities developed in only three cities – Cracow (in the Kazimierz district), Lublin and Zolkiew.5 This state of affairs continued until 1764, when printing houses started to open in small towns and villages.6 Jewish printers operating in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth belonged, for the most part, to the group of Ashkenazi Jews. They gained work experience both under the guidance of their brethren in faith and in Christian printing houses. Because of their profession and family connections, they stayed in touch with the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews from Europe and the Orient, and it was from them that they acquired printing materials, media and printing standards. One of those con­ sisted in providing a standardized form of the title page, on which the author’s name, the title, and the date and place of publication were placed.7 It was also there that the printer’s mark was included.

1 Dahl 1965; Eisenstein 2004. 2 Reiner 2007, 85–98. 3 Bendowska & Doktór 2011, 9–12. 4 There is no agreement as to which was the first Hebrew book printed, but there is general agree­ ment that it was one of a group printed, without place or date of publication, in Rome between 1469 and 1472. This first Hebrew book is known as the Rome incunabula. See: Steinschneider and Cassel 1938 [1851]; Berliner 1896; Amram 1963 [1909]; Encyclopaedia Judaica 2007, vol. 9, keywords: Incuna­ bula: 757–769; Heller 1992, 51. More information is available on the Internet: www.jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/loc/Adret.html (visited on 27.08.2015). 5 Bałaban 1930, 180–224; Bałaban 1931, 102–116; Pilarczyk 2004a, 201–221. 6 Exp. Krotoszyn, Żytomierz, Piotrków Trybunalski and Berdyczew and others. The same state of af­ fairs continued up to the partitions of Poland. More information: Friedberg 1950. 7 Bendowska & Doktór 2011, 9–12. See also: Pilarczyk 2012, 19–24, 161–181; Heller 2007a. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-006

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In this place it is worthwhile to point out the meaning of the term “Jewish” which appears in the title of the present text. We shall use the term to refer to the signets used by printers of Jewish origin from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (sixteenth-se­ venteenth century.), placed on the pages of publications in Jewish languages which used Hebrew and Yiddish letters. Printer’s marks were used as a distinctive graphic symbol by printers, printers’ families and publishing houses. As a small-form symbol, they permitted identifica­ tion of the product, in other words, the book, with the publisher-printer. Signets came into use shortly after printing had been invented,8 and they, too, were adopted by the Jews.9 The first known signet appears on the title page of a Jewish book published in 1485.10 It is not known whether this is the oldest such signet used in Jewish circles, or whether between 1475 and 1485 printers of Jewish background used signets, whose images have not survived to our times. Printers’ signets were placed in the center of the title page or towards the bottom of the page. At this point, an explanation on the layout of Jewish books is due. As the Hebrew alphabet is written from right to left, books are composed in a manner inverse to Christian prints (which are read from left to right). Therefore, in the books printed by Jewish publishing houses, the first card from the right is the title page. Depending on where they are placed in the book, printers’ marks of Jewish pub­ lishing houses in the Polish territory can be divided into several groups. The first group includes the signs placed on the title or on the back page; a second one has marks placed in the text. This is the case with works that include a foreword in which the printer’s mark could be situated after the author’s or publisher’s note, before the actual text. The third group consists of printers’ marks placed on the last page of the text.11 The placement of the marks of the first and the third group raises no questions: it follows from the colophon, and is due to the layout of the Hebrew books. On the other hand, it is not known what reasons motivated transferring the printer’s mark to the beginning of the text proper. There is no rule, either, which would permit to ascertain why the printer’s mark was placed in one place or another.

8 The first one used by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer; Szwejkowska 1975, 19. See also: Weil 1929,16; Grimm 1965, 15; Glaister 1966, 136. 9 Posner and Ta-Shma 1975, passim. See also: www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12368-printersmarks (visited on 25.08.2015). 10 More information is available on the Internet: www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12368-prin­ ters-marks (visited on 25.08.2015); Bendowska & Doktór 2011, 17. 11 The same situation was in non-Jewish prints published in the Polish territory during the period in question, e.  g. Serenissimi atque Potentissimi Principis Vladislai IV Magni Polononum ac Svecorum Regis, Borussorum ducis etc. Franciszek Schnellboltz, Toruń 1635 (Milewska-Kozłowska 2001, 145).



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Figures 1 and 2

It should also be noted that in the case of printer’s marks placed on the title page in books from Jewish publishing houses, these are not part of the decorative border, as it was the case in non-Jewish prints published in the Polish territory during the period in question.12 Jewish printers’ marks were black and white, with colour only rarely appearing in Jewish books during this period. Sometimes the initial letters were illuminated, margins, decorated, and illustrations and illuminations were introduced (e. g. A Mystical Haggadah: Passover Meditations, Teachings and Tales, Cenekh-ureneh). Colour was only used where it had been introduced in the manuscript tradition.13 All of the printers’ signets were based around the use of two colors: black and white. At first, signets were in the form of a wooden stamp pressed on the page. With time they were adapted and became imprint of copper plates.14 As they were not signed by the artists they remain anonymous source material that cannot be traced to any specific person. Furthermore, it cannot be said that the designing of Jewish printers’ signets was solely the domain of Jews. However, there can be no doubt that all printers’ signets reflected the skills of those that made them, the specific tastes of the owners and the prevailing artistic trends. For this reason they were characterized

12 Krzak-Weiss 2009, 13. 13 Pilarczyk 2012, 176. 14 Yaari 1943, XIII.

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by diversity: ranging from simple patterns to those that demonstrated extreme care for and the manner of presenting the approved concept of decorating them. Printers’ signets were not only used for practical purposes, permitting the printer or the prin­ ting house to be identified, but also served as items of decoration, adorning books.15 By definition – as identification marks – printers’ signets should be unique and original in character. The motifs that they displayed provided information about the printer (his first name, surname, origin, and ancestry), his profession and place of residence.16 They also represented symbols of joy, propitiousness, and Biblical and Talmudic sayings. The number of graphic elements used in Jewish tradition was limited and included the following: depictions of scenes from the Bible and religious symbols, signs of the zodiac, human figures, depictions of flora and fauna, geometri­ cal patterns, urban landscapes and individual architectural elements.17 Lettering was also used as an element of decoration.18 The letters were used to create monograms, names and surnames of printers. They were arranged in the form of Biblical and Tal­ mudic quotations. Sometimes acrostics were used.

Figure 3

15 The same situation was with non-Jewish printer’s marks; Krzak-Weiss 2009, 7–18; Krzak-Weiss 2006. 16 Pilarczyk 2012, 177. 17 Bendowska & Doktór 2011, 17–18. 18 Both the Hebrew and Latin alphabets were used (the latter of these alphabets was commonly used with Jewish printer’s signets in the eighteenth century). The letters were placed vertically or horizontally. There were also instances of letters being adjusted to the overall pattern and layout on the signet; Yaari 1943, 28, 29, 48, 52, 53, 76, 93, 95, 101.



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In order to diversify signets, use was made of various shapes (oval, square, rectangu­ lar, rhombus).19 Their size (adapted to the page as a whole) also differed. The distribu­ tion and choice of graphic elements varied in nature. However, similarities could not be avoided. Part of them undoubtedly acquired their appearance by accident. Some of them were the outcome of the purposeful copying of marks seen on the pages of books belonging to other publishing houses. Books from Jewish publishing houses containing printers’ marks are kept in various libraries. The largest collections of those are found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the National and University Library in Jerusalem. Also three collections held in Poland should be mentioned. The first of those, referred to in Polish as Berlinka, was originally a German collection of books kept at the Prussian State Library in Berlin. Today, this collection is kept at the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow.20 The second one is the collection of Jewish books from the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw).21 The last one is a part of the Saraval collection, gathered by Leon Vit Saraval (1771–1851) of Trieste, who collected manuscripts, incunables and books. A part of his collection is now stored in Wrocław (other parts, in New York, Prague, and Moscow).22 In these collections are the books published by different printing houses in Europe between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. Some of them are from the Polish-Lithuanian-Commonwealth. Printers’ signets were used by Jewish printers from Poland up to the nineteenth century. But the purpose of this article is to present history of Jewish printers and printers’ signets used by the Jews in Poland only during the sixteenth and the seven­ teenth century. The history of Jewish printers from Poland has been dealt with by a number of authors (e.  g.: Majer Bałaban,23 Monika Bendowska and Jan Doktór,24 Aron Freimann,25 Chaim David Friedberg,26 Abraham Meir Habermann,27 Frank Herman,28 Bronisław Kocowski,29 Krzysztof Pilarczyk,30 Emanuel Ringelblum,31 Józef Wojakow­ ski32). Some of them wrote also about Jewish printers’ marks. But none of them pre­ sents this subject as the major focus of his work.

19 Yaari 1943, passim. 20 Pilarczyk 2011b, 151–163. 21 Bendowska & Doktór, 2011. 22 Pilarczyk 2011a, 291–314. 23 Bałaban 1920, 66–71; Bałaban 1929, 1–50; Bałaban 1930, 180–224; Bałaban 1931, 102–116. 24 Bendowska & Doktór 2011. 25 Freimann 1907. 26 Friedberg 1899; Friedberg 1950. 27 Habermann 1957/1958, 509–520; Habermann 1978, 103–130. 28 Herman 1938. 29 Kocowski 1960–1961, 362–363. 30 Pilarczyk 1998; Pilarczyk 2004a, 201–221; Pilarczyk 2004b; Pilarczyk 2012. 31 Ringelblum 1962, 20–44. 32 Wojakowski 2000, 97–-105.

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Reproductions of signets used by Jewish printing houses, among them the Jewish signets from Poland, can be found in Abraham Yaari’s book “Hebrew Printers’ Marks: From the Beginnings of Hebrew Printing to the End of the 19th century”.33 In what follows I shall consider Jewish printers’ marks from Poland from three angles, a chronological, a geographical and an iconographical one. The chronological angle involves presenting signets from different ages, the geographical one signets from different places, and the iconographic one focuses on signets with different symbols.34

Chronology and Geography The first printing house operated by printers of Jewish origin was founded in the 1530s in Cracow’s Kazimierz quarter. This location was not accidental – Cracow was the capital of the Polish Commonwealth, a place where the Jewish community had been flourishing since the Middle Ages, the centre of religious studies and of Ash­ kenazi culture. The city attracted Jews from many areas, among others from Bohemia and Moravia, and also from Silesian cities. The printing house was established in 1534 by three brothers.35 The brothers’ family name – Helicz – suggests that the roots of the family were to be found in the town of Halych in Red Ruthenia. The Helicz brothers maintained regular contact with the Kohen family of printers from Prague, at that time an important centre of printing and religious studies. It is possible that they learned the profession in one of the Christian publishing houses.36 The Helicz publishing house printed popular books, inspired by the Ashkenazi tradition and the Yiddish language (they even used a new typeface, which was later called the V ­ aybertaytsh37). However, their publishing policy was rejected by the Jewish elites, who did not wish the religious culture to be democratized, i. e. the texts standardized, the lower classes exposed to literature, and the structure of the traditional library given ­changed.38 Their reluctance became all the stronger when the brothers were baptized39 and

33 Yaari 1943. In this work we can find also the Jewish signets from Poland. A. Yaari doesn’t present all printer’s marks (especially from nineteenth century.). They are presented, for example, in: Gries 2007, 114; www.hebrewbooks.org/36656 . 34 This method for the non-Jews printer’s marks were used by H. W. Davies (1935), W. Roberts (1893). 35 Teter & Fram 2006, 31. 36 Bałaban 1920, 85–89; Habermann 1957/1958, 509–520. 37 “Vaybertaytsh” (called also Tkhine-ksav, Tsur or Tsene-urene-ksav) is the type family used for most Yiddish texts until the late eighteenth century. The oldest surviving printed book in Yiddish, or at least with much Yiddish in it, is Mirkeves hamishne, a glossary to Tanakh printed in Cracow in 1534 or 1535; Zafren 1982, 137–-158. 38 Reiner 2007, 90–93. 39 Jan-Eliakhim; Paweł-Shmuel, Andrzej-Asher; Teter & Fram 2006, 66.



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began to print, among other books, the New Testament.40 As a result, they had to close their printing house in 1541. Throughout their publishing activity, the brothers maintained contact with nonJewish printers operating in Cracow. It is not known from where the Helicz brothers initially imported fonts, paper and other supplies.41 The Cracow printers also used very similar printers’ signets to decorate their books. One of the brothers – Eliakim ben Chaim Helicz – published in 1536 the work Den Muser un Hanhoge,42 which provides instructions on daily behaviour by Asher ben Yechiel in the Hebrew original and in Yiddish translation. For this volume, Helicz uses a printer’s mark representing the coat of arms of the City of Cracow surrounded by a garland of leaves, and enclosed in a rectangle. After the closing of the Helicz’s printing house, another printing house was ­launched in the town of Lublin, whose Jewish community was one of the most import­ ant ones in the Polish Commonwealth. In that town, “The Council of Four Lands” (Va’ad Arba’ Aratzot) held its meetings,43 and there was a yeshiva. In the 1540s Rabbi Shalom Szachna, the rector of the local yeshiva, invited to the city one Chaim Shakhor, a printer who had previously worked in Prague and in Silesia. Chaim asked his son, Yitzhak ben Chaim, and his grandson, Josef ben Yakar, to join him in the task set before him.44 The printing house they opened around 1547 inaugurated its operations by printing the Babylonian Talmud, a work that was necessary to establish legal inter­ pretations. In 1556, the printing house was taken over by Eliezer ben Yitzhak and Kal­ onymus ben Mordechai Jaffe.45 Kalonymus worked alone from 1572 until 1604, when he was joined by his grandson – Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymus Jaffe. The publishing house remained in family hands until 1685, and it published over 240 books.46 It was Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe who decided to start placing a prin­ ter’s signet on the pages of his books. He used the symbol of the deer. The signet does not present the full figure, but just a fragment of the trunk of the animal. The deer is placed on the top of the shield of the signet. It grows out of the crown, under which two fish are placed, with their heads turned in opposite directions. The signet also contains 6 Hebrew letters (,‫ ב‬,‫ א‬,‫ ק‬,‫ ז י‬,‫)צ‬. The first pair is placed in the upper section of the signet, the next pair is located at the same level as the fish, on either

40 Bendowska & Doktór 2011, 29–31; Pilarczyk 2009, 133. 41 Teter & Fram 2006, 41–42. 42 NLI, Book Number 000301124. 43 “Council of Four Lands” – Jewish parliament that existed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwe­ alth from 1580 to 1764. The “four lands” were Greater Poland, Little Poland, Ruthenia and Volhynia. In 1623 the Jewish communities from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania withdrew from the “Council of Four Lands” and established the “Council of the Land of Lithuania”. See Leszczyński 1994. 44 Haberman 1978, 103–130. 45 Freimann 1907, 152–155. 46 Pilarczyk 2004b, 112–113.

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side of them, and the last pair appears beneath the shield.47 The signet was used in the works printed after 1604, e. g. on the title page of the Masekhet Berakhot (Lublin 1617) (Figure 4).48

Figure 4

For some of his publications Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymus Jaffe also used different marks. On the title page of Masekhet Bawa kamma published in Lublin in 1619 he used a signet depicting the Temple in Jerusalem (Figure 5).49 On the title page of Masekhet Temurah weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota published in 1639, a standing lion appears, facing left.50 The figure is surrounded by ornaments. These signets were used in various works over several years (Figure 6). Another member of the Jaffe family – Kalonymus Kalman Jaffe, the son of Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe was the owner of the printing house in Lublin ­(1633–1646/47). He used one of his grandfather’s signets representing the temple in Jerusalem.51 To this mark he added a sign depicting a man drawing water from a well,

47 Yaari 1943, 32. 48 Masekhet Berakhot 1617. 49 Masekhet Bawa kamma 1619. 50 Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota 1639. 51 Heller 1992, 350–352.



Figure 5

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Figure 6

over whose head the Hebrew words “bucket, pail” were placed. The whole is en­­closed in the form of an oval, in which four Hebrew letters (‫צ‬, ‫מ‬, ‫ב‬, ‫ )ק‬are placed. Above its upper part, a crown supported by an angel was placed, together with the Hebrew words for “crown of life”. In the lower part, two other letters – ‫ ז‬, ‫ – י‬are placed.52 This printer’s mark was used only in one publication, Masekhet Bawa kamma pub­ lished by this printer (with cooperation of Menachem Meisels ben Moshe Shimshon) in Lublin and Cracow from 1646 to 1648. Parallel to the activities of the Lublin printing works another publishing house located in Cracow’s Kazimierz quarter started operations. In the late 1560s, Moshe Isser­ les, the greatest religious authority of the Ashkenazi Jews, persuaded Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, a printer from the town of Prostějov in Moravia, to move to the city. Prostic had gained professional experience in Italy, from where he also brought the printing equip­ ment. Also the accompanying staff (pressers, typesetters, proofreaders) came from Italy. Prostic died in 1612, and his printing house passed into the hands of his son and grand­ son. It operated until the end of the 1620s, and published over 340 books.53 The demise of the Prostic publishing house was caused by poor editing – the printers could not match the quality of printed matter originating from foreign pub­ lishing houses that also sold books in the Polish Commonwealth – and by the intense activity of the Lublin printing house lead by the above-mentioned Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe.

52 Pilarczyk 1998, 164. 53 Bendkowska and Doktór 2011, 31; Pilarczyk 2004b, 96.

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However, it should be noted that the Prostic family used printers’ signets to mark their work. They were introduced by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic. Prostic used a few different designs. His earliest signet was oval in form. In the middle of the signet he placed two fish, with their heads facing in opposite directions. Beneath them there was a stamp for placing paint with the base facing upwards.54 This printer’s mark was used since 1584, e.  g. Makhzor (1584–1585), Josippon (1589),55 Avot (1589),56 Pardes rimonim (1592),57 Bedek haBayit (1610) (Figures 7 and 8).58

Figures 7 and 8

The next signet used by the Prostic family depicts a lamb standing next to a bush. This image was also used on another signet belonging to this printer. It represents the sacrifice of Isaac (Hebr. akedat Yitzhak). This picture is rich in detail – it shows Isaac bound and lying down, with Abraham leaning over him, holding a knife in his hand. A censer is standing in front of the pile where Isaac is lying down, next to the lamb. The angel is observing this scene from the heavens.59 In this place should be mentioned the phenomenon of aniconism in Judaism, also called the “Ban on graven images”. The portrayal of God was forbidden, but the images, including those of reli­

54 Yaari 1943, 26. 55 Josippon 1589. 56 Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim 1589. 57 Kordowero 1592. 58 Karo 1610. 59 Yaari 1943, 29.



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gious subjects and humans, are acceptable, especially if on a small scale, such as book illustrations or printers’ marks (Figures 9 and 10).

Figures 9 and 10

The last of his signets makes use of the image of a deer. The deer has its head turned to the left. Its entire body is presented as it runs, with its front legs raised up. The deer is placed in a flowery rim. This printer’s mark was used e. g. on the title page of Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba by Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow (Figure 11).60

Figure 11

60 Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow 1569.

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In using marks imitating those of their ancestor the descendants of Yitzhak Ben Aharon sought to honor his memory. They enriched those marks with Hebrew ­inscriptions: e. g., a signet depicting the scene of the sacrifice of Isaac was accompanied by a phrase testifying to the fact that it was Yitzhak ben Aharon from Prostějov who had founded the publishing house that printed the work (“Kalonymos, son of Rabbi our teacher and rabbi Rabbi Tzvi Jaffe, of blessed memory”). The gap created in Cracow by the closing of the Prostic publishing house was filled by Menakhem Meisels ben Moshe Shimshon’s establishment. Meisels, a former associate of Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, opened a printing house with his son-in-low Yehuda Leib Meisels ben Simkha Bunem ben Avraham in 1630, which, after 1650, was the only Jewish printing house in the Polish Lituanian-Common­ wealth. After Menakhem Meisels’ death in 1662, Yehuda Leib Meisels worked alone. The establishment closed down in 1670. Yehuda Leib Meisels ben Simkha Bunem ben Avraham used a printer’s mark similar to that of one of the Helicz brothers, displaying the coat of arms of the City of Cracow in a wreath of leaves. What was different from his predecessor’s printer’s mark was the shape – in his case an oval. A printer’s mark of such a form appears on the title page of the work by Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, published in Cracow in 1670 (Figure 12).61

Figure 12

61 Karo 1670.



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In 1690, when the Cracow (Kazimierz) and Lublin printing houses no longer existed, King Jan III Sobieski invited a printer from Amsterdam, Uri ben Faivus Aaron ha-Levi, to his private town of Zolkiew. After Faivus died in 1705, his printing house was taken over by his son Chaim David ha-Levi and his grandsons, Aaron and Gershom ben Chaim David ha-Levi. The publishing house they operated was the only Jewish prin­ ting company in the Polish Commonwealth for nearly 80 years. The brothers Aaron and Gershom ben Chaim David ha-Levi, the eighteenth century printers from Żółkiew placed a jug and two crossed fish in the central section of the rectangular shaped signet. The space around these elements was filled with plant elements.62 But the presentation of Aaron and Gershom ben Chaim David ha-Le­ vi’s signets is not part of our subject. In conclusion, it should be noted that the Hebrew and Yiddish language literature from Jewish printing houses was produced for the regional market and other Jewish communities in Europe. In this place we should also mention that the Jewish popu­ lation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the most numerous one in Early Modern Europe. The printers’ signets mentioned were not the only ones used by Jewish printers in Poland. However, it is impossible to determine what the other ones looked like, since in many of the volumes the relevant pages have been destroyed. On the basis of the available sources, it is difficult to determine why a given publishing house and its owners decided to use or not to use printers’ signets; this is so because it is not possible to explain this phenomenon in terms of the size of the ­publishing house, its location or the duration of its activities. Sometimes source materials provide explanations, based on the individual preferences of printers who declared an unwillingness to ornament title pages with signets.63 However, these are isolated cases.

Towards a Typology of Jewish Printers’ Marks In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth two types of books were published: secular and religious ones, with religious literature more dominant and more important than secular literature. The printers’ marks were used mainly in important, expensive, also in multi-volume prints (e. g. Torah, Talmud). They were what with a modern term one might call the printers’ “logos”, and that is why they were used also on the pages of the first editions of the books. This situation was characteristic not only of Jewish but also non-Jewish books. But it is difficult to establish why certain printers or printer families used a variety of

62 Yaari 1943, 63. 63 Yaari 1943, XIII.

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printers’ signets for marking their books, or why printers who possessed such signets only used them to mark some of the books they published, but not all of them. The books had different formats, nor was the size of the printer’s mark fixed: they were in fact a few centimetres in size. Their sample sizes are presented below: Printer

Date and place of publication

Autor and/or Title

Dimensions of the printer’s mark/ book

Shape

Iconography

Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba

5,5 x 6,5 cm/ 19 x 14,5 cm

oval

Deer in garland

Cracow 1589

Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim

3 x 4,5 cm/ 28 x 18,5 cm

Ellipse

Two fishes and printing stamp

Cracow 1589

Josippon

3 x 4,5 cm (20,5 x 15)

Ellipse

Two fishes and printing stamp

Cracow 1592

Moshe ben Jaakow Kordowero, Pardes rimonim

3 x 4,5 cm/ 30 x 19,5 cm

Ellipse

Two fishes and printing stamp

Cracow 1610

Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek haBayit

3 x 4,5 cm/ 18 x 14 cm

Ellipse

Two fishes and printing stamp

Joel ben Shmuel Sirkes, Meshiv nefesh, with commentary Shlomo ben Yitzhak

8,5 x 5,5 cm/ 18 x 13 cm

Rectangle Deer with two fishes

Lublin 1617

Masekhet Berakhot

Lublin 1619

Masekhet Bawa kamma

Hanau/Lublin 1639

Masekhet Temura we-Horayot we-Meyla we-Kinnin we-Soferim we-Semakhot we-Kalla we-Derekh erec raba we-Derekh erec zota Josef ben Efraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer

8 x 5,5 cm/ 36,5 x 24,5 cm 4 x 6 cm/ 36,5 x 24,5 cm 5,5 x 6,5 cm/ 34,5 x 22,5 cm

Rectangle Deer with two fishes Rectangle Temple in Jerusalem Rectangle Lion

5,5 x 5,5 cm/ 30,5 x 18,5 cm

Oval

Yitzhak Cracow 1569 ben Ahsron Prostic

Tzvi ben Lublin 1617 Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe

Yehuda Leib Meisels

Cracow 1670

Coat of the city

Sources: Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569 JLK sygn. Ex 2494, Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 2494; Josippon, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ew 4467; Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 275; Moshe ben Jaakow Kordowero, Pardes rimonim, Cracow 1592: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 1318); Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek haBayit, Cracow 1610: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 280; Masekhet Berakhot, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK, sygn. Eu 130; Masekhet Bawa kamma, Lublin 1619: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130; Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota Hanau/Lublin 1639: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130; Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, Cracow 1670: Yehuda Leib Meisels, JLK sygn. Ew 3878.



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The above list clearly illustrates that regardless of the format of the book, the size of the printer’s mark used by the different printers did not change, and the size was not adjusted to the format of the book. In addition, the example of Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic allows us to conclude that even if a given printer had a few different designs of the printer’s mark, their size was not constant or uniform (the mark with the symbol of a deer had the dimensions of 5,5 × 6,5 cm, while that showing two fish with printing stamp 3 × 4,5 cm). As mentioned above, in books printed by Jewish publishing houses in the Polish territory printers’ marks could be placed not only on the title page, but also elsewhere in the book. The list below shows examples of placing printers’ marks in books. Title page

Masekhet Berakhot, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonimos Jaffe Masekhet Bawa kamma, Lublin 1619: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla we-Derekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota Hanau/Lublin 1639: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe

After the introduction

Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic Moshe ben Jaakow Kordowero, Pardes rimonim, Cracow 1592, Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic Joel ben Szmuel Sirkes, Meshiv nefesh, with commentary of Shlomo ben Yitzhak, Lublin 1617

Last page

Josippon, Cracow 1589, Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic

Title page and last page

Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic

Title verso page (after introduction) and last page

Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek haBayit, Cracow 1610: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic

Sources: Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 2494; Josippon, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ew 4467; Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh ha Chayim, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 275; Moshe ben Jaakow Kordowero, Pardes rimonim, Cracow 1592: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 1318); Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek ha Bayit, Cracow 1610: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 280; Masekhet Berakhot, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK, sygn. Eu 130; Masekhet Bawa kamma, Lublin 1619: Tzvi ben Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130; Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota Hanau/Lublin 1639: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130; Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, Cracow 1670: Yehuda Leib Meisels, JLK sygn. Ew 3878.

Based on the above list, it can be stated that Jewish printers in the Polish territories placed printers’ marks both on the title pages and on their back cover, after a fore­

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word written by a prominent rabbi, or at the end of the work. The example of Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba and Bedek haBayit shows that in one publication a printer’s mark could even be placed twice (Figures 13 and 14).

Figures 13 and 14

Printers’ marks placed after the author’s foreword or at the end of the work were placed under the text, and did not constitute an independent character on the sheet. What’s more, multi-volume works (e. g. the tractates of the Talmud), were not neces­ sarily marked with the same printer’s mark (see: edition of Talmud by Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe). The printers’ marks used in the same book was changed also, e. g. the image of the deer in Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic’s signet published in Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba remained the same, but the inscription was different (Figure 15). The analysis of the presented signets allows us to divide them into the following groups: 1. images using elements of the coat of the city, 2. images of vocation or profession (printers’ tools etc.), 3. images using elements of the animal world, 4. images using elements of religion (Biblical scenes, religious symbols, a symbol indicating the sanctity of the place, e. g. the temple in Jerusalem), 5. images using Hebrew letters. None of the printers under discussion used Latin letters or representations of city panoramas in their printers’ marks.



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Figures 11 and 15

The first group includes printers’ marks like the ones used by one of the Helicz broth­ ers and by Yehuda Yehuda Leib Meisels, depicting the coat of arms of Cracow. The second group includes printers’ marks like that of Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, depic­ ting a fish and a stamp. The third group includes the printers’ marks of Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic and Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, with depictions of land (deer) and water animals (fish). The fourth group, of a religious nature, included depictions of the sacrifice of Isaac, like the printer’s mark used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, and of the Temple of Jerusalem, used by Jaffe’s family. The fifth group, which contains initials, biblical quotes or maxims that were important for the printer, is represented by the following printers’ marks: deer in the garland by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, Akedat Yitzhak used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic and his successors, deer with two fishes or Temple in Jerusalem by Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe. Some of the printers’ marks have more than one symbol,64 and some of them were copies of other printers’ marks. The printer’s mark used by one of the Helicz brothers resembled a mark used by another sixteenth-century Cracow printer – Florian Ungler. Ungler, originally

64 Pilarczyk 1998, 232–234.

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from Bavaria, was not only the founder of the first Polish publishing house printing books entirely in Polish, but, what is much more important, the first known printer of non-Jewish origin who used Hebrew fonts. Ungler used them in three publica­ tions: Psalmorum omnium published in 1532,65 Institutiones Grammaticae released a year later66 and a grammar of the Hebrew language, Ex Variis Libellis, published in 1534.67 A printer’s mark representing the coat of arms of the City of Cracow sur­ rounded by a garland was placed on the work by Maciej of Miechów Polskie wypisanie dwoiey krainy swiata: którą po łacinie Sarmatią, takież y lud tam przebywaiąci – mazową Sarmate, iakoby zawsze gotowi a zbroyni. Gdzież też obiawione są nie ktore dawne dzieie polskie. Z wypisania doctora Macieia Miechowity, dopiro wyłożone pub­ lished in 1535. The fact that Helicz used a similar printer’s mark can be interpreted in various ways. It could express the fact that Helicz continued Ungler’s work – the Helicz brothers were the first to print Hebrew and Yiddish language books for their coreligionists living in the Polish territory. In addition, the use of a coat of arms could emphasize the printers’ relationship with the City of Cracow. It is also pos­ sible that it was a reflection of the close relations between the Ungler and Helicz families (Figure 16).68

Figure 16

The motifs used in the printers’ marks of other printers were also taken up by Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe. As has been mentioned above with respect to the title page of Masekhet Bawa kamma (1619), he used the signet with the representation of Temple in Jerusalem, and on the title page of Masekhet Temurah we-Horayot we-Meila we-Kinnin we-Soferim we-Semakhot we-Kalla we-Derekh erec raba we-Derekh erec zota

65 Campensis 1532. 66 Tucholiensis 1533. 67 Campensis 1534. 68 Teter & Fram 2006, 42.



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there appears the printer’s mark with a standing lion facing left.69 Both of these two signets allude to another sign used by Marco Antonio Giustiniani,70 a Venetian printer (sixteenth century), and by Mordehay ben Gershom ha-Kohen from Prague (sixteenth century) (Figure 17).71

Figure 17

Marco Antonio Giustiniani opened his printing house in Venice in 1545 and worked till 1552. He was the first printer who used the motif of the Temple in Jerusalem on the title pages of his books. The next one was Mordehay ben Gershom ha-Kohen from Prague. As it was mentioned the printer’s mark used by Marco Antonio Giustiniani and Mordehay ben Gershom ha-Kohen from Prague and Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe depic­ ted a standing lion too, which was an allusion to the printer’s mark of the printers’ guild. It was a lion with or without wings and an eagle’s head, holding in its claws a printing stamp. However, in the case of the mentioned printers, the animal’s whole body was represented, and it did not have wings (this form was called “Venecian lion”). The similarity to Giustiniani’s and Mordehay ben Gershom ha-Kohen’s printer’s mark could arise from the fact that Jaffe had Italian and Czech printers, typesetter etc. in

69 Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Temura we-Horayot we-Meyla we-Kinnin we-Soferim we-Semakhot ­we-Kalla we-Derekh erec raba we-Derekh erec zota 1639. 70 Pilarczyk 1998, 126; Heller 2007, 44–53. 71 Yaari 1943, 11, 25, 50. See also: Pilarczyk 1998, 137.

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his employ. It is possible that there was yet another reason for this: in fact, p ­ ublications of Jaffe’s publishing house are outwardly similar to Giustiniani’s work, which might be interpreted as an attempt to increase the sales of books printed in Poland. The fact that well-known graphic signs were imitated can be explained as attempts to increase the prestige of one’s own publications, in terms of homage to the works of the great predecessors. These examples show that the Jewish printer-publishers of sixteenth and seven­ teenth century Cracow and Lublin, like their non-Jewish counterparts, used to copy existing printers’ marks. Such copying wasn’t limited to already existing Jewish prin­ ters’ marks. The Jewish printers from Poland, e.  g. Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic and Jaffe family, used the signets with the symbols of the profession of the printers. These symbols, e. g. the griffin, the lion, the printing stamp, were popular with all printers, Christian and Jewish alike. The printers’ marks with the Temple of Jerusalem can also serve as an example of the Jewish printers’ marks having an affinity with Judaism. It was the one of the most easily recognised symbols in Judaism. Other motifs with an important place in “Jewish symbology” were the menorah and the Star of David. The Jewish printers used also the symbols of the pedigree, e. g. hands carrying out a priestly blessing were the symbol of the Kohenitic pedigree, and the jug served as the symbol of Levitic descent. The publisher-printers also used biblical motifs, among them that of the Binding of Isaac, also known as the “Akedah of Yitzhak”, with a lamb eventually being sacrificed in the place of Isaac. Both the lamb and the Akedah are represented on the printer’s mark used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, the only printer from the Polish-­LithuanianCommonwealth to decorate his printer’s mark with that scene from the Bible. These motifs thus not only served as elements of book decoration and as logos of printers and of printers’ families, permitting the identification of books. They also need to be considered in the context of Jewish symbology and as witnesses to contem­ porary artistic trends and fashions.72 Therefore, it can be stated that in the Jewish community, printers’ marks were used not only as a decorative element, but as a sign aimed to raise the value and importance of the book. They testified to the material status of the owners and showed that prin­ ters resorted to a method of decorating books characteristic of non-Jewish Renaissance tradition. But for the Jewish printers the most important was the religious dimension.

Iconographic and Semantic Considerations Some of the symbols included in signets have a simple meaning (e. g. some of the symbols are indicative of the name or surname of the printers. Thus the image of a

72 Schwab 1912, 303; Pilarczyk 1998, 233.



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deer in Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe’s mark primarily refers to the printer’s Hebrew name “Zevi” and its Yiddish equivalent, “Hirsch”. Some of the symbols suggest the priestly or Levitic descent of the printers. But sometimes the meaning can be multiple. For example: the image of a deer may also symbolize the generation of Nephtali (Genesis 49:21). The deer is also a symbol in the Torah. It constitutes a ref­ erence to Psalms 119:97 (“Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long”) and to Proverbs 5:19 (“A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love”). The other symbol mentioned earlier on, the symbol of the fish, which appears a number of times on signets may be interpreted in a number of ways. First of all, it symbolizes benediction, propitiousness, life and salvation (reference to Ezekiel 47:9 –“Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.”). Secondly, it may be a reference to one of the months in the Jewish calendar – the month of Adar. Thirdly, fish constituted the symbol of the generation of Nephtali (Joshua 19:32–39): The sixth lot came out for Naphtali according to its clans: Their boundary went from Heleph and the large tree in Zaanannim, passing Adami Nekeb and Jabneel to Lakkum and ending at the Jordan. The boundary ran west through Aznoth Tabor and came out at Hukkok. It touched Zebulun on the south, Asher on the west and the Jordan on the east. The fortified towns were Ziddim, Zer, Hammath, Rakkath, Kinnereth, Adamah, Ramah, Hazor, Kedesh, Edrei, En Hazor, Iron, Migdal El, Horem, Beth Anath and Beth Shemesh. There were nineteen towns and their villages. These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali, according to its clans.

Finally, the symbol of the fish could be understood as a reference to the contents of the book itself. This is so because there exists a comparison of Jews to fish. Much the same as a fish out of water dies, so too the Jewish nation deprived of the teachings of the Torah cannot survive. For this reason this symbol is placed in the most important books – the Torah and the Talmud.73 Another such an ambiguous representation is found in the signet used by Kalony­ mus Kalman Jaffe. The image of the man standing by a well most likely referred to the content of the Bava Kamma tractate, which speaks of material damage and wrongs, or the principles of customary law. The fourth type of damage described in the Bava Kamma treaty is expressly called “Damages”. One of those is referred to as the “well”, and it concerns the excavation of wells, and the requirement to cover them. In this manner, the publisher could have referred to the content of the text – the Hebrew inscription placed over the head of a man drawing water from the well in fact means “a well”. In addition, according to rabbinic interpretation, those who respect the law shall obtain a reward, symbolized by the “crown of life”. It is also a reminder of the

73 Pilarczyk 1998, 134–136.

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need to comply with the law. It cannot be excluded that the printer also wished to refer to the prophecies contained in Numbers 24: 3–9, according to which, in the Messianic age, Jews will enjoy divine protection. It should also be noted that the six characters used in the printer’s mark form the initial “Kalonimos the son of Rabbi, our teacher, Rabbi Jaffa Tzvi, of blessed memory”. In this manner, the printer emphasized that the printer’s mark was his property, while the information was only understandable to readers from the proper milieu.74 The crown of life placed in the signet also appears to refer to the customary law: he who obeys the law, will be rewarded in this or the next world.75 However, it is also possible to explain the symbolism of the sign in another manner, as referring to a fragment of the Book of Numbers (24: 3–9). By making a reference to the words of the prophet Baal, the printer wished to remind of the need to respect the law. As noted by K. Pilarczyk, a third interpretation is also possible: the Hebrew letters placed on the sign might commemorate the printer and be read as the initials of his name.76 In this context there also arises the question of how to explain the sacrifice of Isaac and the offering of a ram instead of the boy. The printers’ marks, as was men­ tioned earlier on, were introduced by Yitzhak ben Aharon, and subsequently used by his successors. Both marks are a reminder of the founder. Also the text of the inscrip­ tion which surrounds the depiction of the lamb is related to this fact (it is worth noting that the ram depicted in the printer’s mark depicting the sacrifice of Isaac and the one represented in the next printer’s mark are not identical). The inscription reads: “Ransom for Isaac, remember the covenant of Avraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. Restore again Yaakov’s tents. Guide us / for the sake of your name – 360”. In this manner, it refers to the name of the founder of the printing house (Isaac) and the date of printing the only volume in which it was placed – the Sha’are ora in the year 1600.77 Given the last element, it cannot be ruled out that the printer’s mark was prepared solely for one publication and was never used again.78 Books printed by Jewish publishing houses in the Polish Commonwealth accoun­ ted for 15% of the world-wide production of Jewish books during the second half of the sixteenth century, and for 23% a century later, and the signet adorning them were a constant decorative element. Although the printers’ signets from the area did not differ from other contemporary printing signs either in function or execution technique, the analysis of their symbolism allows us to perceive them as a small but rich source of information placed on the title page of the book about the social status

74 Pilarczyk 2004b, 91–92. 75 Pilarczyk 1998, 165. 76 Pilarczyk 1998, 165. 77 Year 360 in Hebrew calendar = 1600 in Gregorian calendar. 78 Pilarczyk 2004b, 129–130.



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of the printers and publishers and about their knowledge of the Bible, the Talmud and Jewish tradition in general.

Abbreviations JLK – the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow NLI – the National Library of Israel

List of Illustrations Figures 1 and 2: Joel ben Shmuel Sirkes, Meshiv nefesh, with commentary Shlomo ben Icchak, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe – Title page, The page before the actual text with printer’s mark used by Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe. Figure 3: Josippon, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ew 4467 – The last page with the printer’s mark used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic. Figure 4: Masekhet Berakhot, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK, sygn. Eu 130 – Title page. Figure 5: Masekhet Bawa kamma, Lublin 1619: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130 – Title page. Figure 6: Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota Hanau/Lublin 1639: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130 – Title page. Figures 7 and 8: Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 275 – The title page, the page before the text with the printer’s mark used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic. Figures 9 and 10: The printers’ marks used by Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic (Yarri 1943, 29). More ­information is available on the Internet: www.hebrewbooks.org/36656 (visited on 12.05.2016). Figure 11: Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569, Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 2494 – Title page. Figure 12: Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, Cracow 1670: Yehuda Leib Meisels, JLK sygn. Ew 3878, Title page. Figures 13 and 14: Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek haBayit, Cracow 1610: Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK, sygn. Eu 280 – Title verso page (Figure 13) and last page (Figure 14). Figure 15: Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569, Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 2494 –the last page. Figure 16: Maciej of Miechów, Polskie wypisanie dwoiey krainy swiata: którą po łacinie Sarmatią, takież y lud tam przebywaiąci – mazową Sarmate, iakoby zawsze gotowi a zbroyni. Gdzież też obiawione są nie ktore dawne dzieie polskie. Z wypisania doctora Macieia Miechowity, dopiro wyłożone, Kraków 1535 – The printer’s mark used by Maciej of Miechów. More information is available on the Internet: www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=3208&from=publication (visited on 13.05.2016). Figure 17: The signet used by Marco Antonino ­Gustiniani. (Yarri 1943, 11). More information is available on the Internet: www.hebrewbooks.org/36656 (visited on 12.05.2016).

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Kocowski, Bronisław, Art. “Helicz (Halicz) Jan (Eliakim).” In: Polski Słownik Biograficzny. Vol. 9. Wrocław: Zaklad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1960–1961: 362–363. Kocowski, Bronisław, Art. “Helicz (Halicz) Paweł (Aszer).” In: Polski Słownik Biograficzny. Vol. 9. Wrocław: Zaklad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1960–1961: 363. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, Polskie sygnety drukarskie od XV do połowy XVII wieku. Poznań: Wydawn. “Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne”, 2006. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, “Typologia sygnetów drukarskich (na przykładzie znaków stosowanych przez polskich impresorów od XV do połowy XVII wieku.” Biblioteka 13 (2009): 7–18. Leszczyński, Anatol, Sejm Żydów Korony 1623–1764. Warszaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny w Polsce, 1994. Milewska-Kozłowska, “O dwóch sygnetach drukarskich z herbem Torunia z XVI i XVII wieku: przyczynek do historii drukarstwa toruńskiego.” Rocznik Toruński 28 (2001): 141–148. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, Talmud i jego drukarze w pierwszej Rzeczypospolitej. Z dziejów przekazu religijnego w judaizmie. Cracow: Nakładem Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności, 1998. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, “Hebrew Printing Houses in Poland against the Background of their History in the World.” Studia Judaica 7, 2 (2004a): 201–221. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, Leksykon drukarzy ksiąg hebrajskich w Polsce z bibliografią polono-judaików w językach żydowskich (XVI-XVIII wiek). Cracow: Wydawnictwo Antykwa, 2004b. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, “Hebrajska książka drukowana w Europie Środkowo-wschodniej w XVI-XVIII wieku.” Studia Judaica 10 (2007): 1–23. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, “Nowy Testament po żydowsku wydrukowany w Krakowie w latach 1540–1541.” Studia Judaica 12, 1–2 (2009): 121–141. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, “Inkunabuły hebrajskie ze zbioru Saravala w Bibliotece Uniwersyteckiej we Wrocławiu.” Studia Judaica 14, 2 (2011a): 291–314. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, “Judaika – stare druki ze zbioru berlińskiego w Bibliotece Jagiellońskiej w Krakowie.” Studia Judaica 14, 1 (2011b): 151–163. Pilarczyk, Krzysztof, Drukowana książka hebrajska a religia. Vademecum bibliologiczne. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Antykwa, 2012. Posner, Raphael & Israel Ta-Shma, eds., The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey. Jerusalem: Keter Pub. House Jerusalem, 1975. Reiner, Elchanan, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book.” In: Hundert, Gershon David, ed., Jews in Early Modern Poland. (Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry 10) London & Portland, Or.: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007, 85–98. Ringelblum, Emanuel, “Z dziejów książki i drukarstwa żydowskiego w Polsce w drugiej połowie XVIII w.” Biuletyn ŻIH 41 (1962): 20–44. Roberts, Williams & Joseph Pennell, Printers’ Mark: A Chapter in the History of Typography. London & New York: George Bell & Sons, 1893. Schwab, Moȉse, “Une edition rarissime du Talmud. ” Revue des études Juives 63 (1912): 300–303. Steinschneider, Moritz & David Cassel, Art. “Jüdische Typographie und jüdischer Buchhandel.” In: Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste. Section 2, vol. 28. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1851. (Reprint: Jerusalem: Bamberger & Wahrmann Verlag, 1938). Szwejkowska, Helena, Książka drukowana XV-XVIII wieku. Zarys historyczny. Wrocław: Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe, 21975. Teter, Magda & Edward Fram, “Apostasy, Fraud and the Beginnings of Hebrew Printing in Cracow.” AJS Review 30, 1 (2006): 31–66. Weil, Emil, Die Deutschen Druckzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts. München: 1929. Wojakowski, Józef, “Jewish Printing in Old Poland.” Revue Européenne des Études Hébraïques 4 (2000): 97–105.

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Yaari, Abraham, Hebrew Printers’ Marks: From the Beginnings of Hebrew Printing to the End of the 19th century. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press Association, 1943 (Hebrew). Zafren, Herbert C., “Variety in the Typography of Yiddish: 1535–1635.” Hebrew Union College Annual 53 (1982): 137–163. Books from the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow (in chronological order) Naphtali Hirc ben Menakhem from Lwow, Perush le-midrash khamesh megilot raba, Cracow 1569: Yitzhak ben Aharon, Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 2494 Josippon, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon, Prostic, JLK sygn. Ew 4467 Talmud Bavli. Masekhet Avot. Derekh haChayim, Cracow 1589: Yitzhak ben Aharon, Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 275 Moshe ben Jaakow Kordowero, Pardes rimonim, Cracow 1592: Yitzhak ben Aharon, Prostic, JLK sygn. Ex 1318 Josef ben Ephraim Karo, Bedek haBayit, Cracow 1610: Yitzhak ben Aharon, Prostic, JLK sygn. Eu 280 Masekhet Berakhot, Lublin 1617: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK, sygn. Eu 130 Masekhet Bawa kamma, Lublin 1619: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130 Masekhet Temura weHorayot weMeyla weKinnin weSoferim weSemakhot weKalla weDerekh erec raba weDerekh erec zota Hanau/Lublin 1639: Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe, JLK sygn. Eu 130 Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulchan Aruch Even HaEzer, Cracow 1670: Yehuda Leib Meisels, JLK sygn. Ew 3878.

Internet http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com http://www.hebrewbooks.org http://www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra

Joanna A. Tomicka

Fama Typographica. In Search of the Emblem Form of Printer’s Devices. The Iconography and Emblem Form of Printer’s Devices in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Poland The development of emblematic printers’ marks in Poland in the sixteenth and seven­ teenth centuries, with regard to their subject matter and purposes (such as advertis­ ing), does not seem different from other countries. Connections with emblems were usually either direct (copies of illustrations used by foreign publishing houses) or could be classified as vague and remote inspirations. A third type encompasses examples demonstrating the individual printer’s approach in search of a form, which would best express – in a modern, fashionable and profound way, i. e., as an emblem – his quali­ ties as a printer who belonged to, and created, the universe of knowledge and the arts. In this article I shall discuss issues concerning the evolution of the printer’s mark,1 from its simplest forms to ones that can be considered emblematic due to their structure and meaning.2 However, this will not be an attempt at elaborating yet another typology, several variants of which have already been described in source literature.3 The research issues I intend to reflect upon include ways in which the printers’ marks encouraged the reader to buy the given book, what they informed about, what they advertised, as well as whether and how they por­ trayed the social identity of the printer, thereby expressing not only the printers’ marks basic feature – recognisability, but also, later, his individuality.4

1 In this paper the term “printer’s mark” will be used as the general term and the other terms (“printer’s emblem”, “printer’s device”) either for the purpose of indicating the provenance or the signifying structure or the function of a particular printer’s mark. 2 There were no printer’s marks in the form of emblemata nuda, i. e. printer’s marks limited to letters or words. 3 A summary of this issue, including the new, extended typology divided into various categories, can be found in Krzak-Weiss 2009, 7–18, English Summary: 18 (The typology includes three criteria: chronological printer’s marks, iconographical ones, and printer’s marks related to the morphology of the book. Each group is divided into a number of subgroups). 4 Research on Polish printer’s marks dates back to Karol Estreicher (Elder), 1867. Later came Hała­ ciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, a publication that offers a listing of the printer’s marks. Research in­ tensified in the 1950s and 1970s, with the question of printer’s marks now being dealt with in wider studies on Polish typography (i.a. Kawecka-Gryczowa 1975), as well as in its relation to humanism and of the emblematic character of the marks (works by Pelc, i.a. 1973; Buchwald-Pelcowa, i.a. 1981, no. 1–2, 109–112). In the twenty-first century, both of those branches of research on printer’s marks were deepened and became more specific, especially in the works of Krzak-Weiss (i.a. 2006) and Kili­ ańczyk-Zięba (i.a. works on Wietor 2009 or Januszowski 2010 and on printers‘ marks of XVI c. 2015). DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-007

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The earliest and simplest examples of printer’s marks, understood as identifying marks, stemmed from forms performing similar functions. These were medieval merchants’ ownership marks or coats of arms. The oldest printers’ marks often had the form of the printer’s own escutcheon (if he had one), the coat of arms of the city where he worked, or a heraldic composition of his own design.5 Heraldry had also influ­ enced the tradition of the imprese – another source of Renaissance printers’ marks. The example of the renowned Aldus Manutius encouraged other publishers. Manutius in 1502 combined representations of a dolphin and an anchor with the implied Latin maxim Festina lente, thus creating a device which many people would have tacitly associated with a motto (albeit it was never printed like this).6 Devices and emblems,7 the structure of which put words and images together, were convenient forms for expressing complex ideas in a relatively simple trademark of the publishing house. Emblematics, a field of art invented by men of learning, soon became fashionable and was appreciated by educated persons such as the printers’ potential clients. There­ fore, designing a good printer’s mark that would include the printer’s personal motto or symbolize the profile of the publishing house (oriented towards various themes: humanist, religious, moral, etc.), could result in winning over new readers. At the same time, an emblematic printer’s mark, duplicated in numerous books that reached many countries, contributed to the popularization of the very form of the emblem. References to the printers’ work appeared in French and German printers’ marks especially during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Depictions of typographic tools or even interiors of printing houses were not uncommon – the purpose of such representations was to popularize the profession as well as to show the “backstage” and the workshop itself: elements often unknown to the recipients of the final work – the book.8 In Poland, such representations are not only very rare, but they also started to appear much later, in the eighteenth century.9

5 Gravures sur bois tirées des livres français du XVe siècle, 1868, figs 307–323; Goldschmidt 1974, 62, 78–84; Vaccaro 1983, Ch. 7, 104–114. 6 Goldschmidt 1974, 81–82; Daly 1988, 349–371. Aldus Manutius never explicitly printed the motto, which was always intended as a mental addition supplied by the reader. This issue has been dealt with in detail in Wolkenhauer 2002, 34–46 and 165–185. 7 On the fuzzy nature of sixteenth-century divisions between devices, emblems and related forms, see Pelc 1973, 33; Russel 1985, Ch. 3, 142–160; Saunders 1988, 4–16; Labitte 1868, 44; Mödersheim 1994, 1098–1108. 8 One of the earliest prints depicting printers at work was connected with the printing house headed by Petrus Caesar, a pupil of Ulrich Gering, active in Paris after 1473. Compositionally similar wood­ cuts, inscribed with the words Prelum Ascensianum, are linked with the print house of Josse Bade-Ba­ dius Ascensius (1462–1535), printer, publisher and engraver, born in Asch near Brussels and active in Paris after 1499. Those prints play the role of printer’s marks and are early examples of elaborate forms. They also count among the oldest representations of typographic workshops. The anonymous authors of those French woodcuts must have been familiar with German graphic art, judging by the types of figures and the type of shading – not yet systematized to depict shadows, shapes, etc., as the one found in German print, but informed it, see Tomicka 1998, 50–70. 9 Antoni Piller’s mark Altius A Lavore [recte labore] et Favore (Lviv 1777), depicting the personifica­ tion of Typography sitting between type cases and a printing press, is an example of a late reference



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The earliest Polish printers’ marks contained references to the city or country where the printing house in question was located, which is consistent with the most popular form of early European printer’s marks – for instance, the mark of “The Printer of the Turrecrematas”,10 also known as Kasper Straube, considered to be the first Polish printer. The Cracow workshop of this itinerant Bavarian artisan was founded in 1473.11 The continuation of this oldest form of the printer’s mark can be found in Hoch­ feder’s printing house in Cracow (active in the years 1503–1505) – Hochfeder’s device was later adopted by Jan Haller, whose printing house was active between 1505 and 1525.12 The activity of the latter’s printing house can be considered a turning point in the history of Polish printing, both in terms of the use of formal patterns and of inspi­ rations drawn from the most important European centres of printing and graphic arts.13 Jan Haller, a rich merchant, invited to Cracow an itinerant printer, Kasper Hochfeder, who initially worked independently (1503–1505) and later collaborated with Haller (until 1509 as the head of his printing house). Haller adopted Hochfeder’s mark, which showed three coats of arms, the Polish and Lithuanian ones, and that of the city of Cracow, held

Figure 1

to profession in the emblem form used in a printer’s mark. It was inspired by the device of Johann Thomas von Trattner (1760), a Viennese printer. 10 Johannes de Turrecremata’s Explanatio in Psalterium (the first printed book in Poland – an expla­ nation of the psaltery), published in two versions, in 1475 and 1476; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 35, containing earlier bibliography on the research of the origins of Polish printing. 11 “The Printer of Sermons”, active in Chełmno, Pomerania, as well as Kasper Elyan (natione Polonus) from Wrocław, the printer of the first texts in the Polish language (prayers in the Statutes), did not use printer’s marks. Instead, they simply put their names in the colophon: monograms at Straube’s mark: “IHC”(monogram of Christ) and “M” (St. Mary). 12 Krzak-Weiss 2006, 47. 13 See Miodońska 1968, 19–69.

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from above by a lion and a unicorn (Figure 1). In 1505, King Alexander I Jagiellon granted Jan Haller a privilege that forbade others from printing and importing the works that were being printed in Haller’s studio. By combining this privilege with another one, which allowed him to print and sell liturgical books (granted by the bishop of Cracow back in the fifteenth century – before Haller established his own workshop), Haller gained the monopoly on religious publications and secular works in Jagiellonian Poland, inclu­ ding those intended for Cracow university. His publishing house issued various kinds of writ­ings, among others works by medieval scholastic thinkers and by humanist authors, thus stimulating scientific discourse,14 broadening the group of readers, and increasing his income. In 1506, he published Łaski’s Statute (Commune incliti Poloniae regni privilegium constitutionum [...]), a fundamental work in the history of Polish legislation.15 ­Haller’s device very clearly expressed the position and rank of his publishing house. The coats of arms of the state and of its capital, as well as Haller’s own initials, which he added to Hochfeder’s previous mark, did much more than just indicate the place where he was active. The most important publications in the country, combined with excellent typo­graphic quality, not only made Haller famous, but also lent him great prestige, so proudly expressed in his device – emblem – or, as he might have thought, his “coat of arms”. The privileged position of Haller’s workshop created a complicated situation for other printers, which, in turn, may have influenced the design of their own devices. The existing limitations not only motivated them to fight for their rights, and work towards the abolition of at least some of Haller’s privileges, but also to cleverly express their indi­ viduality in their own marks, albeit still with the use of rather traditional means. The printer could inform about his place of activity also by associating himself with the patron saint celebrated in that particular place. Certain important and semantically complex examples can be found in Florian Ungler’s devices. This printer’s merits cannot be praised enough: not only did he print numerous books in Polish, but he also pub­ lished the first accurate map of Poland. This Cracow-based printer used several prin­ ters’ marks. One of them depicts St Stanislaus bringing Piotrowin back to life (Figure 2). The cult of St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów developed in the thirteenth century, and even though this saint was initially described as the patron of the diocese, and the advocate of the rights of the Church, he soon became the patron saint of all of Poland and of the Jagiellonian dynasty. What was especially important in this process

14 Haller printed, among others, Cicero, commentaries on Aristotle, Latin and Greek grammar books. He also published Copernicus’ translation of the historian Theophylact Simocatta’s letters (from an­ cient Greek), Theophilacti Scolastici Simocatti Epistole morales, rurales at amatoriae, interpretatione latina (1509). 15 A list of all statues and privileges which were in force in the Kingdom of Poland, drawn up upon request of the King and the Senate by Jan Łaski, Chancellor and Primate of Poland. For many reasons, this publication occupies a prominent place in Polish printing: for example, it contains the first prin­ ted text of the song Bogurodzica, as well as woodcut illustrations depicting parliamentary sessions and coats of arms of noble families.



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Figure 2

was the political and prophetic meaning suggested by the miraculous reintegration of the saint’s dismembered body – as described in Wincenty of Kielcza’s Vita minor (1257–1261).16 This motif played a decisive role in creating a link between the cult of St Stanislaus and the idea of the Kingdom’s sovereignty, as well as the sense of national identity in Poland. The cult of this saint developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen­ turies. St Stanislaus’ position in the pantheon of the Polish national saints became established during the reign of the Jagiellons, and the function of his cult in state ceremonies was strongly emphasized, especially by including the saint in both the coronation and the royal funerial ceremonies. Thanks to bishop Marcin ­Szyszkowski’s efforts, the cult of St Stanislaus was introduced in the universal Church.17 Florian Ungler also used other marks. Apart from the previously mentioned one, he also had several different depictions of St Florian extinguishing a burning city. Placing the por­ trait of the printer’s patron saint in the device intensified the advertising message in two ways: it emphasized and facilitated the association of the artist’s name with the name of the saint and the place of activity, at the same time positioning him on the ever more diverse religious map of Poland. The cult of St Florian, introduced in Cracow through the efforts of bishop Gedka, who had brought the martyr’s relics to the city in 1184, developed when the Synod of Cracow (1436) announced St Florian as the patron saint of the Cracow diocese.18 St. Florian was also granted the title of the co-patron of Poland. In both of the printers’ marks at hand, the saints are connect­ ­ed with the printer’s place of activity, as well as with their cult associated with the

16 Vincentius de Kielcza, (ca 1200 – after 1262), a Dominican canon from Cracow, composer, Polish poet writing in Latin, author of e. g. Vita minor and Vita maior describing the life of St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów and his role in history of Poland. 17 On the cult of St Stanislaus see Sikorska 2010, 181–182, with bibliography. 18 Sikorska 2010, 182; Zachorowski 1915, 47 (St. Florian was announced co-patron of Poland by bish­ op Zbigniew Oleśnicki.

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r­ eigning dynasty and, therefore, the state. Needless to add, this kind of printer’s mark did not need to include mottoes expressing proclamations of faith and loyalty to the king. The meaning of their symbols was clear enough. In this article it is impossible not to mention the economic aspect which is espe­ cially noticeable in the case of those publishing houses that did not have long-term royal privileges allowing them to print, for instance, statutes or other kinds of official decrees. Even partial financial independence, based on the support of a wealthy patron, could encourage more ambitious artistic and intellectual endeavours later reflected in the publishing offer, and was also expressed in the publishing house’s mark. The analysis of books bearing printers’ marks reveals that trademarks were most often placed in scientific works (including theological treatises), much less fre­ quently in liturgical books and very seldom in popular, cheap publications.19 Emblematic printers’ marks conveying a humanistic message and belonging to printers interested in new trends (also religious ones), who combined their literary tastes with an openness to artistic and stylistic changes, very specifically defined their place on the publishing market. The example of Hieronymus Wietor’s device entitled Terminus (Cracow 1526) unites all the above aspects (Figure 3).

Figure 3

After graduating from the Jagiellonian University at Cracow, Wietor was not able to compete with Haller’s overwhelming domination of the printing business. So in 1508 he moved to Vienna where he continued to issue publications connected with Poland. Hoping to be granted a privilege eventually, he dedicated some of them to King Sigis­ mund I. He returned to Cracow in 1517, and started collaboration with the printer Marek Szarffenberg, their goal being to reduce Haller’s privileges (Wietor was later given the

19 Krzak-Weiss 2006, 21.



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position of printer in the royal chancellery of Sigismund I). His device, representing Terminus, a motif very closely related to Erasmus of Rotterdam (whose works Wietor popularized, using the Terminus device from 1523 onwards) is an example of a per­ sonal device.20 It was not the only device used by the printer, but it best emphasized the high status, profile and independence of the publishing house and its offer, as well as the educated printer’s personal interests,21 which were similar to those of the most influential people in the country.22 At the same time Wietor in a way took on the role of a continuator of the work of Johann Froben, “Erasmus’ court printer”, among Polish printers.23 The same is true of Wietor’s heirs and successors (and relatives): Łazarz Andrysowicz and Jan Januszowski. Their publishing houses became impor­ tant centres that disseminated humanistic thought by publishing treatises and philo­ logical editions of classical texts, works that lay at the foundation of this intellectual movement. By becoming familiar with the beauty and the wisdom of those works, and by restoring them to the knowledge contained in them, the readers were supposed to be able to put their ethical and aesthetic principles into practice.24 The same ethical and aesthetic principles were also expressed in the printers’ devices – therefore, their authors can be regarded as representatives of the humanistic movement. Andrysowicz’s and Januszowski’s printers’ marks already follow the emblem form,25 but the message they convey is not equally individualized. As in Wietor’s works, the ico­ nographic motifs were based on foreign models. Łazarz Andrysowicz’s device involves the popular motif of a torch or lamp, held by a hand emerging from the clouds (Figure 4). This motif of light – which symbolizes leadership, advice, enlightenment and vigilance – is accompanied by the inscription Lucerna pedibus meis Verbum tuum,

20 Wietor’s motto was Terminus, derived from Erasmus device (Terminus concedo nulli published in his Adagia), while the imagery of the printer’s mark was based on the portrait medal created by Quentin Matsys for Erasmus in 1519. The issue was discussed by Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2009, 129–146, “The Mystery of the Kraków Terminus. On the Printer’s Device of the Publishing House of Hieronim Wietor, A Promoter of Erasmism In Poland”, English Summary: 146. 21 See Lewicka-Kamińska, 1971, 103–124; Bieńkowska and Chamerska 1987, 58. Wietor represented a fully Renaissance type of publisher. Not only did he introduce a new kind of aesthetics to book design (for instance, he was the first one to use Jenson’s Antiqua), but also new publishing policies. Associ­ ated with the Cracow Academy, he benefited from the advice of its professors and published the works of Italian, Polish and German humanists, as well as classical authors. 22 I.a., Jan Łaski, secretary of King Sigismund I (nephew of Jan Łaski the Elder, Primate of Poland), who supported Erasmus by buying his library, but allowing him to use it until his death; great chan­ cellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki; Piotr Tomicki, vice-chancellor and bishop of Cracow, whose friendship with Erasmus of Rotterdam resulted in abundant correspondence; Andrzej Krzycki, archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland. The contacts of prominent Poles (including King Sigismund I himself) with Erasmus show the high esteem for the latter among the members of the Polish elites during the so-called Erasmian period of the Renaissance. 23 See Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2009. 24 Pelc 1984, 27–28. 25 Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010, 5–37.

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Figure 4

Domine, et Lumen semitis meis, a quote from Psalm 118:105.26 However, thanks to the apt choice of the quotation, the seemingly unambiguous religious connotations allowed printing the device Catholic and Protestant texts alike, thus ensuring the good economic position of the printing house. Jan Januszowski (1550–1613), the son of Łazarz Andrysowicz and Barbara Wietor, a superb printer who had also studied law in Italy, deserves a special mention in the history of Polish printing and the popularization of humanism.27 Apart from the prin­ ter’s mark inherited from his father (a burning torch), he also used a device inspired by Johannes Froben’s Caduceus, and also containing a depiction of an obelisk that had first appeared in one of the books published by his father.28 The rich symbolism of this topos included references to the notions of durability, power, fame, science (astronomy), the central position of the Sun, as well as religious symbols expressing

26 The motif of light in connection with the quote from the psalm may be found, e. g., in the printer’s mark of Pietro Perna, active in Basle in 1549–1582, see Perini 2002. 27 Referred to as the Polish Plantin, he ran his printing office maintaining the highest editing and publishing standards (he published the literary works of Jan Kochanowski and the political and legal works of Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski, who was the first thinker in Europe to postulate the equality of all social groups in the face of the law). He modelled himself on the most distinguished examples of Aldus Manutius and the Estiennes. He was the secretary of King Sigismund II Augustus and Stefan Bàthory. He was granted the exclusive right to print writings issued by the royal chancellery. 28 Johann Werner, De triangulis sphaericis libri quator,1557; see Krzak-Weiss 2006, 162–163.



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the principal role of Christ – to name but a few. The symbolism of the motif chosen by Januszowski as his mark (used in the years 1584–1604) (Figure 5) allows drawing the

Figure 5

conclusion that the humanistic message conveyed by some Polish printer’s devices was combined with the notion of fame (albeit rarely).29 However, other examples similar to Januszowski’s mark with the obelisk do require a more complex interpre­ tation,30 because they lack a direct signal in the form of a personification or allegory relying on a whole spectrum of attributes that appeared more often in foreign devices.31 In Januszowski’s mark, the allegory of Fame could have been interpreted with refer­ ence to humanism. But the professional relations between printers and humanists during that period also allowed associating the Fame motif with both humanism and typography. Recalling the symbolism of the obelisk as it was explained in Achilles Bocchi’s treatise,32 and seeing this motif used as a printer’s mark allows interpreting Januszowski’s device as the sixteenth-century Polish emblem that most distinctly emphasizes the role of typography as an art of bringing fame and of preserving the

29 Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2007, 75–96, English Sumary: 95–96. 30 Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2008, 118. 31 Allegories of fame appear in printer’s device of, e. g., Sigmund Feyerabend (Frankfurt am Main, 1568); Johannes Statius (Lyon, 1585); Insigne Societatis Caldorianae Coloniae Allobrogum (Geneva, 1613); see F. Roth Scholtz, Thesaurus Symbolorum et emblematum i. e., Norimbergae et Altorfii, apud haeredes. Joh. Dan. Tauberi, 1730, nos 224, 374, 385. Among Italian printing houses, e. g., Francesco Osanna (Mantua 1573–1600). 32 Achilles Bocchi (1488–1562), Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere, Symbolum 48.

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memory of human accomplishments, i. e. typography as the art that both immortal­ izes and fights against vanitas. Another example of the humanistic understanding of fame and virtue is the depiction of Bellerophon mounting Pegasus,33 the device of the Zamojski Academy, which is also linked with Januszowski’s mark. In the humanistic tradition, fame was closely connected with virtus – Gloria virtutis umbra [“Glory is the shadow of ­virtue”]34 – where virtue was understood in a different sense than in Christian theolo­ gy.35 Ascension to Parnassus was only possible by devoting oneself to diligent and cre­ ative studies, cultivating the arts and spiritual improvement. The path of virtue was difficult and required great self-discipline, sacrifice and abandoning earthly pleas­ ures. Achieving noble fame was supposed to encourage one to work more in order to achieve the ultimate prize – virtus. 36 The erudite interpretation required by the device of the academic printing house entailed detailed analysis – in accordance with the Renaissance approach oriented towards finding hidden meanings. Hetman Jan Zamoyski, Great Chancel­ lor of the Crown, established the Zamojski Academy in Zamość – the perfect city37 that he had also founded. He entrusted Januszowski with the task of establishing a printing house at the Academy (Privilege 1594]), which represented a significant contribution to the intellectual life of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Poland and Lithuania. The emblem of the printing house must have been the outcome of the collaboration of two outstanding humanists and men of learning: the patron and the printer. The symbolism of Pegasus and of its place on the Parnassus, com­ bined with the symbolism of Bellerophon fighting the Chimera, symbol of adver­

33 On the symbolism of Pegasus, see Hobson 1975, 17–36. 34 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations (1, 45, 109): Gloria virtutem tamquam umbra sequitur. 35 See e. g. Jack Wellman, Christian Crier, August 19, 2015: “A biblical definition of virtue are things that are true (the truth), noble, just (fair), pure (holy living), lovely (as Christ is), and things of good report where there are reports of people doing good things for God. Someone with virtue displays wisdom, courage, kindness, good manners, courtesy, modesty, generosity, and self-control in their life. They treat others fairly and esteem others highly and value the sanctity of life. They treat others better than they are treated. Someone who has virtue has good, moral ethics and makes biblical choices in life”. [www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/08/19/what-does-virtue-mean-a-biblical-defini­tion-ofvirtue-or-virtuous/]; “Catechism of the Catholic Church: Virtue is a habitual and firm ­disposition to do good. The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. They can be grouped around for cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. The moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace purifies and elevates them. The theological virtues dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object – God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. They inform all the moral virtues and give life to them”. [www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a7.htm] 36 See Kircher 2012. 37 Kowalczyk 1986.



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sity and evil (also intellectual evil, including ignorance)38 – reflected the role and the mission the founders of the Academy and the printing office had in mind. Two more printers’ marks using mythological motifs should be mentioned here. Szymon Kempini’s (1601–1615) mark, with the depiction of Triton, was modelled on the device of Jan van Waesberghe, a printer from Antwerp – who, for his part, had drawn inspiration from Alciato’s “Honour” emblem (Ex litterarum studiis immortalitatem acquiri).39 Together with the emblem of the Zamojski Academy’s printing house with the Pegasus motif, Kempini’s printer’s mark with the Triton motif belongs to the group least represented in the corpus of Polish printers’ marks, a group with motifs derived from Classical mythology. The second example, the emblematic printer’s mark of Franciszek Cezary (active 1616–1651), with the pictura showing a tree with falling leaves, is more ambiguous in its imagery. The motto Mens immota manet [ “(Though tears flow), the mind remains unmoved”] was borrowed from Aeneid.40 It refers to the story of Aeneas, whom Dido begs to stay – which enables us to read this emblem in line with the traditional interpretation of the sentence41 as a symbol of persistence of a stoic, unwavering attitude in the face of the most difficult emotions and decisions, whether in terms of the individual or the state. Cezary’s Cracow-based printing house stood out both in terms of its high editing standards, and of the academic publishing profile related to the needs of the Academy of Cracow. It operated during the Swedish invasion (the so-called “Deluge”),42 which marked an important turning point in the history of Poland both economically and culturally.43 What we know about Cezary’s erudition and contacts with university professors form the basis for interpreting his emblematic mark in the context of broadly understood humanistic connotations. But there may also be references to the current political situation.44 A considerable number of emblematic Polish printer’s devices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries testify to the knowledge of contemporary intellectual and artistic trends as well as to contacts with the main European typographic centres

38 See Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber, 1531; Andrea Alciato, Emblemata, 1550, Emblem Consilio, et virtute Chimeram superari [...], with subscriptio: [...] Sic tu Pegasei vectus petis aethera pennis. Consilioque animi monstra superba domas. 39 Krzak-Weiss 2008, 3–13. 40 Virgil, Aeneid 4, 449. The half line was used as a proverb in several different contexts. It was used as a motto by, e. g., Sambucus and Vaenius. 41 Hardie 1999, 22. 42 Wars in the years 1601–1629 and 1655–1660. 43 In the country, ravaged to a hitherto unprecedented degree, the Swedish forces perpetrated the first great robbery of books in the history of Poland. Collections were not only taken out of the coun­ try, but also destroyed, especially in the case of monastic libraries. The most valuable of looted items, i.a., from the Royal Treasury Archive in Cracow or the collection of Nicolaus Copernicus, became the foundation of the collection of the University Library in Uppsala (c. 20 thousand volumes, including manuscripts) and the Royal Library in Stockholm. 44 See Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2014, 103–116.

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that were disseminating Humanist works. Most of these devices refer to the marks of foreign printing houses. Thus the device of Mateusz Siebeneicher, active in Cracow between 1557 and 1582, depicts a royal sceptre on a rock, with two birds facing the sceptre on opposite sides, and bears a motto borrowed from Sallust: Concordia parvae res crescent.45 The representation derived not directly from Alciato, but was inspired by the mark of Joannes Steelsius, active in Antwerp.46 Mateusz Siebenei­ cher ran a dynamic printing house, where he published mainly Reformed writings. The idea of harmony, also understood as involving religious tolerance guaranteed by the monarch, was clearly emphasized. Siebeneicher was active at a time of momen­ tous events in the history of Poland. On 1st July 1569, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania entered into a real union. The emergent state – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – was governed by a jointly elected monarch and a Sejm (Diet) composed of representatives of Polish and Lithuanian lands. Lithuania maintained separate laws, offices, treasury and military, while Lithuanian noblemen obtained the privileges enjoyed by the Polish gentry. In fact, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was populated by more than just two nations – it was a country of many cultures and religions. In the Kingdom of Poland, both noblemen and peas­ ants spoke Polish, while the burghers included many persons of German origin as well as Jews and Armenians. The dominant peoples in the Grand Duchy of Lithua­ nia were Lithuanians and Ruthenians. The same applied to religion: the boundary between the Polish and Ruthenian language also indicated the boundary between Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox faith, with the boundary between the spheres of influence of both churches running from the north to the south. Before the outset of the Reformation, the most popular denomination was Roman Catholicism, but Lutheranism and Calvinism were growing in popularity among burghers and noble­ men alike. King Sigismund II Augustus was tolerant towards representatives of other confessions. He is known to have addressed his Deputies by saying: “I am not a king of your consciences.”47 Poland was referred to as a “state without stakes” with various persons threatened by persecution in their own countries, such as the Czech Brethren (Czech Protestants), as well as immigrants of different confessions, e. g., from Scotland or the Netherlands, settling in the Commonwealth. References to the role of the monarch are also visible in the printer’s mark of Sta­ nisław Murmelius, which shows a hand raising a crowned heart, accompanied by the inscription Cor regis in manu Domini. Proverbi XXI [“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord”]. This device was modelled on the one belonging to Cyriacus Jacob, a printer active in Frankfurt.48 Murmelius was active between 1540 and 1566 in several centres

45 Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum 10,6. 46 Buchwald-Pelcowa 1981, no. 1–2, 109–112. 47 Wandycz 1992, 48. 48 Krzak-Weiss 2006, 146.



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(Brest-Litovsk, Łowicz, Cracow). In 1558–1563 he headed the printing house of Mikołaj Radziwiłł (known as “the Black”), a powerful protector of the Reformation, who was interested in Lutheranism, Calvinism, and finally supported Arianism, transforming churches on his Lithuanian lands into Protestant congregations. Because of his inde­ pendent policies, including foreign policy – which was to increase the role of his dynasty and strengthen the position of Lithuania through contacts with the Habs­ burgs – the king prevented him from influencing Commonwealth politics, consid­ ering him an opponent of the Polish-Lithuanian union. The Radziwiłł printing house was one of the most important heterodox printing offices, which most often operated in noblemen’s estates, under the supervision of their owners. Murmelius eventually left the printing house, moving to Łowicz and then to Cracow, where he published Catholic texts. The fate of the Brest-Litovsk printing office leads to Cracow for yet another reason. Its furnishings were purchased by Maciej Wirzbięta (1555–1605),49 an outstanding Cal­ vinist printer.50 In all likelihood, one of his emblematic printers’ marks was meant to convey this religious position. It depicts a goat standing on its hind legs in order to be able to reach the leaves of a willow, and is one of the most individualized Polish printer’s devices. Based on the similarity of the printer’s surname and the name of a tree (Wirzbięta, from Polish wierzba – willow), it may be read to simultaneously contain a peculiar profession of faith,51 symbolizing resistance and perseverance. The device duplicates the illustration to one of Mikołaj Rej’s (1505–1569) poems, Wirzba na stałość [“A willow-tree as perseverance”].52 In the printer’s mark,53 this representa­ tion takes on a religious dimension, expressing the printer’s religious allegiance. The willow-tree, distinguished by its particular vitality, and representing rebirth,54 resists attacks, just like the printer, persistent in his faith, some of whose publications had been included in the index of church censorship in 1603. In all probability, compos­ ing this mark was made possible thanks to the cooperation of Mikołaj Rej, one of the most important Polish Renaissance writers and poets, who disseminated the ideas of

49 Szwejkowska 1961, 92; Wirzbięta became famous as a printer of works by humanists, poets and thinkers (Jan Kochanowski, Mikołaj Rej, Łukasz Górnicki, Erazm Otwinowski) and the writings of Cal­ vin; he was also known for introducing fonts in the new, Baroque style, as well as ornaments and illustrations. 50 Bibliografia polska Estreicherów (S. Estreicher), Bibliografia polska, part 3: seria staropolska, Kraków 1891–1951, vol. 32, volume of series III, 21, p. 483. 51 Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010, 33–51. 52 Rej 1561/62. 53 Wirzbięta used this mark between 1563 and 1568. 54 The motif of a willow depicted as a dead trunk, yet with delicate branches and leaves springing up, could be found, e. g., in representations of St Jerome in the wilderness, as a symbol of new life and rebirth.

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humanism, and who was a proponent of Reformation, having a considerable part of his works printed in Wirzbięta’s office. The most individualized message, containing the characteristics of the printer’s activity and beliefs, was contained in a much later emblematic device belonging to the famous Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687), active in Gdańsk. It exemplifies several trends that may be observed in the development of such marks during the seventeenth century, such as the technique of engraving that supplanted the earlier use of woodcuts, its artistic form and its message. Hevelius belonged to the exceptional group of authors and scientists who at the same time published their own works.55 Therefore, his printer’s device contains elements that describe him both as an author and an astronomer (Figure 6).

Figure 6

The oval, horizontal cartouche in the foreground includes a central representation of a spherical astrolabe. In the background, we see two pairs of figures in s­ uburban fields, near the seashore, observing the night sky through a telescope and recording measurements. On the left-hand side of the cartouche there is a crane holding a stone in its claw; on the right-hand side an eagle; at the bottom – an owl with an hourglass and a candle, while at the top there is an angel looking down, as if acting as the patron of this representation (image). The specific nature of the astronomer’s actions is symbolized by the astrolabe in conjunction with the narrative represen­ tation of the place of his activity, the seaside city of Gdańsk. The crane holding a stone refers to discipline and vigilance required in lengthy observations of a night sky, while the eagle may symbolize perfect vision necessary to conduct them. The owl is traditionally associated with knowledge, through its references to Athena,

55 Among the astronomers printing houses were owned, e. g., by Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kep­ ler. Hevelius, who enjoyed the interest and patronage of monarchs, e. g., Louis XIV, was granted a privilege to print his works by Jan II Casimir Vasa, King of Poland (1659). The astronomer was also supported by King Jan III Sobieski, to whom Hevelius dedicated his works and whose name he used for a constellation (Shield of Sobieski – Scutum Sobiescianum) to commemorate the king’s famous victory in the Battle of Vienna in 1683.



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and as a bird of night; the hourglass and candle may also indicate the time of con­ ducting observations. The motto Enarrant Dei gloriam [“(The heavens) declare the glory of God”] is a quote from a psalm56 praising the might of God’s works, one of whose examples is the firmament with its swarms of beautiful stars. Its gradual discovery leads man to reflect on his own place, to contrition and gratitude. This combination of the textual and visual layer of the emblem, in my opinion, points to the perception of astronomy as a science which discovers the elements of God’s works, to the extent that is possible for man, in order to all the more praise the Lord. At the same time, the symbolic meaning of the hourglass, candle and owl as well as the gallows in the background, point out the ultimate vanity of human life and deeds.57 Hevelius’ printer’s mark thus combines in emblem form the literal nature of astronomical observations, the narrative description, well-known symbols and a quote from the Bible, which intensify its expression, indicating various aspects of astronomical and typographic work.58 Like some early devices that provided infor­ mation on the work of printers by showing the interiors of printing offices, Hevelius’ mark – although not showing the interior of an observatory – depicts one of the forms of conducting research, familiarizing the potential reader with the specific nature of the work bearing this printer’s mark. All elements explain and comple­ ment each other. Even a small representative sampling of Polish printers’ marks from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries makes it possible to observe trends of progressive emblem­ atization, coinciding with similar trends in other countries. Outstanding printers were active participants in the creation and the promotion of the sciences and the arts, frequently propagating new intellectual trends, new contents and new artistic forms, thereby attempting to reach a broader audience. A printer’s mark, by adopt­ ing the signifying structure of an emblem, and involving symbols and their hidden meanings could also serve an educational purpose, introducing many readers to this form of artistic expression. Printers’ marks could be intriguing by invoking symbols that either involved meanings that could easily be understood by the reader or chal­ lenged him to discover them. Over time, the motifs used, the allegory – in the sense of a technique for visualizing ideas – and the convenient, capacious and yet succinct form of the emblem made it possible to associate the printer’s mark with the printer’s

56 Psalm 19: Coeli enarrant Gloriam Dei: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares the work of His hands.” 57 Elmqvist Söderlund 2010, 109, note 208. 58 Frans Allen’s engraving after a drawing by Adolf Boy was used as the frontispiece of Hevelius’ publication Epistola II [...] de motu Lunae, 1654. Hevelius paid attention to the high standards of his publications, also in the scope of illustrations. This was made easier by the exceptional economic position of the wealthy city of Gdańsk, whose rich artistic life distinguished it from other Polish cities. For instance, this was where such celebrated printmakers as Jeremias Falck and Wilhelm Hondius were active.

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personality and beliefs, rather than with just the place where he was active. ­Referring to patterns used by foreign printing houses was often motivated by the personal situ­ ation of the printer, especially the profile of his printing house and his religious and political beliefs. At the same time doing so it could serve to characterize the prin­ ting profession as a whole: adopting comprehensively shared motifs and displaying knowledge of the dominant tendencies. In reflecting both the context of contempo­ rary events and the philosophical and religious disputes and arguments, of the time, Polish printers’ marks, related as they were to the political and legislative system, can be said to illustrate the sentence ubi liber, ibi libertas, making them look unique in the European context.59

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Jan Haller’s mark, in Michał Falkener, Introductorium dyalectice, Cracow 1509 [National Library in Warsaw]. Figure 2: Florian Ungler’s mark, St Stanislaus bringing Piotrowin back to life (after Haller woodcut in Vergilius, Bucolica, 1507 [National Library in Warsaw]. Figure 3: Hieronymus Wietor’s mark, Terminus in Plinius, liber septimus naturalis historiae, Cracow 1526 [National Library in Warsaw]. Figure 4: Łazarz Andrysowicz’ mark, Lucerna pedibus meis Verbum tuum Domine, et Lumen semitis meis, Bartłomiej Górnicki, Artykuły prawa magdeburskiego (Cracow 1558) [National Library in Warsaw]. Figure 5: Jan Januszowski’s mark, in: Jan Kochanowski, Cracow 1585 [National Library in Warsaw]. Figure 6: Hevelius’ mark, Enarrant Dei Gloriam, Johannes Hevelius, Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani, (Gdańsk 1662) [National Library in Warsaw].

Bibliography Alciato, Andrea, Emblematum liber. Augsburg: H. Steyner, 1531. Alciato, Andrea, Emblemata. Lyon: Mathias Bonhomme, 1550. Bibliografia polska Estreicherów, Stanisław Estreicher, Bibliografia polska, part 3: seria staropolska, Cracow 1891-, vol.21 (32). Bieńkowska, Barbara & Halina Chamerska, Zarys dziejów książki. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Spółdzielcze, 1987. Bocchi, Achilles, Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere. Bologna: Apud Societatem Typographiæ Bononiensis, 1574.

59 The Phenomenon of the Polish Noble’s Democracy (Golden freedoms, Golden Liberty, Nobles’ Commonwealth) has been discussed in great detail, see e. g. the thought-provoking substantial work by Davies 1979, see especially vol. 1: Chapter 7 “The Nobleman’s Paradise (Society)”; Frost 2000, 9–11, 114, 181, 323; Zamoyski 1987.



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Buchwald-Pelcowa, Paulina, “Emblematyczne koneksje sygnetu Mateusza Siebeneichera.” Biuletyn Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej 31 (1981): 109–112. Bulla of Pope Clement VIII allowing for the establishment of a printing house associated with the Academy in Zamość, issued in Rome on October 29, 1594, AGAD (The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw), The Zamoyskis’ Archives. Daly, Peter M., “Modern Advertising and Renaissance Emblem Modes of Verbal and Visual Persuasion.” In: Höltgen Karl J., Peter M. Daly & Wolfgang Lottes, eds., Word and Visual Imagination. Studies in the Interaction of English Literature and the Visual Art. Nuremberg: Universität Erlangen, 1988, 349–371. Davies, Norman, God’s Playground. A History of Poland. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Elmqvist Söderlund, Inga, Taking Possession of Astronomy. Frontispieces and Illustrated Title Pages in 17th-Century Books on Astronomy. Stockholm: The Center for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2010. Estreicher, Karol (Elder), “Gűnter Zainer i Świętopełk Fiol. Rozprawa napisana w celu uzyskania stopnia doktora filozofii przez Karola Estreichera.” Biblioteka Warszawska 27 (1867): 161–198. Frost, Robert I., The Northern Wars. War, State and Society in northeastern Europe 1558–1721. Harlow, UK & New York: Longman, 2000. Goldschmidt, Ernst Ph., The Printed Book of the Renaissance. Three Lectures on Type, Illustration, Ornament. Amsterdam: Gérard Th. van Heusden, 1974. Grell, Chantall & Igor Kraszewski, “Between Politics and Science: Pierre des Noyers – a Correspondent of Johannes Hevelius at the Polish Court.” In: Kremer, Richard L. & Jarosław Włodarczyk, eds., Johannes Hevelius and His World. Astronomer, Cartographer, Philosopher and Correspondent. Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, 2013, 213–229. Hałaciński, Kazimierz & Kazimierz Piekarski, Sygnety polskich drukarzy, księgarzy i nakladców: zbiór podobizn. Cracow: Nakładem Koła Miłośników Exlibrisu przy Towarzystwie Miłośników Książki, 1926–1929. Hardie, Philip R., Virgil. Critical Assessments of Classical Authors. London: Routledge 1999. Hevelius Johannes, Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani, Gdańsk: Johannes Hevelius, 1662. Hobson, Anthony, Apollo and Pegasus. An Enquiry into the formation and Dispersal of a Renaissance Library. Amsterdam: Gérard Th. van Heusden, 1975. Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, Z dziejów polskiej książki w okresie Renesansu. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1975. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Obelisk jako sygnet Drukarni Łazarzowej, źródła ikonograficzne i ideowe.” Terminus 9 (2007): 75–96. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Zagadka krakowskiego Terminusa. O sygnecie drukarskim oficyny Hieronima Wietora, propagatora erazmianizmu w Polsce.” Roczniki Biblioteczne 53 (2009): 129–146. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “In Platea Columbarum. The Printing House of Hieronim Wietor, Łazarz Andrysowic and Jan Januszowski in Renaissance Krakow.” Publishing History 67 (2010): 5–37. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Emblematic Tradition in Renaissance Printer’s Devices in Poland.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem. From Incunabula to the Internet: Selected Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies, 28th July – 1st August 2008. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010, 112–135. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Mens immota manet – Polish Application of an Emblematic Commonplace.” In: Probes, Christine & Sabine Mödersheim, eds., The Art of Persuasion. Emblems and Propaganda. Glasgow: Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Word/Image Cultures, University of Glasgow, 2014, 103–116. Kiljańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolite jXVI wieku. Żródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe, (Printers‘ devices in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the XVI th century. The iconographic sources and the ideological content), Kraków 2015.

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Kircher, Timothy, Living Well in Renaissance Italy. The Virtues of Humanism and the Irony of Leon Battista Alberti. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012. Kowalczyk, Jerzy, Zamość città ideale. II fondatore Jan Zamoyski e l’ architetto Bernardo Morando. Warsaw: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1986. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, Polskie sygnety drukarskie od XV do połowy XVII wieku. Poznań: Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne, 2006. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, “Jeszcze jeden polski sygnet o emblematycznych koneksjach (czyli kilka uwag o znaku firmowym Szymona Kempiniego).” Roczniki Biblioteczne 52 (2008): 3–13. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, Typologia sygnetów drukarskich (na przykładzie znaków stosowanych przez polskich impresorów od XV do poł. XVII w.) [The typology of printers’ marks (with the example of printers’ logotypes used by Polish printers from the 15th to the first half of the 17 century)]”. Biblioteka 13 (2009): 7–18. Labitte, Adolphe, Gravures sur bois tirées des livres français du XVe siècle. Paris: Librairie Ancienne de Adolphe Labitte, 1868. Lewicka-Kamińska, Anna, “Erazm z Rotterdamu w Polsce.” In: Erasmiana Cracoviensa. W 500-lecie urodzin Erazma z Rotterdamu (1469–1536). Cracow: Nakładem Uniwersytetu Jagiellónskiego, 1971, 103–124. [exhibition catalogue, Jagiellonian Library] Miodońska, Barbara “Przedstawienie państwa polskiego w Statucie Łaskiego z 1506 roku.” Folia Historiae Artium 5 (1968): 19–69. Mödersheim, Sabine, Art. “Emblem, Emblematik” In: Ueding, Gert et al., eds., Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vol. 2. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994, 1098–1108. Pelc, Janusz, Obraz-Słowo-Znak. Studium o emblematach w literaturze staropolskiej. Wrocław: Zaklad Narodnowy im. Ossolińskich, 1973. Pelc, Janusz, “Renesans – humanizm – reformacja.” In: Pelc, Janusz, Europejskość i polskość literatury naszego renesansu. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1984. Perini, Leandro, La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2002. Plinius, Liber septimus naturalis historiae, Kraków : Hieronimus Wietor, 1526. Rej, Mikołaj, Zwierzyniec. Cracow: M. Wirzbięta, 1561/62. Roth-Scholtz, Friedrich, Thesaurus Symbolorum et emblematum. Nuremberg/ Altorf: heirs of Joh. Dan. Tauber, 1730. Russel, Daniel S., The Emblem and Device in France. Lexington, Ky.: French Forum, 1985. Saunders, Alison, The Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book. A Decorative and Useful Genre. (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 224) Geneva: Droz, 1988. Sikorska, Joanna, Relikwiarze puszkowe w Polsce. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2010. Szwejkowska, Helena, Książka drukowana XV-XVIII w. Zarys historyczny. Wrocław: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1961. Tomicka, Joanna A., “The Black Art. Allegories of Typography in Emblems during the 16th-18th Centuries.” Bulletin Du Musée National de Varsovie 39 (1998): 50–70. Vaccaro, Emerenziana, Le Marche dei Tipografi ed editori Italiani del secolo XVI nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1983. Wandycz, Piotr Stefan, The Price of Freedom. A history of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present. London & New York: Routledge, 1992. Werner, Johann, De triangulis sphoericis libri quatuor. Cracow: Łazarz Andrysowicz, 1557. Zachorowski, Stanisław, Statuty synodalne krakowskie Zbigniewa Olesnickiego 1436,1446, Kraków, 1915. Zamoyski, Adam, The Polish Way. A Thousand-Year History of Poles and Their Culture. London: John Murray, 1987.

Paul Hoftijzer

Pallas Nostra Salus. Early Modern Printer’s Marks in Leiden as Expressions of Professional and Personal Identity In the library of the Koninklijke Vereniging van het Boekenvak [Royal Dutch Associa­ tion of the Book Trade] in Amsterdam a remarkable manuscript has been preserved. It is a register of the names of the wardens and freemen of the Leiden guild of printers and booksellers, compiled in 1708 by the aged guild servant Sybrant Verruwhert, and continued, presumably by one of his successors, up to the year 1812 when the guild was finally dissolved.1 What makes this manuscript of particular interest with regard to the history of printer’s marks in Leiden is that it has an illustrated title-page, drawn by Frans van Bleyswyck (1671–1746), a local artist best known for the many engraved titles and illustrations he made for Leiden books (Figure 1).2 The elaborate baroque architectural frame presents in the centre the title of the document and at the top, on

Figure 1

1  Amsterdam University Library, Bibliotheek KVB, VH 6242, “Register der naamen van de opsienders der auctien en boek neering die A° 1651 en vervolgens gediend hebben als ook de neering-doende boekverkoopers, drukkers, en andere in dien jaare sijnde, of namaals daar toe gekoomen [...]”. The manuscript was acquired in 1888 at the auction of the library of book historian A.M. Ledeboer: Catalogue des livres 1888, 12, 218. 2  On Van Bleyswyck, see Streng 1990. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-008

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a curling banner, its overly dramatic motto “Tot bestiering and verdediging roept ons de plicht en het noodlot” [“To the administration and defence (of the guild) duty and fate call us”]. In two open doorways, on the left a printing office is shown, and on the right a bookshop. On top three allegorical figures are placed: Minerva, holding a picture of Leiden university’s main building, Liberty, carrying an image of the Leiden Burcht [“castle”], and between them a lion rampant, holding the city coat-of-arms with the crossed keys, symbol of St. Peter, patron of Leiden’s oldest church.3 A frieze at the bottom depicts objects and instruments used in printing and bookbinding. What concerns us here, however, are the blazons and name banners on the facade of 32 printers and booksellers, all active in Leiden between the second half of the seven­ teenth century and the first half of the eighteenth. Most of the shields display existing heraldic coats-of-arms and printer’s marks, others contain images made for the occasion, which reflect the name or profession of the particular guild member. Van Bleyswyck must have enjoyed making these devices, as they are not without humour. For instance, the crest of the printer Frans Heeneman (fl. 1676–1713) shows a couple of which the man departs [Dutch: heen gaan]. Bookseller Jan van Damme’s (fl. 1694–1726) shield is a checkerboard [Dutch: dambord], while that of his colleague Daniel van den Dalen (fl. 1700–1717) shows a man descending [Dutch: dalen] from a mountain against the background of a setting sun. Pieter Engelvaart’s (fl. 1655–1680) crest depicts an angel [Dutch: engel] sailing [Dutch: varen] in a little boat, and that of Johannes van Gerrevink three sheaves of corn [Dutch: garven] with finches [Dutch: vinken] sitting on them. In the case of Jacob (II) Manneke (fl. 1707–1754) and Jacob (fl. 1653–1692) and Johannes (fl. 1693–1707) Voorn a more straightforward device is shown: an open book. The opposite page has an additional 23 shields in the same style, added at the end of the eighteenth century by an anonymous artist. Here we find, for example, the crests of Daniel Vijgh (fl. 1769–1793) with a fig [Dutch: vijg] tree branch, Jacob de Beunje (fl. 1737–1762) with a pile of books, Leendert Herd­ ingh (fl. 1773–1815) with a shepherd’s [Dutch: herder] dog, and Hendrik Hazenberg (fl. 1774–1812) with a hare [Dutch: haas] running on a mountain [Dutch: berg]. Together, these blazons represent some of the pre-modern traditions in express­ ing a person’s identity, family, status, conviction or profession in pictorial form. One is highly formalized heraldry, the aristocratic origins of which reach back to the early Middle Ages. Another is the more urban and practical, but equally ancient use of a house mark, gable stone or shop sign, inspired by a wide array of popular texts and images. A third is the display of a more subtle emblematic device or impresa, consist­ ing of an image, coupled with a motto and/or a few lines of explanatory text, which became popular during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The aim of this con­ tribution is to investigate to what extent these traditions affected the creation of the

3  The lion is modelled after an existing sculpture made by Rombout Verhulst in 1662, guarding the entrance to the Leiden castle.



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multitude of real marks and devices used by Leiden printers and publishers during the Early Modern period.4

Early Leiden Printers and Their Devices Printing came late to Leiden, a small town at the end of the Middle Ages, with an economy that relied heavily on the manufacture of cloth.5 Whereas the earliest dated printed books in the Low Countries came out in the year 1473, the first Leiden book appeared a decade later, in 1483. It was printed by one Heynricus Heynrici (fl. 1483–1484) whose production was limited to just six books for the two years he was active. He did have a printer’s device, however. The colophon of his edition of Thomas Aquinas’ De humanitate Christi (1484) has a woodcut of a lion holding two shields, one with Leiden’s coat-of-arms and the other with Heynrici’s monogrammatic house mark. The superscription reads “hollā[nd] in leiden (Figure 2).”6 Other early Leiden printers

Figure 2

also used the city’s crossed keys in the colophons of their publications, for example Jan Seversz (fl. 1500–1524), who added to it his personal motto “Lof God van al” [“Praise God above all”] or Laus Deo.7 The mark regained popularity at the end of the sixteenth century, following Leiden’s relief from a long Spanish siege in 1574. It was since often

4  The standard reference work on Dutch printer’s marks up to 1701 is Van Huisstede & Brandhorst 1999a (hereafter referred to as DPD), which was produced in collaboration with the Short-Title Catalogue, Netherlands (STCN, www.stcn.nl). The name entries of the STCN also provide access to images of printer’s marks up to 1701, via the Arkyves database (www.arkyves.org. 5  For a general overview of the history of Leiden as a “city of books”, see Bouwman et al. 2008. 6  DPD 1398. Similar devices were used by contemporary printers, e. g. Jacob Jacobszoon van der Meer in Delft (DPD 1419) and Johannes Andreae in Haarlem (DPD 1375). 7  DPD 1433–1438.

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used for printwork related to the city, sometimes with the motto Haec libertatis ergo [“This for the sake of liberty”], a text referring to the city’s struggle for freedom.8 The first Leiden printer to use a more complex mark was Pieter Claesz van Balen (fl. 1534–1539).9 He appears to have held Lutheran sympathies as his earliest known publi­ cation is a Dutch translation of Luther’s New Testament (1534). Van Balen’s house in the Donkersteeg was named “De gulde zon” [“The golden sun”], no doubt with a correspond­ ing gable stone or shop sign, which he also used as a full-page printer’s device at the end of his New Testament. The mark is accompanied by a typeset chiliastic motto taken from the Book of Malachi 4:2: “Die sonne der rechtverdicheyt sal U die minen naem vreest opgaen, ende salicheyt onder sine vlogelen” [KJV: “But unto you that feare my name, shall the sunne of righteousnesse arise with healing in his wings”] (Figure 3).10 The device would remain in use among Van Balen’s successors for more than two centuries.11

Figure 3

8  E.g. DPD 337, 1224, 1768. The motto was originally impressed on paper emergency money issued during the siege. The mark was also used on publications of the so-called “Raedthuys Pers”, a gov­ ernment printing office ran by town secretary Jan van Hout from 1583 to 1610. 9  On Van Balen, see Bangs 1979. 10  Not in DPD. At the bottom of the woodcut are Van Balen’s initials, together with a compass and two clutching hands. For the English translations of biblical texts, use has been made of the King James Version (KJV, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org). The Dutch text was, by the way, not taken from any of the current contemporary Dutch editions of the Old Testament. (See: www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl). 11  Around 1600 the house in the Donkersteeg was owned by the printer Jan Claesz van Dorp (fl. 1595–1636), whose mark displays a shining sun or tetragrammaton, with the mottoes Omnia lustrans [“Illuminating all”] (DPD 165), Sinceritate et bonitate [“Through sincerity and goodness”] (DPD 578) and Iustis lux consita coelo, after Psalm 96:10 [KJV: “Light is risen to the just”] (DPD 524, 682, 1143). Later, Van Dorp moved his premises to the nearby Haarlemmerstraat, taking with him his shop sign and printer’s mark, which remained in use with his heirs until the middle of the eighteenth century (e. g. DPD 410).



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During much of the sixteenth century printing in Leiden suffered from the economic stagnation and political and religious unrest in the Low Countries, and only a handful of printers were able to make a living, mainly by producing devotional texts and pub­ lications related to the Latin schools in the region. It is in this latter category that the first humanistically inspired emblematic printer’s marks appeared. Jan Mathijszoon (fl. 1555–1569), who worked on the Hooglandsekerkgracht, was a printer of catholic devotional works as well as the occasional Neo-Latin text. In the colophon of some of his publications he used an image of a Roman soldier making the silence sign, with the motto – indicative of the troubled times he lived in? – Tutum silentii praemium [“Safety is silence’s reward”], taken from Erasmus’ Adages, 2403 (Figure 4).12

Figure 4

Also working in this field was Dierick Gerritsz Horst (fl. 1562–1568), who began his brief career with an edition of the New Testament in the Latin translation of Erasmus. His entire production consists of sixteen titles, most of which are in Latin. His shop sign was “The golden crane”, which he made into his printer’s mark as well. The woodcut device, which exists in three variants and was exclusively applied on the title-page, not in the colophon, shows a crane standing on one leg on a human skull, while holding a stone with the other leg. In its beak it carries a banner with the phrase Vigilate [“Be watchfull”]. The image is surrounded by a text set in type: Spernere vis mortem? Vis puram vivere vitam? Vis fieri sapiens, virq[ue]. probus? Vigila [“Do you wish to despise death? Do you wish to lead a pure life? Do you wish to be a wise and good man? Be watchful”] (Figure 5).13 The device was described, but not yet illustrated, in the first edition of Paulo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose (1555),

12  DPD 316. Cf. Erasmus 2005, 68. The device was still used a century later on the title-page of Ge­ rardus Joannes Vossius, Elementa rhetorica. Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1646, a book probably printed in Leiden. For earlier silence-marks, see Wolkenhauer 2002, 255–261. 13  DPD 154–155, 161. The source for the longer text is not known. Cf. the discussion in Van Huisstede & Brandhorst 1999b, 30–34. The device is still used today by the Mendelssohn-Gesellschaft in Berlin (www.mendelssohn-remise.de/index.php?lang=2).

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Figure 5

with the motto Officium natura docet [“Nature teaches duty”]. Giovio based himself on Pliny the Elder, who in his Naturalis historia 10,30 writes that one of the characteris­ tics of the crane was that it spent the night in large flocks, some birds keeping watch holding a stone with one leg, which was meant to keep them awake. The moment a bird dozed off it would drop the stone, alarming the others. Intriguingly, however, the same image, with the motto Vigilate [“Be watchful”], had already been used by the Sevillan printer Martin de Montesdoca in 1554, one year before Giovio’s collection was published and eight years before Horst became active in Leiden.14 There is no indica­ tion that both printers knew each other, but Horst may have seen a book published by De Montesdoca and plagiarized the printer’s mark.

The Golden Age of Leiden Printer’s Marks The flowering of the Leiden book trade began in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Legend has it that William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt against the king of Spain, rewarded Leiden for its resistance against the Spaniards by giving it a university. Legend or not, within a few years of its foundation in 1575, the new academy was attracting growing numbers of students and could boast excellent facil­ ities for lecturing and research, while its teaching programme was humanistically oriented. The university administrators, foremost among them the poet and scholar

14  Giovio 1555, 96–97. The first illustration in Giovio 1559, 93. On De Montesdoca, see Wagner 1982, 45–47. Other printers using the mark in this period are Eusebius and Nicolaus Episcopius in Basle (no motto) and Jean Cordier in Antwerp (motto Officium natura docet). For earlier examples, see Wolken­ hauer 2002, 404–409 and Wolkenhauer 2003, 300–304, 313 (illustrations).



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Janus Dousa (1545–1604) and town secretary Jan van Hout (1542–1609), aware of the benefits the book trade could provide to the academic community, attempted to lure some of the best printers and booksellers of the Low Countries to Leiden. Among the first to arrive was Andries Verschout, who had worked for Plantin in Antwerp in the 1560s.15 In 1575 he printed Janus Dousa’s Nova poemata, which on its title-page has the traditional device of a lion holding Leiden’s coat-of-arms.16 Another mark he used in 1578 was an image of St. John sitting on a throne with a book in his hand and a motto taken from the Book of Revelation 3:11: “Siet ick come haestelyck houdt dat ghi hebt op dat niemant u crone neme” [KJV: “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown”].17 Verschout acted for a while as unofficial university printer, but in 1577 that position was formally taken by Willem Silvius (fl. 1561–1580), one of Antwerp’s most prominent printers. Among the equipment he brought to Leiden was his printer’s mark, an angel holding a book and a scythe, with the motto Scrutamini [“Search”], taken from the Gospel of St. John 5:39: Scrutamini scripturas quia vos putatis in ipsis vitam aeternam habere et illae sunt quae testimonium perhibent de me [KJV: “Search the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about Me”] (Figure 6).18 The device was derived

Figure 6

from the name of Silvius’ house in Antwerp, “De gouden engel” [“The golden angel”].19 Silvius, however, died three years later and when it became clear that his son and successor Carel was not up to the job, the curators looked again for Antwerp to find a university printer. This time they got the best catch possible, Christopher Plantin. Plantin, who, contrary to Silvius, was not a Protestant, arrived in Leiden in 1583, bringing with him three printing presses and other equipment, which he installed

15  On Verschout, see Briels 1974, 508–513; Valkema Blouw 2013, 349–360. For slightly earlier exam­ ples of the use of St. John, see Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 121 (father and son Jan van Ghelen in Antwerp) and 151 (Laurent Lenfant in Mons). 16  DPD 1768. The second edition (1576) has the same image, now with the Haec libertatis ergo motto. 17  DPD 1496. The source appears to have been the so-called “Biestkens” bible translation. For anoth­ er biblical device of Verschout, see DPD 520. 18  Variants of Silvius’ mark in Leiden: DPD 361, 672, 743, 867, 1910. His Antwerp marks in Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 220–221. Earlier, in the 1530s, Joannes Grapheus at Antwerp had used the motto Scrutamini scripturas with the image of a hand holding a quill, Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 127–128. 19  This was also the new name of his house in the Leiden Maarsmansteeg, originally named “De drie koningen” [“The three magi”].

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in a splendid house on the city’s main street, the Breestraat. Among his first publi­ cations was Justus Lipsius’ famous neo-stoic treatise De constantia, soon followed by a large number of other, mostly academic books. Three years later he returned to his beloved Antwerp after the Spanish conquest of the city in August 1585, handing the firm over to his son-in-law Franciscus Raphelengius, who as a protestant could not stay in the city on the Scheldt. Upon his arrival in Leiden early in 1586 Raphelen­ gius was appointed university printer and, being an excellent orientalist, professor of Hebrew. He would run the Leiden establishment until his death in 1597, although he left most of the work to his sons Christophorus, Jodocus and Franciscus II. The last two continued the firm until its demise in 1619.20 The importance of the activity of the Officina Plantiniana in Leiden can hardly be overestimated. During its nearly forty-year long presence in Leiden, it published some 900 titles of all sorts, academic dissertations, emblem books, classical texts, as well as the work of famous Leiden scholars such as Justus Lipsius, Carolus Clusius, Josephus Justus Scaliger, Daniel Heinsius, Hugo Grotius, and many others. The typography was immaculate, showing other printers and publishers in Leiden what a scholarly book should look like, including the use of a sophisticated printer’s mark, the omnipresent compass with the motto Labore et constantia [“Through labour and constancy”], so closely related to the neo-stoic philosophy of Plantin and his relatives and close friends. Plantin and Raphelengius used at least sixteen variants of the mark, which they, con­ scious of its value as a token of quality, never allowed anyone else to use (Figure 7).21

Figure 7

20  Van Gulik 1975, 387. 21  The marks used in Leiden: DPD 150, 365–366, 368, 372–375, 378, 454, 534, 538, 548, 653, 1857, 1898. When the Leiden Officina Plantiniana ended its activities in 1619, practically all their material, includ­ ing the woodcut printer’s marks, returned to Antwerp, where they are still preserved in the Museum Plantin-Moretus. Cf. Van Havre 1911.



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Up to 1625, some thirty other printers and booksellers established a printing office and/or bookshop in Leiden, hoping to profit from the bustling intellectual climate.22 Among them were foreigners like the Englishman Thomas Basson who had worked before in Cologne, Hendrick Lodewijcksz van Haestens from Gelderland, Loys Elzevier from Louvain who had previously worked in Antwerp for Plantin, Jacob Marcus van der Weele from Hamburg, father and son Antoine and Jean Maire from Valenciennes, who had temporarily lived in London as religious exiles, as had Christopher Guyot, a native of Antwerp. A few were local men, such as Jan Bouwensz, the successor of Jan Mathijszoon on the Hooglandsekerkgracht, Jan Paets Jacobsz who had lived for many years in exile in Norwich, and Jan Claesz van Dorp who worked at Pieter van Balen’s former house in the Donkersteeg. All were trying to find their niche in the market and make themselves known, not only through their publications, but also through the use of appealing printer’s devices. That finding such a mark could be quite a struggle is shown by the case of Hen­ drick van Haestens (fl. 1596–1628), a good printer who worked for publishers in Leiden and other Dutch cities as well as producing his own books. He had at least seventeen different devices,23 but his finest and most individual mark was the one that he had made after his unexpected departure for Louvain in 1622, where he was appointed university printer. It is a picture of a winged tortoise with the motto Cunctando propero [“Steadfast I hasten”], a nice pun on his name.24 The family name also was a source of inspiration to Jan Paets Jacobsz (fl. 1572– 1622), the publisher of a large assortment of books, including Dutch folio bibles and translations of classical authors such as Flavius Josephus and Plutarch. From 1602 to 1620 he served as university printer, producing scores of academic dissertations, orations and carmina. He used two marks, Willem Silvius’ golden angel25 and a highly attractive and – at first – puzzling image of a pen with five parallel tips, used for drawing a music staff of five lines, with the motto Aequabilitate [“Through equability”] (Figure 8). The explanation lies in the Dutch name of this peculiar pen, a “paet”, from

22  Briels 1974, 83–111. 23  DPD 29, 50, 83, 93, 98, 472–473, 483, 532, 659, 787, 800–801, 901, 922, 1771, 2083. 24  Dutch: “Ik haast mij langzaam.” Haestens’ house on the Old Market in Leuven was named “In de vliegende schild-padde” [In the flying tortoise]. Cf. Simoni and Coppens 1987 and Briels 1974, 95 (with a Dutch poem on the device by the Leuven professor Erycius Puteanus). The mark is used today as the device of the Short-Title Catalogue, Flanders (www.stcv.be). 25  DPD 69, 112, 117–118, 145, 156–157, 159, 178, 404, 407, 527–528, 673, 899, 1056, 1309, 1806–1807. DPD 1309 does not have the motto Scrutamini, but a longer Latin text, taken from the Book of Revelation 14:15, where an angel says: Mitte falcem tuam et mete quia aruit messis terrae [KJV: “Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, [...] for the harvest of the earth is ripe”]. Paets appears to have acquired part of Silvius’ printing equipment.

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Figure 8

to the Frech “patte”, five-nailed paw of an animal.26 In the same vein, Paets’ shop on the Leiden Breestraat was named “De gouden paet” [“The golden staff pen”]. Thomas Basson (fl. 1585–1612), whose surname may derive from the curtal, or “basson” in French, choose “Het musijckboeck” [“The music book”] as the name of his house and shop opposite the university, making it his printer’s device as well. At first the mark was a crude woodcut, but later Basson used a more detailed image, with the added allegorical figures of Musica and Charitas, the motto Basis actionum charitas [“Charity is the basis of all actions”] and a musical score (Figure 9). As Van Dorsten has

Figure 9

shown, it is a two-part canon, with a third melodic voice underneath: “the newly added part reads da, da [Latin for give, give] to illustrate in words and notes that giving is the basis of all action and that Charitas supports Musica.”27 He also pointed to a possible

26  “Patter” in French still means drawing a staff. The instrument is obtainable today under the name of Noligraph. On Paets, see Briels 1974, 380–384; Nootenboom 2009. 27  DPD 16, 255, 257, 364, 450–451, 466, 505, 511, 514, 649, 1031, 1326. The mark was also used by Thomas’ son, Govert.



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connection of the mark to rosicrucean or familist ideas, with which Basson, and later his son Govert, were familiar.28 Another fine mark is that of Christopher Guyot (fl. 1598–1603), a member of a family of Antwerp printers who appears to have come to Leiden with Franciscus Raphelengius in 1586. In 1598 he bought a house in the Nieuwsteeg named Templum Salomonis [“Solomon’s temple”], in memory of the erstwhile presence on that loca­ tion – formerly a house of the Teutonic Order – of the library of the jurist Philips of Leyden (c. 1326–1382), which had been bequeathed to the city of Leiden. Guyot subse­ quently used an image of Solomon’s temple as his shop sign and printer’s mark, with the motto Templum Dei vos estis, after 1 Corinthians 3:16, Templum enim Dei sanctum est, quod estis vos [KJV: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God”] (Figure 10).29

Figure 10

Other printers and publishers were less original in their quest for a device. In 1613 the oriental scholar Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624) with the help of the university set up his own printing press, because he was dissatisfied with the quality that local printers could deliver when printing oriental texts. Besides designing his own Arabic type, Erpenius created a printer’s mark, a palm tree with the motto Assurgo pressa [“Under pressure I grow”]. This referred to the method, common in the Mediterranean, to place a large stone in the crest of a date palm, which forced the tree to produce more fruit, but at the same time it applied to the activity of the scholar-printer, who had to over­ come many difficulties before a book could be published. The mark was, however,

28  Van Dorsten 1985, 214–216, esp. 209–213; see also Van Dorsten 1961 and on Govert Basson, Bögels 1992. 29  DPD 250, 1186, 1762. On Guyot, see Briels 1974, 292–304. After Guyot’s death, the mark was used by various other Leiden printers. Since 1894 the premises of Nieuwsteeg are occupied by the book­ shop and auction house Burgersdijk and Niermans, whose nineteenth-century shop sign still reads Templum Salomonis.

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hardly original. It had been used before by several other publishers, most notably Johannes Bebelius (fl. 1523–1550) and his successors in Basle.30 In a similar fashion, Isaac Elzevier (fl. 1616–1626) modelled the “Solitaire”, the well-known Elzevirian printer’s mark of an old man standing next to an elm tree with a climbing vine and the motto Non solus [“Not alone”], after the printer’s mark of the famous sixteenth-century Parisian printing family Estienne, which shows an old man standing next to an olive tree, with a motto from Romans 11:20 Noli altum sapere [KJV: “Be not highminded”]. Isaac’s grandfather, Loys Elzevier (fl. 1583–1617), who never had printing facilities of his own, had used a rather different mark, an eagle holding a bundle of seven arrows in its left claw, with the motto Concordia res parvae crescunt [“Through concord small things will grow”], alluding to the struggle for independence of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic.31 In 1620 his grandson Isaac, who had been appointed university printer, introduced the new mark32 and it was soon taken over by his successors, Abraham and Bonaventura Elzevier (fl. 1625–1653). Rarely has a printer’s mark been applied with such self-assurance as the “Solitaire” during the period of Abraham and Bonaventura, the heyday of the Leiden Elzeviers. They had at least nine different versions, one as big as 9 × 9 cm (Figure 11).33 In their analysis of

Figure 11 30  The Erpenius mark: DPD 328. Cf. Grimm 1965, 130–133; Davidson 1996, 46–48. The emblem in Rollenhagen 1611, nr. 28, motto Victrix patientia duri. See also Scriverius 1625, which includes on ff. B4v-B5 a short poem on Erpenius’s device: In Palmam, Typographiae Erpenianiae notam & symbolum. 31  DPD 402, 415, 683. 32  The Non solus used by Isaac Elzevier: DPD 73, 348. 33  DPD 73, 142, 180, 326, 330, 347, 348, 352, 1284. See also Rahir 1896 [1965], 422–423.



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the mark, Schlüter and Vinken (1997) have shown the complexity of the tree-and-vine theme, which was constantly re-interpreted by emblem book authors as well as by printers and publishers. For the Elzeviers, the fact that authors and publishers cannot exist without each other surely must have been one of the possible meanings. Where one of the Elzeviers’ greatest competitors, Jean Maire (fl. 1603–1657) in the Pieterskerkchoorsteeg, found his mark is less clear. In the first decades of his long career, he occasionally used a device with the image of a man (Adam?) with a spade, the personification of Hope, accompanied by the motto Fac et spera [“Do and hope”] or Labore [Work].34 There is an obvious relation with the name of his house in the Pieter­ kerkchoorsteeg, “Werck en hope” [“Do and hope”], although it is not known if the mark was inspired by the name of the house, or the other way around. But only when he had acquired his own printing presses in 1626, did Maire appropriate it as his personal mark. In the following years he had a series of woodblocks and copperplates made, all with the image of the digging man and the motto Fac et spera (Figure 12).35 The origin

Figure 12

of the device is uncertain, but there may be a link to Psalm 36:3, Spera in Domino, et fac bonitatem [KJV 37:3: “Trust in the Lord, and do good”] and to a seal with the same image made for the Dutch Reformed Church in Delft in 1588.36 The first display of the device in an emblem book occurred ten years after Maire had first used it, i.e. in 1603. Emblem nr. 7 in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Selectorum emblematum c­ enturia secunda (1613), shows

34  The mark of Jean’s father Antoine Maire was an open book flanked by a beehive and a spider’s web and topped by three lilies, with the motto “Selon qu’on use” (DPD 1558). 35  DPD 1, 17–18, 48, 60, 223, 227, 252, 256, 433, 602, 647, 679, 692–693, 1854, 1889, 1891, 2061. In the larger variants, the digging man is illuminated by a divine light and sided by two allegorical figures, either a Roman soldier (?) and Fortitude, or Hope and Abundance. 36  Breugelmans 2003, 28. The church seal has the motto “Delft na dien verborgen schat” [“Dig for that hidden treasure”] (cf. Matthew 13:44), a pun on the name of Delft.

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an elegantly dressed woman – Hope, or the Greek goddess Ceres? – digging the soil, with the motto Fac et spera.37 The mark became quite popular and was still in use in the nineteenth century with the Parisian literary publisher Alphonse Lemerre. The success and longevity of some printer’s marks inspired later generations of Leiden printers and publishers to continue along the same lines. A large number of devices were created for Leiden printers and publishers during the seventeenth century, some quite original, others following existing trends or copying the marks of others. The device derived from the owner’s surname remained popular. The printer Nicolaes Hercules (fl. 1655–1661) didn’t have to think hard to find his mark – an image of the Greek heros Hercules flanked by three chained wild dogs, with the motto Virtus non territa monstris [“Virtue is not frightened by monsters”] –, the more so since it had already been used before him by his Parisian colleague Antoine Vitré (fl. 1621–1674).38 Cornelis Boutesteyn (fl. 1679–1712), who is best known for his editions of the work of Dutch microscopist Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) and whose surname can be translated as “Boldstone”, choose the image of a castle on a hill, with the motto Structa super lapidem qui ruet ista domus [“Who shall ruin this house built on a rock?”], inspired by St. Luke’s Gospel, 6:48.39 Printer Hendrik van Damme (fl. 1680– 1693) had a more simple device, showing a dam made of rammed in piles of wood – a common Dutch method to lay a foundation on unstable ground –, and the motto “Heyd vaste damme” [“Build strong dams”], one of the earliest examples, by the way, of a motto based on the initials of the printer (Figure 13).

Figure 13

A recurrent theme of many seventeenth-century Leiden printer’s marks are birds. The most popular was the phoenix, which already had enjoyed a long life in earlier

37  For the iconography of Hope with a spade, see Bergström 1956. Cf. Henkel & Schöne 1996, 1559; Van Huisstede & Brandhorst 1997, 211–216; Fleming 2013. 38  DPD 477, 522, 761. The image of Hercules is almost a direct copy of that of Vitré. 39  DPD 186–187.



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printer’s marks.40 Jan Claesz van Dorp on the Haarlemmerstraat occasionally used a phoenix, and we find it again with more academically oriented printers and publish­ ers like Hieronymus de Vogel (fl. 1636–1648; his surname actually means “the bird”) without a motto, father and son David and Felix Lopez de Haro (fl. 1635–1663, resp. 1664–1693) with the motto Immortalitati [“For immortality”] (Figure 14), and Pieter

Figure 14

Leffen (fl. 1649–1666) with the motto Ex morte immortalitas [“From death immortal­ ity”] (Figure 15).41 The religious connotation of the resurrection of Christ no doubt is of

Figure 15

prime importance in these devices, but another possible interpretation is that thanks to the art of printing dead authors will find a new life. Leffen’s phoenix has a curious connection to two Leiden members of the Thysius family. Professor Antonius Thysius junior (1603–1665) was the author of a funeral

40  An early example of a publisher using a phoenix as his device is Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari in Venice (fl. 1523–1578); his motto was Semper eadem [“Always the same”]. The bird was also popular in imprese collections and emblem books, e.g. Ruscelli 1584, 137; Giovio 1574, 194; Paradin 1551, 30 and Sambucus 1564, 32. 41  On Van Dorp, see DPD 222 (the image after Paradin 1551, 30); on De Vogel, see DPD 80, 325; on Lopez de Haro, see DPD 80, 183, 325, 346, 354, 428, 430, 916; on Leffen, see DPD 80, 345, 916.

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oration held in the university hall in 1653 on the death of naval hero Maarten Har­ pertsz Tromp (1598–1653), which was published by Leffen.42 The appearance of Lef­ fen’s device on the title-page serves as an accidental reminder of Tromp’s immortality. The oration is also depicted on a vanitas piece by the painter Pieter Steenwijck, com­ missioned by Cornelis Tromp, Maarten’s second son who himself was a naval com­ mander (Figure 16). On a table are displayed the usual symbols of impermanence – a

Figure 16

human skull, a nautilus shell, a globe, a flute, a blown-out candle, a well as a rumpled engraving of Tromp and a worn-out copy of the oration. The paradoxical message of the painting, however, is that, contrary to everything else in this world, Tromp’s glory will endure, a notion that is reinforced by Leffen’s partly visible phoenix.43 The connection with Johannes Thysius (1622–1653), the founder of a public library that still exists today in Leiden as the Bibliotheca Thysiana, is more hypothetical. One of the ornaments in the library room on the first floor is a phoenix, carved in wood and painted red as it is flying out of the fire. It is not a great piece of sculpture, but rather the sort of signboard that one would expect above a seventeenth-century shop (Figure 17). Nothing is known about the origin of this phoenix, but Johannes Thysius was a regular customer at Leffen’s bookshop in the Leiden Kloksteeg, named “In den vogel phoenix” [“In the bird phoenix”]. Might it be possible that Leffen at the end of his career donated his wooden phoenix to the Bibliotheca Thysiana? Two other birds populating the habitat of Leiden printer’s devices are the ostrich and the pelican. The experienced printer Willem Christiaensz van der Boxe (fl. 1631– 1658) had an attractive mark displaying an ostrich with a shoe iron in its beak and the motto Nil penna, sed usus [“not the feather, but its use”]. Device and motto were taken

42  Thysius 1653. 43  To this can be added that during the first Anglo-Dutch war (1652–1654) Cornelis Tromp had briefly commanded an English ship taken by the Dutch at the battle of Monte Christo (27–29th August 1652), named the Phoenix.



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Figure 17

directly from emblem book literature, as they were first shown by Claude Paradin in his Devises heroïques,44 and again by Rollenhagen in his Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum,45 the picture of which apparently served as Van der Boxe’s model.46 Rollenha­ gen’s subscriptio: En struthum nil penna iuvat, quod nesciat uti:/ Non penna est scribas quae facit, usus erit [“Behold, the ostrich has no use for its wings, because it doesn’t know how to use them. Likewise, it is not the pen that makes someone a writer, but its use will”] is a stark warning against bigotry, not out of place in an academic setting. The origin of the device of the mother pelican, who sacrifices herself by feeding her chicks with her own blood, is much older; the scene was already described in the Middle Ages as an allegory of Christ’s sacrifice for humanity. It found its way into emblem books through Hadrianus Junius’ Emblemata (1565),47 but as a printer’s mark it appears to be even older: the brothers Jérôme and Dionyse Marnef in Paris had used it on the title-pages of their books around 1550 with the motto Principium ex fide, finis in charitate [“The beginning from faith, the end from charity”], as had the Mainz printer Franz Behem around the same time, with a motto taken from various biblical sources Sic his qui diligunt [“Thus those who love”]. Two Antwerp printers using the mark in the second half of the sixteenth century are Guillaem van Parijs and Jan (II) van den

44  Paradin 1551, 49. 45  Rollenhagen 1611, nr. 36. 46  DPD 39, 88, 122, 397, 1060. The mark was subsequently used by Willem’s son Huybert and grandchildren Daniel and Dieuwertje van der Boxe. 47  Junius 1565, nr. 7, motto Quod in te est, prome [“Bring forth what is in you”]; cf. Reusner 1581, sec­ tion 2, nr. 14, and Rollenhagen 1611, nr. 20 (with Christ’s crucifixion in the background), both with the motto Pro lege et pro grege [“For the law and the people”].

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Steene (both with the motto Pellicanus alit suo sanguine verus [“The true pelican feeds with her own blood”]).48 In Leiden the device was adopted by the ambitious publisher Frans de Heger (fl. 1631–1645) and subsequently, among others, by the printer Philippe de Croy (fl. 1645–1667), whose house on the Langebrug was named “In de pelikaan” [“In the pelican”]. Their motto always was Vivimus ex uno [“We live from one”].49 Among the multitude of Leiden printer’s marks, perhaps the most interesting are those devices, which emphasize the close connection of the book trade with the univer­ sity. Some publishers used an image of the main building of Leiden university as their mark, for instance Aernout Doude (fl. 1668–1679), with the proud motto Gloria mundi [“Glory of the world”].50 A particularly nice example is the engraved device used only once in 1654 by the bookseller and auctioneer François Moeyaert (fl. 1644–1662). It pre­ sents a view on the academy building, with before it, on the other side of the canal, a tree in which two men have climbed to pick an apple. When the one in the top falls out of the tree, his friend in the centre speaks the dry humorous words Medio tutissimus ibis [“You will be safest in the middle”], taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses 2,137 (Figure 18).51

Figure 18

The most obvious figure to choose for such an academic device was of course Pallas Athena or Minerva, goddess of wisdom, who, following her appearance on the origi­ nal seal of Leiden University, is commonly depicted holding a book. It is a mark used by many printers working for the university, particularly on academic ephemera.52 In some marks, Minerva has company. Various printers used an image of Minerva and Hercules with the motto Invicta concordia [“Victorious concord”].53 Frederik Haaring

48  For the device of the Marnef brothers, see Renouard 1926, 232–237; for Behem’s mark, see Grimm 1965, 182–186; for Van Parijs and Van der Steene, see Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 173 and 228. 49  DPD 107, 122. 50  DPD 233–234, 1838. 51  DPD 1557. The motto Medio tutissimus ibis can also be found in a love emblem of Otho Vaenius (1608, nr. 22), which follows Ovid’s story of the fall of Icarus. 52  DPD 83, 438, 478–479, 746, 788, 791, 800–801, 804, 1123–1124, 1150, 1230, 1239, 1282, 1285, 1837, 1856, 1924. The mark was revived in 2006 at the founding of Leiden University Press. 53  DPD 483, 787, 1045, 1839, 2083. Among the Leiden printers using this mark are Jan Jansz Orlers (1611), Joris Abrahamsz van der Marsce (1616), Hendrick Lodewijcksz van Haestens (1619), Jacob Roels (1633), Hieronymus de Vogel (1637), Cornelis Driehuysen (1665) and Johannes van Gelder (1666).



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(fl. 1688–1712) apparently wished to express his gratitude towards the university as his main employer by using a woodcut mark displaying the birth of Minerva out of Jupiter’s head in the forgery of Vulcanus, with the unequivocal motto Pallas nostra salus [“Minerva is our salvation”].54 A more appropriate allegory of the happy union of science and scholarship and the book trade was provided by the combination of Minerva and Mercury, god of trade. This wasn’t a new theme; the Venetian printer Gualtiero Scotti had used it already in the 1550s, as had the London printers Christopher and Robert Barker around 1600.55 In Leiden it was introduced by one of the city’s greatest booksellers, Pieter van der Aa (1683–1733). In 1685 he presented a mark in which Minerva crosses a stick on which a bright light is mounted with Mercury’s caduceus, with the ambitious motto Hac itur ad astra [“This is the way to heaven”], taken from Virgil’s Aeneid 9,641 (Figure 19).56 During

Figure 19

his long career, which culminated in his appointment in 1715 as printer to both the uni­ versity and the city of Leiden, Van der Aa made use of many other devices, including some existing ones, with a variety of mottoes,57 but the ones depicting Minerva are the best. The highlight is an engraved plate from around 1707 with a seated Minerva in full armour, holding a banner with the motto Studio et vigilantia (vigilance being symbol­ ized by a cock sitting above her), while in the near background the lion with Leiden’s coat-of-arms and a personification of the river Rhine are depicted, and in the distance the university and the Leiden castle can be seen (Figure 20).58

54  DPD 611, 703. 55  Vaccaro 1983, 340–341, no motto; McKerrow 1949 [1913], 117–118 and nr. 300, showing an open book illuminated from above, flanked by Mercury touching the book and Minerva pointing upward, with the motto: Dat esse manus: superesse Minerva [“(Mercury’s) hand gives us our existence, Miner­ va helps us to live beyond our death”] (with thanks to Jeanine De Landtsheer). 56  DPD 698, 1007–1008. 57  E.g. DPD 706, 746, 1012, motto Studio et vigilantia [By study and vigilance]; DPD 1009, motto Detrahit atque polit [“She removes and makes smooth”]. The personification of Academia on the last device was taken from Ripa 1644, 1–4. Interestingly, Van der Aa, although the successor of the last Elzevier as university printer and the owner of almost the entire Elzevier printshop inventory, including a Non solus block, never used the “Solitaire”. Cf. Hoftijzer 1999, 27. 58  There is a striking resemblance between Van der Aa’s mark and an engraved device of Oxford University Press introduced in the 1680s. The Oxford device in its turn appears to have been inspired by the mark of the Toulouse printer Arnaud Colomier (fl. 1633–1666).

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Figure 20

The End of a Tradition Pieter van der Aa in more ways than one is a transitional figure in the history of the Leiden book trade. His aggressive commercial strategies and diversified publishing list distinguish him from his predecessors and contemporaries. Transitional he also is in his use of printer’s devices. Most of his marks are not the usual woodcuts, but elegantly engraved copper plate vignettes, in line with the content of his many illustrated publica­ tions and following the new French fashion in book design. Quite often the title-pages of his books do not even have a personal device, but rather an illustration pertaining exclu­ sively to the publication. For instance, the title-page of his edition of the Opera omnia of Erasmus (10 vols., 1703–1706) has an elaborate vignette depicting a bust of Erasmus on a pedestal being honoured by two putti with a laurel wreath and below on a frieze the elevation of Truth by Time. The pedestal is flanked by the allegorical figures of Vigi­ lance and Science, echoing Van der Aa’s motto Studio et vigilantia. The rim of the circu­ lar picture is formed by an ouroboros, the snake that bites its own tail. The motto reads Tandem bona causa triumphat [“Finally, the good cause will triumph”] (Figure 21).59 In the eighteenth century, printers and publishers in Leiden, and for that matter elsewhere in the Dutch Republic, gradually abandoned the use of a personal printer’s device. They either left the space on the title-page blank, or added an ornamental vignette, not necessarily related to the producer of the book or its content. Only a few remained faithful to the old practice, mostly out of loyalty to established family traditions. Prominent among them is the Luchtmans firm, which succeeded Pieter van der Aa in 1733 as university and town printer. Jordaan Luchtmans (fl. 1683–1708), the founder of the business, used several marks, including the image of a ploughing woman, again a personification of Hope, under a radiant tetragrammaton, with the

59  For a comprehensive description of the vignette, see De Jonge 1986, 65–66.



Early Modern Printer’s Marks in Leiden 

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Figure 21

motto Spes alit agricolas [Hope feeds the farmers], taken from Albius Tibullus’ Elegiae 2,6,21.60 In 1714, however, his son Samuel (1685–1757) decided upon a new device, a woodcut picture of Minerva with her usual Leiden accessories (the university, the castle, the lion, the crossed keys) and the motto Tuta sub aegide Pallas [“Minerva is safe behind her shield”], the text of an inscription above the entrance to the house of

Figure 22

the headmaster of the local Latin school (Figure 22). The mark was used by successive Luchtmans generations throughout the eighteenth century and would later inspire the new logo of Luchtmans’ nineteenth-century successor, the firm of E.J. Brill.61 Together with the Elzevier Non solus and the Minerva of Leiden University Press it is the only traditional Leiden printer’s mark still in use today.

60  DPD 14. It was most likely copied from Rollenhagen 1611, nr. 94; but compare Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 148 for a similar device with the same motto, used by the Antwerp printer Hans de Laet in the 1550s. 61  Van der Veen 2008, passim. The modern Brill mark retains the motto Tuta sub aegide Pallas, but derives its picture from an allegorical mantelpiece originally made around 1750 by the artist Nicolas Reyers for the Luchtmans domicile on the Rapenburg canal. It depicts Minerva and Mercury, sur­ rounded by three putti playing with portraits of authors from the Luchtmans list. It is said that Reyers modelled the figures after Samuel Luchtmans, his wife and three children.

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Concluding Remarks At the end of this selective overview of the history of the Early Modern printer’s mark in Leiden some conclusions can be drawn. First of all, it appears that in Leiden the evolution of the printer’s device towards a token of personal or professional iden­ tity of the owner took a relatively long time. Only by the second half of the sixteenth century did it become common practice for Leiden printers and publishers to use an individualized mark. By 1600, thanks to the flourishing of the local book trade follow­ ing the foundation of the university in 1575 and the influx of printers and publishers from abroad, printer’s devices were a normal feature of Leiden books. The role model was the Leiden branch of the Officina Plantiniana, which through its consistent use of the Labore et constantia device set a standard for others to follow. Which indeed they did, as is demonstrated by the approximately 150 individual marks used by Leiden printers and publishers up to 1701. In the eighteenth century printer’s devices gradu­ ally fell out of use. Following new trends in book design they were either abandoned or replaced by more fashionable, but also less meaningful ornamental vignettes. The sources for the Leiden printer’s marks were diverse. Heraldic devices were only used in the early decades of Leiden printing and later for publications related to the municipal government. Numerous marks combine elements from popular culture, such as the name of a house or family or a shop sign, with textual and pic­ torial elements taken from the bible, iconology and emblematics. Some are highly original, without an obvious precedent, others paraphrase or simply copy existing devices.62 A characteristic of many Leiden marks is their religious message, both in word and image. This seems to be at least partly the result of the Protestant refugee background of many Leiden book trade entrepreneurs, which had forged their iden­ tity. More research needs to be done, however, on the extent to which the chosen pic­ tures and mottoes display a specifically Protestant iconography and theology. Many of the Leiden devices had a long life and were used by numerous publish­ ers, even contemporaneously, which in most cases be explained by the fact that it was the printer commissioned for the work who was responsible for setting a mark – i. e. his own – on the title-page. This means that there isn’t always a direct relation between the publisher and the device on the title-page, and that one should be careful in attributing a mark.63 It also begs the question what the value of a mark was that could also be found on the publications of colleagues and competitors. Still, there were enough publishers – e. g. Plantin, Elzevier, Paets, Basson, Maire, Van der Boxe, Lopez de Haro, Hercules, Van der Aa, Boutesteyn, Luchtmans and others – who used

62  The total number of Leiden printer’s devices is well over 300, but this includes many different versions of the same mark. 63  This also explains the frequent occurrence of “Leiden” devices on the title-pages of books from other cities. Leiden printers also worked for publishers elsewhere.



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their device with a marked pride and passed it on to the next generation. At the same time it was far from unusual that a printer or publisher during the course of his career made use of various marks. Whether this was the result of changes in personal taste or in adaptations of commercial strategy, such as the diversification or re-orientation of a publisher’s list, has yet to be established. It is an open question, who was intellectually and artistically responsible for the choice of a device: was it the printer/publisher, familiar with the genre through his knowledge of books from all over Europe, a learned author versed in the symbolical lan­ guage of emblematics, or perhaps a professional artist trained in the iconology of Ripa and others? As yet no answer can be given with regard to the situation in Leiden, but it can safely be assumed that some local authors were involved. It is known that the Leiden polyhistor Petrus Scriverius (1576–1660) advised the Amsterdam publisher Willem Jansz Blaeu (fl. 1608–1635) in 1621 on the design of his new mark, a sphere flanked by the figures of Chronos and Hercules with the motto Indefessus agendo [“Indefatigable at work”], taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses 9,199.64 In the 1630s Scriverius, together with the Leiden professor of history Marcus Zuerius Boxhornius (1612–1653), had invested so much money in the printing office of Willem Christiaensz van der Boxe, that they practi­ cally owned the establishment. It cannot be excluded that Scriverius and/or Boxhornius were also involved in the design of Van der Boxe’s ostrich, which was first used in 1631.65 On the artists involved in cutting the marks in wood and occasionally copper little or no information exists, mainly because before the eighteenth century the devices were hardly ever signed. Moreover, in the seventeenth century not many woodcutters and engravers were working in Leiden, so it may well have been the case that most of the blocks and plates were made elsewhere, most likely in Amsterdam. One of the engraved Fac et spera devices of Jean Maire66 is signed by Cornelis van Dalen – father or son (fl. 1631–1664) –, prolific Amsterdam engravers who often worked for Leiden publishers.67 A comparison of the artistic styles of the marks from Leiden and other cities might yield more information in this respect. For instance, some of the woodcut marks of Hendrik van Damme, Daniel van den Dalen and Frederik Haaring can be attributed on stylistic grounds to the same woodcutter.68

64  Willem Jansz Blaeu originally had a mark showing a sphere and a globe in a scale, of which the globe is the heavier, with the motto Praestat [“It is better”] (DPD 23, 202, 249). His new mark was used from 1622 onwards: DPD 830, 834, 844, 2107. Cf. De la Fontaine Verwey 1979, 23. 65  Hoftijzer 2008, 223. Both men were well familiar with the emblem genre. Scriverius in 1616 had ed­ ited an edition of the collected Dutch poetry of Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), which included Heinsius’ famous cycle of love emblems (Nederduytsche poemata. Amsterdam: Willem Jansz Blaeu). Boxhor­ nius would later publish his own Emblemata politica. Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1651. 66  DPD 693. 67  Cf. Breugelmans 2003, ill. 10. 68  Cf. DPD 324 (Van Damme); 611, 703 (Haaring); 205, 323 (Van den Dalen).

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Which brings us back to Frans van Bleyswyck and his splendid drawing for the title-page of the list of Leiden printers and booksellers with which this paper began. Besides title-pages and illustrations he, and colleagues like Jan Goeree (fl. 1715– 1731) and Jan Caspar Philips (fl. 1716–1775), designed many title vignettes for eigh­ teenth-century Leiden books in a distinctive classicist style. Although emblem books in this period had by and large lost their popularity, emblematic iconology still was a dominant influence on this type of book ornamentation. This is in contrast to the previous centuries, when themes from various traditions, emblematics as well as her­ aldry and religious and popular culture, were used, often in interaction with each other. It is interesting to see that Van Bleyswyck in his jocular designs for the imagi­ nary devices of Leiden printers and publishers fell back on the old tradition, whereas in his more professional work he followed new trends.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Frans van Bleyswyck, Illustrated title of the register of wardens and freemen of the Leiden guild of printers and booksellers, c. 1708. Library of the Koninklijke Vereniging van het Boekenvak, Amsterdam, VH 6242. Figure 2: Printer’s mark of Heynricus Heynrici, Leiden, 1484. DPD 1398. Figure 3: Printer’s mark of Pieter Claesz van Balen, Leiden, 1534. Not in DPD. Nijmegen University Library, P. Inc. 45. Figure 4: Printer’s mark of Jan Mathijszoon, Leiden, 1561. DPD 316. Figure 5: Printer’s mark of Dierick Gerritsz Horst, Leiden, 1562. DPD 155. Figure 6: Printer’s mark of Willem Silvius, Leiden, 1578. DPD 1910. Figure 7: Printer‘s mark of Franciscus Raphelengius (Officina Plantiniana), Leiden, 1594. DPD 653. Figure 8: Printer’s mark of Jan Paets Jacobsz, Leiden, 1572. DPD 544. Figure 9: Printer’s mark of Thomas Basson, Leiden, 1615. DPD 649. Figure 10: Printer’s mark of Christopher Guyot, 1598. DPD 250. Figure 11: Title-page of Nicolaus Heinsius, Breda expvgnata. Accedunt epigrammata aliquot, Leiden: Officina Elzeviriana, 1637. Bibliotheca Thysiana, Leiden, 807:54. The Elzevier printer’s mark, DPD 330. Figure 12: Printer’s mark of Jean Maire, Leiden, 1633. DPD 679. Figure 13: Printer’s mark of Hendrik van Damme, Leiden, 1691. DPD 124. Figure 14: Printer’s mark of David Lopez de Haro, Leiden, 1639. DPD 346. Figure 15: Printer’s mark of Pieter Leffen, Leiden, 1650. DPD 345. Figure 16: Pieter Steenwijck, Vanitas painting on the death of naval hero Maarten Harpertsz Tromp, c. 1653. Municipal Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. Figure 17: Wooden sculpture of a phoenix, rising from the flames. Bibliotheca Thysiana, Leiden. Figure 18: Printer’s mark of François Moeyaert, Leiden, 1654. DPD 1557. Figure 19: Printer’s mark of Pieter van der Aa, Leiden, 1685. DPD 698. Figure 20: Printer’s mark of Pieter van der Aa, Leiden, 1707. Private collection. Not in DPD. Figure 21: Vignette on the title-page of Desiderius Erasmus, Opera omnia. Leiden: Pieter van der Aa, 1703. Leiden University Library, 1413 D 16. Figure 22: Printer’s mark of Samuel Luchtmans, Leiden, 1714. Not in DPD.



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Bibliography Primary Catalogue des livres, incunables, manuscrits formant la bibliothèque de feu M. A.M. Ledeboer, dont la vente publique aura lieu le 8 Octobre et jours suivants à la maison de E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1888. Dat Nyeuwe Testament. Leiden: Pieter Claesz van Balen, 1534. Desiderius Erasmus, Opera omnia. 10 vols. Leiden: Pieter van der Aa, 1703. Erasmus, Desiderius, Collected Works of Erasmus, Adages III iv 1 to IV ii 100, translated and annotated by D.L. Drysdall, edited by J.N. Grant. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2005. Giovio, Paulo, Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose. Rome: Antonio Barre, 1555. Giovio, Paulo, Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose. Lyons: Guillaume Rouillé, 1559. Giovio, Paulo, Dialogo dell’imprese. Lyons: Guillaume Rouillé, 1574. Junius, Hadrianus, Emblemata. Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1565. Nicolaus Heinsius, Breda expvgnata. Accedunt epigrammata aliquot. Leiden: Officina Elzeviriana, 1637. Paradin, Claude, Devises heroiques. Lyons: Jean de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau, 1551. Reusner, Nicolas, Emblemata. Frankfurt a/M: Sigismund Feyerabend, 1581. Ripa, Cesare, Iconologia of uytbeeldinghen des verstants. Amsterdam: Dirck Pietersz Pers, 1644. Rollenhagen, Gabriel, Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum, quae itali vulgo impresas vocant, Arnhem: Jan Jansen, 1611. Rollenhagen, Gabriel, Selectorum emblematum centuria secunda. Utrecht: Crispijn de Passe, 1613. Ruscelli, Girolamo, Imprese illustri. Venice: Francesco de Franceschi Senesi, 1584. Sambucus, Joannes, Emblemata, cum aliquot nummis antiqui operis. Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1569. Scriverius, Petrus, et al., Manes Erpenianae. Quibus accedunt epicedia variorum. Leiden: Typographia Erpeniana, 1625. Thomas Aquinas, De humanitate Christi. Leiden: Heynricus Heynrici, 1484. Thysius, Antonius Jr., Oratio funebris in luctuosissimum obitum invicti herôis, M. Harperti Trompii. Leiden: Pieter Leffen, 1653. Vaenius, Otho, Amorum emblemata, Emblemes of Love. Antwerp: The author, 1608.

Secondary Bangs, Jeremy D., “Reconsidering the Lutheran Booktrade: The So-Called Winkelkasboek of Pieter Claesz. van Balen.” Quaerendo 9 (1979): 227–260. Bergström, Ingvar, “The Iconological Origin of ‘Spes’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.” Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek 7 (1956): 53–63. Bögels, Theo S. J. G., Govert Basson. Printer, Bookseller, Publisher. Leiden 1612–1630. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1992. Bouwman, André Th. et al., Stad van boeken. Handschrift en druk in Leiden, 1260–2000. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2008. Breugelmans, Ronald, Fac et spera. Joannes Maire Publisher, Printer and Bookseller in Leiden 1603–1657. A Bibliography of His Publications. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 2003.

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Briels, Jan G.C.A., Zuidnederlandse boekverkopers en boekdrukkers in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden omstreeks 1570–1630. Een bijdrage tot de kennis van de geschiedenis van het boek. (Bibliotheca bibliographica Neerlandica 6) Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1974. Davidson, Peter, The Vocal Forest. A Study of the Context of Three Low Countries Printer’s Devices of the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Academic Press Leiden, 1996. van Dorsten, Jan A., Thomas Basson 1555–1613. English Printer at Leiden. Leiden: Universitaire Pers, 1961. van Dorsten, Jan A., “Thomas Basson (1555–1613), English Printer at Leiden.” Quaerendo 15 (1985): 195–224. Fleming, Patricia, “Fac et spera.” In: Wade, Mara R., ed., Emblem Scholars. Emblematica Online. Urbana, IL, 2013. (emblematicaonlineuiuc.wordpress.com/research-results/research-papers-2/ fac-et-spera, 27 July 2015). de la Fontaine Verwey, Herman, “Willem Jansz Blaeu, ‘Mercator Sapiens’.” In: de la Fontaine Verwey, Herman, ed., Uit de wereld van het boek III. In en om de ‘Vergulde Sonnewyser’. Amsterdam: Israel, 1979, 9–34. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. van Gulik, Egbertus, “Drukkers en geleerden – De Leidse Officina Plantiniana (1583–1619).” In: Lunsingh Scheurleer, Th.H. and G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, eds., Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century. An Exchange of Learning. Leiden: Universitaire Pers, 1975, 367–393. van Havre, Gustave Chevalier, Les marques typographiques de l’imprimerie plantinienne. Antwerp: Bureau d’Édition, 1911. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 1996. Hoftijzer, Paul G., Pieter van der Aa (1659–1733). Leids drukker en boekverkoper. Hilversum: Verloren, 1999. (Zeven Provinciën reeks, 16). Hoftijzer, Paul G., “Veilig achter Minerva’s schild: Het Leidse boek in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw.” In: Bouwman, Andre Th. et al., eds., Stad van boeken. Handschrift en druk in Leiden, 1260–2000. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2008, 153–265. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans P.J. Brandhorst, “Difficilia quae pulchra. Cultuurhistorische bronnen ontsloten per computer.” Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis 4 (1997): 207–226. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans P.J. Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th-17th Century. A Catalogue with CD-Rom. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1999a. [= DPD] van Huisstede, Peter & Hans P.J. Brandhorst, “‘Weest altoos vigilant en arbeytsaem.’ Drukkersmerken een mentaliteitshistorische bron?” Nieuw letterkundig magazijn 17, 2 (1999b): 30–34. de Jonge, Henk Jan, “Het titelvignet van de Leidse uitgave.” In: Otterspeer, Willem ed., Erasmus in Leiden. Catalogus van een tentoonstelling gehouden in het Academisch Historisch Museum te Leiden van 23 oktober tot 19 december 1986. Leiden: Academisch Historisch Museum, 1986, 65–66. McKerrow, Ronald B., Printer’s & Publishers Devices in England & Scotland. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1949. Nootenboom, Hans, Jan Paedts Jacobsz. (1541–1622). Uitgever, drukker en boekverkoper te Leiden. Leiden: Unpublished MA Thesis, 2009. Rahir, Edouard, Catalogue d’une collection unique de volumes imprimés par les Elzevier et divers typographes hollandais du XVIIe siècle. Précédé d’un avant-propos par Ferdinand Brunetière et d’une lettre de M. Alphonse Willems. Paris: Morgand, 1896. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1965). Renouard, Philippe, Les marques typographiques parisiennes des XVe et XVIe siècles. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1926. Schlüter, Lucy & Pierre Vinken, The Elsevier ‘Non Solus’ Imprint. New York: Elsevier Science, 1997.



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Simoni, Anna E.C. & Christian Coppens, “Steadfast I Hasten: The Louvain Printer Henrick van Ha(e) stens.” Quaerendo 17 (1987): 185–204. Streng, Jean C., “The Leiden Engraver Frans van Bleyswyck (1671–1746).” Quaerendo 20 (1990): 111–136. Vaccaro, Emerenziana, Le marche dei tipografi ed editori italiani del secolo XVI nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1983. Valkema Blouw, Paul, “The First Printers to the City of Leiden, Jan Moyt Jacobsz and Andries Verschout, 1574 to 1578.” In: Croiset van Uchelen, Ton & Paul Dijstelberge, eds., Dutch Typography in the Sixteenth Century: The Collected Works of Paul Valkema Blouw. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013, 349–359. Vandeweghe, Frank & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15e en 16e eeuw binnen de grenzen van het huidige België. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1993. Veen, Sytze van der, Brill 325 Years of Scholarly Publishing. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Wagner, Klaus, Martin de Montesdoca y su prensa. Contribución al estudio de la imprenta y de la bibliografia Sevillanas del siglo XVI. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 1982. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz ,2002. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Die vielfältige Lesbarkeit humanistischer Druckerzeichen. Geistesgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen und methodische Konsequenzen.” Emblemata 9 (2003): 289–313.

Dietmar Peil

Early Modern Munich Printer’s Marks (and Related Issues) The research into Early Modern Munich printer’s marks has, whatever the reasons, been stagnating. Already the founding father of this research area, ­Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (1687–1736), has left the Munich printers and publishers un­ ­ ­ mentioned in his ­T hesaurus Symbolorum ac emblematum (about 1730).1 Heinrich Grimm only mentions the Munich (?) printer and publisher Adam Berg the Elder in his 1965 standard work on printer’s signets, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts, in the context of a pictorial motif that can hardly be considered to be Adam Berg’s printer’s mark2; but two years later he made up for this negli­ gence and ­displayed Berg’s actual printer’s/publisher’s mark and (inadequately) commented on it.3 This is the only e­ vidence given for Munich by Henning Wend­ land, who faithfully repeats Grimm’s interpretation, in Signete. Deutsche Druckerund Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600.4 Thus, much ground needs to be “covered” in this respect, which I will attempt to do in the following. The methodologically perhaps somewhat dubious starting point are searches in the OPAC and BSB München for the option “Verlag/Ort: München” [“publisher/place: Munich”] between the years of publication 1564 and ca. 1650. This approach is methodologically “dubious” in so far as it is not at all sure that really all Munich prints of this period are captured in and have been assigned to the actual place of printing in the OPAC. It is, however, improbable that major printers/publishers (or  particular copies) might be overlooked this way, and this method of accessing the data brings the advantage of the researcher being able to immediately access ­potentially available digital reproductions. The results of the OPAC search are c­ omplemented by the ­comparison with the entries in the Bibliography of Books Printed in the German Speaking Countries from 1501 to 1600 (VD 16), the Bibliography of Books Printed in the German Speaking Countries from 1601–1700 (VD 17) and the register Münche­ ner ­Buchdrucke 1564–1651 compiled by Breuer.5

1 The book is accessible, inter alia, via the Münchener Emblemdatenbank; cf. http://mdz1.bib-bvb. de/~emblem/emblanzeige.html?Auswahl%5B%5D=125&inpBitmuster=2&x=53&y=12. 2 Grimm 1965, 186; for more, see below. 3 Grimm 1967, 150. 4 Wendland 1984, 230. 5 Dieter Breuer: Münchner Drucke 1564–1651. The database is the result of a DFG-project (German Rese­ arch Foundation) (1997/98) and was put online in 2003; cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927204901/ http://www.sfn.historicum-archiv.net/materialien/muenchnerdrucke/index.htm. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-009

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Munich Printers in Early Modern Times Adam Berg the Elder was the most successful Munich printer of the sixteenth century6; about 600 prints are attributed to him.7 Nothing seems to be known about the place and year of birth of this person, and his year of death, too, is disputed. He is trace­ able in Munich from 1564 onwards after he took over Andreas Schobser’s († 1564) printer’s office. Berg allegedly converted to Catholicism in 1569 and became one of the most important Munich printers of the Counter-Reformation. Additionally, he made important contributions to printed music. He had a daughter, Susanna, from his first marriage who was already widowed by 1597 and who married the newcomer and printer Nikolaus Heinrich the Younger (†1654).8 Berg himself probably remarried about the same time as well.9 From the marriage with his wife Anna he had a son, Adam Berg the Younger (*1603?–1634?), who took over the printer’s office of his father in 1629, which his mother had continued to run after the death of the father around 1609. After the death of Adam Berg the Younger, his widow Anna married Melchior Segen who continued to run the Berg printer’s office until 1655. The circle of Munich printers and publishers that is treated here has to include Cornelius Leysser († 1643) who married the widow of the publisher Johann Hertsroy in 1625, and who is also documented as printer from 1626 onwards,10 as well as the copper engraver and publisher Raphael Sadeler, and the “Kunstführer” and publisher Peter König. The situation of Munich as place of printing that is to be determined here, thus much be anticipated, gives rise to doubts concerning two of the theses of older research: neither is the devaluation of the publisher’s mark as opposed to the printer’s signet justified,11 nor can we agree with Henning Wendland who claims “that the printer’s and publisher’s signets had become such an important element in book design that books of the sixteenth and seventeenth century lacking a signet print are atypical and appear less frequently” (my translation).12

6 Fundamental for Munich printing is Dirr 1929. Christoph Reske draws on Dirr who is hardly using any sources: Reske 22015, 676–684. 7 Cf. Reske 22015, 678. Breuer, in contrast, only lists 498 prints, and Kaul 1949, 1681, only grants him 300 prints. 8 The marriage supposedly took place against the wishes of both fathers (cf. Dirr 1929, 53–54; Kopp 1964, 70–71). 9 Dirr 1929, 41, dates Berg’s second marriage already to the year 1594, Reske 22015, 678, proposes the year 1602. 10 Cf. Dirr 1929, 73. 11 Cf. Grimm 1965, 13. 12 Wendland 1984, 12: “daß die Drucker- und Verlegersignete ein so wichtiges Element der Buchge­ staltung geworden waren, daß Bücher des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts ohne Signetabdruck atypisch sind und seltener vorkommen.”



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Adam Berg Among other things, Heinrich Grimm discusses the motif of the pelican in the main part of his ground-breaking study on German printer’s signets (Bild und Sinngehalte der deutschen Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts nach Darstellungsmotiven und Typreihen): “The pelican with his young in front of the crucified Christ can be seen in a publisher’s mark that Konrad Bütgen used in Mainz in 1606 and in Cologne in 1608 [...]. A woodcut on the title page of Adam Berg’s ‘Christlichen vund kurtzen Berichts [...]’of the Bamberg auxiliary bishop Jakob Feucht [...] shows the same scene with an almost identical inscription: In me mors et vita, which additionally gives the words Similis factus sum pelicano solitudinis (Vulgate, Ps. 101,7)” (my translation).13 The context suggests that Adam Berg had used the pelican as printer’s or publish­ er’s mark.14 But Grimm fails to mention a crucial detail: The motto In me mors et vita is followed by the initials I F (Figure 1). Thus, we are not dealing with a printer’s mark

Figure 1 13 Grimm 1965, 186: “Der Pelikan mit seinen Jungen vor dem gekreuzigten Christus ist in einem ­Verlegerzeichen zu sehen, das Konrad Bütgen 1606 zu Mainz und 1608 zu Köln benutzte [...]. Die ­gleiche Szene mit fast der gleichen Inschrift: In me mors et vita zeigt ein Holzschnitt auf dem ­Titelblatt des 1573 von Adam Berg zu München gedruckten ‘Christlichen vnnd kurtzen Berichts [...]’ des ­Bamberger Weihbischofs Jakob Feucht [...], der dazu noch die Worte Similis factus sum pelicano ­solitudinis (Vulgate, Ps. 101,7) wiedergibt.” 14 It is irritating that Grimm (1965, 13) here acts contrary to his established program: “Da sie (die ­Verlegermarke) lediglich als Eigentumszeichen oder Eignermarke gewertet werden kann, wurde in vorliegender Darstellung von ihrer Mitbehandlung abgesehen.” [“As it (the publisher’s mark) can merely be evaluated as owner’s sign or owner’s mark, it has been refrained from treating it in the following account.”] – Grimm has shortened the wording of the title substantially: Bescheidne vnd

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but rather with an author’s signet, with which Jakob Feucht (1540–26th April 1580), who was head of the University of Ingolstadt from 1571 onwards and ­auxiliary bishop of the prince-bishopric Bamberg,15 had marked some of his publications. As early as 1572, this signet appeared, with a somewhat plainer graphic design, in two Ingolstadt prints,16 and in 1574 the Cologne printer Johann Ossenbruck adopted the woodcut in the Berg version.17 Adam Berg probably first used his actual printer’s mark in 1580, however, bearing in mind the abundance of his publications, he employed it but rarely (Figure 2).

Figure 2

wolgegründte Rettung Des Christlichen vnnd kurtzen Berichts: wie ein guthertziger Christ, auff die 37. Haubtartickel des wahren Christlichen Glaubens, eigentlichen antworten sol. Wider Die vermeinte Ant­ wort Lucae Osiandri. 15 Cf. http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz15915.html#ndbcontent . 16 Jakob Feucht, Septem et triginta catholicae assertiones. Ingolstadt 1572 (BSB München, shelf mark: 4 Diss.3179,5); cf. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00031806/images/. Jakob Feucht, Christlicher, kurtzer, vnd wahrhafftiger Bericht, wie ein [...] Christ auff die 37. Hauptarticul des wahren Christlichen Glaubens [...] antworten solle (BSB München, shelf mark: 4 Polem 1180); cf.. http://reader. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10167626_00003.html . 17 Cf. Wendland 1984, 194. Wendland fails to mention the source of the signet: Jakob Feucht, ­Wilkomm oder Abdanck Osiandri: Sampt seiner Endtlichen [...] Abfertigung, D. Iacobi Feuchten, Weybischoffs zu Bamberg. Darauß zuvernemen, das gedachter Osiander auff die 37. Artickel des Catholischen Glaubens, als nichts, geantwortet. Cologne 1574 (BSB München: 4 Polem. 1183). ‒ The printer Konrad Bütgen used the pelican signet (without reference to the Bible quotation and without giving the initi­ als I F) also for works of other authors, but seems to have employed several different printer’s marks, which can be accessed via the key pages of the VD 17.



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Grimm describes it as follows: “In an oval, rimmed with a banderole bearing a quo­ tation from the Vulgate, a gnarled, leafless tree stands on elevated ground amidst tall, on the base of whose trunk, which is entwined with vine bearing fruit, hangs a decorative shield that is showing the Bavarian lion rampant. The goddess Fortuna is standing to the left of the tree, dressed in the habit of time, with her left leg advanced and her right hand holding the sceptre, she is looking at the printer who is hurrying towards her from the right, with his right arm raised into the air and whose left hand is carrying a bundle of files suspended from a strap. The sun is breaking through from the rock in the background” (my translation).18 The signature A F F B in the lower part of the image is supposed to hint at Adam Berg as woodcarver and an unknown draftsman (Ger. “Reißer”).19 Grimm, who draws on Antonio de Guevara’s Güldene Sendtschreiben, part 2 (1598), assumes: “The aging printer pleads with Fortuna in image and in verses to bless his just contracted second marriage with a son as printer-successor, so that the old tree ‘upholds his name’ in a young sapling” (my translation).20 Grimm also detects an imi­ tation of Alciato’s emblems in the image of the signet, but does not pursue this trace any further. He fails to print Berg’s subscriptio, but does refer to a corresponding illus­ tration at the end of the first part. Wendland ignores the verses ­completely. Neither Grimm nor Wendland21 offer any comment on the device Conatus dii fortunant [“The gods favour endeavour” or, rendered very loosely, “Fortune favours the brave!”] and the distich Pauperies virtus studia in contraria tendunt. Illa premit sursum ista petit spes sustinet ægrum [“poverty and drive tear ambition apart into opposing directions, one pushes downwards, the other strives upwards, hope keeps the afflicted upright”].22 Grimm’s description of the image is questionable to a high degree.23 With a look to the source, the “bundle of files” is to be identified as a stone and the right arm

18 Grimm 1967, 150–151: “In einem Oval, umgeben von Schriftband mit einem Vulgatawort, steht auf erhöhtem Boden, inmitten hochgewachsen, ein knorriger, blattloser Baum, an dessen von frucht­ tragender Rebe umranktem Stamm unten ein Zierschild mit dem aufsteigenden bayerischen Löwen hängt. Links des Baumes stehend, ihr linkes Bein vorgesetzt und in ihrer Rechten das Zepter haltend, blickt die in Tracht der Zeit gekleidete Göttin Fortuna dem mit erhobenen rechten Arm von rechts auf sie zueilenden Drucker entgegen, dessen linke Hand an einem Riemen ein Aktenbündel trägt. Aus dem Felsen im Hintergrund bricht die Sonne hervor.” 19 See also Wendland 1984, 230. 20 Grimm 1967, 152: “Im Bild und in Versen ruft der alternde Drucker bittend Fortuna an, seine gerade geschlossene Zweitehe mit einem Sohn als Drucker-Nachfolger zu beglücken, damit der alte Stamm durch einen jungen Sproß ‘seinen Namen erhelt’.” 21 Grimm’s assumption that the text of the banderole is a “Vulgatawort” [“quotation from the Vulgate”] (Grimm, 1967, 150) is not correct. 22 For this translation, I am indebted to my Munich colleague Wilfried Stroh. 23 For the following reflections, I am indebted to the decisive input given by the participants of the “Emblematischen Werkstattgespräche” [“Emblematic Workshop Discussions”] held at Tübingen (26th-28th May 2016) organised by Nicolas Potysch and Andreas Beck.

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is fitted with a feathered bracelet. Grimm also does not think it worth mentioning that the “printer” is depicted with an open heart. A close look at the coat of arms suggests that Grimm confused the Bavarian lion with a griffin.24 And the personifi­ cation, too, is hardly identifiable as Fortuna; none of the usually present attributes is there, and the cross staff rather suggests one of the theological virtues of faith, love, and hope. A closer search shows that Berg already used this signet in 1580, namely in the Wappenbuch of Martin Schrot, and once more in the second edition of the same title in 1581.25 The subscriptio addresses a different issue from the one Grimm had identi­ fied for 1598: Wie es gewest vor tausend Jarn/ Da auch groß Zanck vnd Trübsal warn/ Also ists noch in dieser Welt/ Die Armut kriegt noch mit dem gelt: Ein schwerer last die Armut ist/ Vil guts verhindert/ wie bewist/ Doch wil die Hoffnung vnuerschuldt/ Erheben sie auch mit gedult. [“As it was a thousand years ago/ When a lot of quarrel and distress existed, too/ Thus it still is in this world/ Poverty still quarrels with money: Poverty is a heavy burden/ It prevents much good/ as is known/ But hope, entirely without cause, wants to/ Raise it up with patience.”]

This confrontation between poverty and hope corresponds to the contrast between poverty and talent in the source (Alciato)26: Paupertatem summis ingeniis obesse ne provehantur. Dextra tenet lapidem, manus altera sustinet alas.  Ut me pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus. Ingenio poteram superas volitare per arces,  Me nisi paupertas invida deprimeret.

24 The Bavarian lion rampant rises (in heraldic terms) to the right. 25 Martin Schrot, Wappenbuch Des Heiligen Roemischen Reichs / vnd allgemainer Christenheit in Europa (first Munich 1576). In the first edition, the signet is not yet present. For the different editions, cf. VD16 S 4307–4309; for the signet cf. permalink http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver. pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11196515-0. 26 For the latin text of the edition of 1542 cf. Henkel & Schöne 21976, 1022–1023. English transla­tion taken from http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A67a064. For a contem­ porary german translation see Held 1566, no. LXIIII (Bl. 43v): “Armut verhindert viel gute Köpff daß sie nicht hinfür kommen//An einer hand hangt mir ein Stein/An der ander leichfettig rein/Was dfechtig heben mich in dhöch/Das druckt zu boden der Stein göch/Jch kündt mit meim verstandt vnd sin/Die freyen Künst lehrnen durch hin/So mich nicht nidertrucken thet/Die vberlistig Armut stet.”



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[“Poverty prevents the advancement of the best of abilities // My right hand holds a rock, the other bears wings. As the feathers lift me, so the heavy weight drags me down. By my mental gifts I could have flown through the heights of heaven, if treacherous poverty did not hold me back.”]

It is irritating that Adam Berg addressed poverty around 1580 as he had, at this point, long established himself as courtly printer and had published over 180 prints. He was, however, quite dependent on the financial support of the Duke of Bavaria.27 – A look at the source of the pictorial motif suggests that the stone equals poverty and the feath­ered bracelet stands for hope, whereas the figure caught between the poles of “up” and “down” can well be identified as a personification of Virtus. From this ­perspective, the figure bearing the cross staff would have to be interpreted as Fides (or  Religio); (true) faith supports hope and enables Virtus to leave the burden of poverty behind. Did Adam Berg really want to legitimise his conversion (at least by hinting at it) as a decision made for economic reasons with this signet?28 Berg used this signet again in 1598 in the first part of Antonio de Guevara’s Sendschreiben, this time, however, the signet is only accompanied by four verses that mainly touch upon the pictorial motifs of the tree and the grapes and in which the printer assigns the positive attribute of dutifulness to himself; no connection with the device and the distich is discernible: Veracht nicht den alten Stammen/ Daruon vns gut Frücht herkamen. Weil Dienstbarkeit in dieser Welt/ Zu jederzeit das Lob erhelt. [“Do not despise the old tree/ From which we got good fruit. / Because, in this world, dutifulness/ Will always receive praise.”]

The comparison with the source shows that Berg drastically “cut back” Alciato’s elmtree-vine emblem and in doing so reinterpreted it quite wilfully29:

27 For Berg’s demands for money from the Duke, see Dirr 1929, 45. 28 The conversion of Adam Berg has not yet been proven with certainty. Dirr 1929, 41, dates this event to the year 1569, without giving a source. Allegedly, the printing of a Protestant text earned him a prison term and then provoked him to convert (Kaul 1949, 1681, Reske 22015, 678). Such a printed publication cannot be verified. It is also unlikely that duke Albert V, Duke of Bavaria should have encouraged a Protestant to settle in Munich as printer. 29 For the latin text of the edition of 1542 (no. 12) cf. Henkel & Schöne 21976, 259–260. English ­translation taken from http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/emblem.php?id=A67a049. For a contemporary german translation see Held 1566, no. XLIX (Bl. 33v): “Freundtschafft die auch nach dem Tod wärt//Ein Vlmbaum so vor Alter gar/Verdort vnd sein laub abgfallen war/Bgreiffet mit sein zweigen schön/Der lustig Weinstock also grün/Jst danckbar und beweist gar bald/Gleiche dienst sei­ nem pfleger alt/Erkennt darzu der Natur art/Gstalt / abwechßlung vnd deß glücks fart/Diß Exempel vnd Vorbild lert/Das aller fleiß soll werden ankert /Jn Erwehlung der Rechten freundt/So auch im vnglück bstendig seindt“.

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Amicitia etiam post mortem durans Arentem senio, nudam quoque frondibus ulmum,  Complexa est viridi vitis opaca coma. Agnoscitque vices naturae, & grata parenti,  Officii reddit mutua iura suo. Exemploque monet, tales nos quaerere amicos,  Quos neque disiungat foedere summa dies. [“Friendship lasting even beyond death // A vine shady with green foliage embraced an elm tree that was dried up with age and bare of leaves. The vine recognises the changes wrought by nature and, ever grateful, renders to the one that reared it the duty it owes in return. By the example it offers, the vine tells us to seek friends of such a sort that not even our final day will uncouple them from the bond of friendship.”]

It is probable that Berg knew different editions of Alciato. The combination of the elmtree-vine emblem with the motif of the setting sun in the background is most likely taken from the 1566 edition, but the positioning of the escutcheon in front of a leafless tree – this would constitute Berg’s third borrowing of a pictura from Alciato – could go back to the 1542 edition. In the fourteen verses accompanying the second part, the focus is again mainly put on the disadvantage age brings; in the context of the hope for the “junge[n] Zweyg” [“young branch”], the image of the heart is now mentioned, too: DA ich wol dienet/ vnd war jung/ Gab meine Frücht souil ich kundt/ Ward sehr gliebt/ vnd wol gehalten/ Jetzt aber so ich thu veralten/ Der Reiff/ das Wetter/ Neid/ mich dringen/ Daß ich solch Frücht nicht mehr kann bringen Steh also ploß/ ohn Frücht vnd Laubn/ Doch dien ich noch der edlen Traubn/ So lang/ vnd hoff/ mir sol gelingen/ Daß sich ein junger Zweyg möcht schwingen/ Der wachsen thut vom alten Stammen/ Mit offnem Hertz erhelt den Namen/ Doch Gott vnd dem Glück heimbgstelt/ Der macht alles wies jm gefelt/ AMEN. [“When I was full of duty/ and young / I gave as much of my fruit as I could/ I was beloved/ and kept in honour/ But now, as I am growing older,/ Hoar frost/ storm/ and envy/ beset me/ So that I can no longer grow such fruit / And stand naked,/ without fruit or foliage/ But still I fulfil my duty to the noble vine/ Until/ and I hope/ I will succeed/ A young branch is willing to wind up itself/ That is growing from the old tree/ Openheartedly upholding the name/ But all be attribu­ ted to God and good fortune/ He does all as he pleases/ AMEN.”]

In the third part (1599), the twelve verses finally refer to the positive collaboration of old and young, and end in an appeal for a general sense of duty as condition for the existence of welfare in the world:



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EJn schwere Last das Alter ist/ Jn aller Welt das wol bewüst. Doch steht das Alt wol bey den Jungen/ Damit sie gleich ein Sprach vnd Zungen. Brauchen möchten/ vnd gleichheit vben. Niemandt vnrecht thun noch betrüben. Zugleich der Baum vnd auch die Trauben Dienen/ dauon man Frücht thut klauben. Also der Mensch soll sein geflissen/ Rein gute Wercken/ vnd freyem Gewissen. Mit offnem Hertz auch dienen sol/ So stündt es in der Welt noch wol. [“Age is a heavy burden/ As is known in all the world./ But age supports the young,/ So that they all can speak the same language/ And behave in a similar way,/ Do injustice to no one, nor make anyone sad./ The tree and the vine/ Fulfil their duty in a similar manner/ one can gather fruit from them./ Thus, man shall also consider this:/ To do his duty openheartedly/ with good deeds/ and a clear conscience/ Then the world would still be a better place.”]

The three-part edition of Guevara’s Sendtschreiben in the German translation by Aegi­ dius Albertinus seems to have been a great success for Adam Berg. After the first pub­ lication in 1598/99 further prints followed in 1600, 1603, 1607 and 1610.30 The same printer’s signet can be found in all editions.31 The three versions of the verse-subscriptiones are again and again assigned to the same parts. However, this signet is not necessarily confined to Guevara’s work. For one thing, Berg first used it in the Wappenbuch of Martin Schrot, and, for another, it also appeared in a work of Andreas Erstenberger (De autonomia), though only in the edition of 1602,32 and, finally, Adam Berg’s “successors in business” also made use of this printer’s mark (in varying designs), even though they used it as rarely as their predecessor did. Adam Berg gave his printer’s mark, as it were, as colophon at the end of the books. However, this place was not at all necessarily reserved (other things could appear here as well) or prescribed for this purpose. Berg printed an anthology with the translations of four different writings of the courtly librarian Aegidius A ­ lbertinus (1560–1620) in 1608 under the title of Der geistliche Seraphin;33 the last page shows the

30 For more, see appendix. 31 In all editions, a colophon can only be found in the respective second and third part; in part one, the German verses are displayed together with the woodcut, resulting in there not being enough space to fit in a colophon. 32 Andreas Erstenberger, De autonomia. Das ist von Freystellung mehrerley Religion und Glauben. Munich 1602 (shelf mark: 4 Polem. 498). For the illustration that Berg here offers with the four line subscriptio, cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10688592_00946.html. 33 The complete title record in the VD 17 is: Der Geistliche Seraphin: Darin erstlich deß heiligen Bona­ venturae sechs Flügl/ mit denen die Praelaten geziert immerdar vor Gott stehen müssen. Am andern/ etliche schöne und ernstliche erinnerungen Weilandt Thomae Blesensis Archidiaconi Bothoniensis

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Figure 3

colophon with a woodcut of Mary on Assumption Day (Figure 3).34 There is a similar illustration on the title page of Philipp Dobereiner’s devotional book Der geistliche Herzentröster (Munich 1604),35 and this pictorial motif is also used on the title page of Dobereiner’s translation Das güldin Denckbüchlein (1597)36 and for the Exercitia ­Granatae (1579),37 whereas Der geistliche Herzentröster shows the signet of the Jesuits in the edition of 1609 and thus hints at the original author’s (i. e. Caspar de Loarte ’s) association with that order.38 In Ordnung der gantzen Procession deß allerheil. ­Sacraments, wie dieselb in der Fürstl. Hauptstatt München [...] auff das Fest ­Corporis Christi gehalten wirdt, a description of the Munich Corpus Christi Proces­ sion of 1603, Adam Berg employs a woodcut of the Easter lamb with the colophon

an die Bischove und Praelaten. Drittens/ ein fürtrefliche Predig/ welche der Gottselig Cardinal Bo­ romaeus seinen Geistlichen fürgehalten. Viertens/ ein Extract auß dem sehr schönen Buch/ welches der Ehrwürdig Herr Lucas Pinellus, der Societet Jesu Priester/ von der Volkommenheit der Religiosen gemacht hat/ begriffen/ und durch Egidium Albertinum, Bayrischen Secretarium verteutscht. – For the translator, see Alewyn 1953, 143. 34 For the type of picture, cf. Fournée 1970. 35 Cf. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00018341/images/ (BSB München, shelf mark: Asc. 3808#Beibd. 2): cf. also VD 17 12:102289Z (key pages). 36 Cf. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00019396/images/index.html?id=0001939 6&groesser=&fip=yztsxdsydxdsydeneayasdasqrsxdsydsdassdas&no=3&seite=5 (BSB München, shelf mark: Asc. 2186–1). 37 Cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10173163_00005.html (BSB München, shelf mark: Asc. 2156). 38 Cf. BSB München, shelf mark: Asc. 2909, Titlepage (http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb10264677_00007.html).



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(Figure  4), whereas he displays the Bavarian coat of arms on the title page as is common with quasi-“governmental” prints.39

Figure 4

The Easter lamb with the banner of the cross refers, as it were, to the content of the publication; the “miniature” adorning the title page of Caspar Franck’s Passional from 1608 has the same function. It is a minimised and simplified adaptation of a woodcut taken from the work itself40 that essentially contains a cycle of Virgil Solis, which had originally been annotated by Caspar Franck with quotations from the Bible. In the 1608 edition, only those Bible quotations are retained that could be understood as captions to the woodcuts. Besides, the textual element of the work is expanded subs­ tantially by drawing on the Rosengärtlein der andächtigen Brüderschafft deß allerheyligisten Fronleichnams Jesu Christi in Augspurg, a collection of observations, thanks­ giving and prayers, which Abraham Schädlin had already published in 1607 under his own name and which had been printed by Berg as well. Schädlin, however, settles

39 Anna Berg adopted the same pictorial motifs for the edition of 1612, shelf mark: Res/4 Bavar. 3000,XII,42 c; for the coat of arms on the title page, cf. http://bavarica.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/ fs1/object/display/bsb10886471_00003.html; for the Easter lamb in the colophon, cf. http://bavarica. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10886471_00024.html . 40 Cf. Caspar Franck: Passional. Munich 1608 (BSB München, shelf mark 4 Asc. 342), Titlepage (http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10223029_00005.html) and p. 144 (http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10223029_00144.html).

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for a different “miniature” and draws on the opening woodcut (p. 12), which shows the creation of the world (Figure 5). The change of the “miniature” most likely goes

Figure 5

Figure 6

back to Adam Berg who seems to have been interested in creating a clearer reference between the illustration on the title page and the work itself. In the Bewerten Historien of Laurentius Surius, the connection between a title-page “miniature” and a “donor’s portrait” is less obvious than in Franck and Schädlin.41 The “miniature” shows God the Father who is bending down from a cloud to earth in order to receive the praise that a group of singers and musicians offers to him (Figure 6) and, thus, they comply with the request of the banderole that encloses the medallion and, as it were, takes the place of a motto: “Praise the Lord in his Saints. Praise him accor­ ding to the amount of his glory” (my translation).42 This appeal goes back to Psalm 150, 1–2: laudate Deum in sancto eius [...] laudate eum in fortitudinibus eius laudate eum iuxta multitudinem magnificentiae suae. The rhyming couplet underneath the picture can as well be understood as a rough rendition of the psalm verses (“Sing praise to God on his throne/ With psalms and harps it is done”; my translation).43 Text and image of

41 Laurentius Surius, Der [...] Theil Bewerter Historien der lieben Heiligen Gottes, Th. 1–6 [in 12 vols.]. Munich 1574–1580; BSB München, shelf mark.: 2 V.ss.c. 129–1,1 – 129–6,2 (further copies can be found under other shelf marks); cf. VD 16 S 10264 – 10275. 42 “Lobet den Herren in Seinnen Heiligen. Lobet in nach der Menge Seiner Herligkait.” 43 “Lob singen Gott auff seinem Thron/ Mit Psalmen vnd Harpfen gethon.”



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the “miniature” thus disclose the hagiographical compilation as well as its going to press to be an intentional praise of God. The title page is followed by a donor’s or dedicatory portrait for Albert V, Duke of Bavaria who promoted the translation of the collection of legends. It displays the praying Duke (Figure 7) who raises his gaze to heaven and there espies the worship

Figure 7

of the 24 elders from the Apocalypse (for details, see Apoc. 4–5). The miniature on the title page and the dedicatory picture are connected to each other through the image of the harp, and both depict the same situation: the glorification of God. In front of the choir of the elders, two angels are holding out banderoles to the duke. Veni et vide (Rev. 6,4) is to be understood as an invitation to the Duke, and with Qvi vicerit possidebit haec (Rev. 21,7) the angel promises the Duke a place in heaven. The title-page miniature and the dedicatory picture can be found in all of the 12 volumes of the six parts.44 In the catalogue of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, a coat of arms also serves as a printer’s mark that can be found at the end of the print Gewiß: vnd Approbirte Historia Von S. Bennonis (1609) together with Adam Berg’s colophon (Figure 8).45

44 The digital reproductions are accessible via the entries in the VD 16. 45 Gewiß: vnd Approbirte Historia Von S. Bennonis, etwo Bischoffen zu Meissen, Leben vnd Wunder­ zeichen, so er vor vnd nach seinem seligen Absterben, an mancherley orthen, durch die Gnad Gottes gewircket, auch sein Canonization vnd Fest betreffend. Munich 1609. The BSB München used a copy of the Staatliche Bibliothek Regensburg (shelf mark: Bav.329) for the digital reproduction.

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 Dietmar Peil

Figure 8

The same coat of arms already concluded the printed edition of the same writing46 that had been published three years earlier by Nikolaus Heinrich, and can also be verified, together with the initials C. B. M. M., for two more prints of Adam Berg belonging to the cult of St. Benno: Umbstendig vnd warhaffter Bericht, was sich zu End deß 1602. unnd 1603. gantze Jahr bey S. Benno in München für Wunderwerck begeben.47 Thus, it is likely that we are not dealing with a printer’s mark but with a fictional coat of arms that, first designed by Berg and then adopted by Heinrich, was intended for the Bishop of Meissen. The relics of St. Benno were transferred to Bavaria in a dramatic move in 1576 and enshrined in Munich’s cathedral (Frauen­ kirche; Eng. “Church of Our Lady”) in 1580; ever since then Benno has been the patron saint of Munich and Bavaria. The figures within the quarterly coat of arms probably refer to two miracles in Benno’s life: The Miracle of the Fish and the Miracle of the Spring.48

46 BSB München, shelf mark: Res/4 Hom.789#Beibd. 7 (with colophon). Berg had already printed the Historia in 1604, but had only provided the colophon with an ornamental vignette (BSB München, shelf mark: Res/4 Bavar. 970). 47 In the edition of 1603 (Res/4 Bavar. 969#Beibd. 1), the coat of arms is followed by the colophon, in the edition of 1604 (Res/4 Bavar. 3000,III,28 b), there is no colophon; the same is true for: K ­ urtze Verzaichnuß, Etlicher Miraclen vnd Wunderwerck, so sich Anno Domini 1604. bey S. Bennonis ­heylthumb in München zugetragen. Munich 1604, shelf mark: 4 Bavar. 1885 i. 48 Cf. also the Historia (see note 45) with the marginalia on Bl. 6v: 23. Cap. Die Kirchenschlüssel zu Meissen werden in die Elb geworffen; Bl. 7r: Die Kirchenschlüssel zu Meissen / findet man in einem großen Fisch / da Bischoff Benno daselbst ankommen; Bl. 7v: 27. Cap. Miracul von einem Brunnen.



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Adam Berg’s Heirs Anna Berg adopted the printer’s mark of her deceased husband together with the old verses in the Guevara editions that she was printing (1615, 1618, 1625),49 even though they are actually referring to the specific situation of Adam Berg.50 The signet, without the verses and in a somewhat smaller format but including the old motto conatus dii fortunant, also appears on the title page of the Horace edition of 1613 (Figure 9).51 Because the various pictorial details can hardly be made out

Figure 9

Figure 10

in the reduced format, Anna Berg later opted for a simplifying redesign. In con­ sequence, the pictura only shows the personification and the “printer,” while the image of the tree and the griffin coat of arms are left out; the motto is now situa­ ted underneath the (rectangular) pictura (Figure 10). The new printer’s mark was used – with or without frame – in the colophon and as well on the title page from 1617 onwards,52 especially in prints made for Johannes Hertsroy. In cooperation

49 For details, see appendix. 50 Breuer lists 140 titles for Anna Berg, only 197 titles are given in the VD 17. 51 Cf. VD 17 12:623340G (key pages). 52 For the signet on the title page, cf. the key pages of the Horace edition of 1618, VD 17 12:623344N (with frame), and for the Seneca edition of 1624, VD 17 12:626690U (without frame); for the signet in the colophon, cf. the edition of Curtius Rufus of 1617, VD 17 12:625608S (with frame), and Johannes Pelecyus, Malum summi mali, 1617, VD 17 12:103784T (without frame).

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 Dietmar Peil

with other p ­ ublishers, their signets often appeared in the colophon together with the name of the female printer.53 In line with her Munich “fellow-guildsmen,” Anna Berg, too, did not infrequently use the “corporation signet” of the Jesuits in varying designs on the title page. Printer’s or publisher’s signets can be established three times for Adam Berg the Younger who produced a good dozen prints (no Guevara editions among them).54 The son adopted the new signet of the mother in the colophon for the Statuta und Satzungen des H. Ritter und Mart. Sebastiani Bruderschaft zu Braunaw, Munich 1630 (Figure 11).55

Figure 11

The formally reduced printer’s mark of the father (from 1613) appears in the colophon of Passer solitarius, Munich 1634.56 In two further prints, published by Peter König, Berg’s name appears in the colophon, but in connection with König’s publisher’s signet.57

53 For more, see below. 54 Breuer lists only 10 titles for Adam Berg the Younger, 14 are given in the VD 17. 55 BSB München, shelf mark: Bavar. 2534; vgl. http://bavarica.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/­ object/display/bsb10378928_00374.html . 56 Johannes Ludovicus ab Assumptione, Passer solitarius, hoc est vita et functiones animae contemplativae sub symbolo passeris solitarij descriptae. Munich 1634. BSB München, shelf mark: Asc. 2946; cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10264743_00536.html . 57 Alessio de Salo, Nutzliche Kurtze Practic [...] Die laster auß Zuereitten unnd tugendten in die Seelen ein Zupflantzen. Munich 1629; vgl. VD 17 12:101498E (key pages). Berg’s name appears in the colophon



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Melchior Segen († 1648) can also be understood as “successors in business” of Adam Berg the Elder as he did marry the widow of Adam Berg the Younger in 1635.58 He did not, however, use his own signet but was usually satisfied with using the Jesuit signet on the title page, or he left the design of the colophon to the printers who were working with him. Nikolaus Heinrich, who cooperated with him from time to time, proved himself to be quite flexible in this regard. At least three different prints of the devotional book Aeternitatis prodromus, written by Jeremias Drexel, were published in 1628. Segen and Heinrich shared the responsibility for two of these printings; in one edition, Heinrich displayed an angel’s head as vignette in the colophon,59 in the other, a quite plainly designed variant of the Jesuit signet.60 In a further collaborative edition, Heinrich gave an ornamental decorative vignette in the colophon.61 – The printer’s mark designed for Anna Berg and adopted by her son that Segen, as succes­ sor in business, was actually entitled to use, was only used by him in 1637/38 without the motto as introductory vignette for the Ordinari Zeitungen.62

Nikolaus Heinrich Nikolaus Heinrich († 1654, active in business in Munich from 1597 onwards) was the most successful printer in Munich around 1600 after Adam Berg.63 In the design of the title pages and the colophons, he proceeded in a similar way to his father in law; in his prints, too, the Bavarian coat of arms and the Jesuit signet can be found now and again on the title pages, as well as miniatures of Our Lady. Already in the second year of his working in Munich, he presented his first printer’s mark. Whereas he did not emphasise his identity as printer in what was probably his first print, the

of the prayer book Rosengarten (Munich 1630), but without a publisher’s signet; cf. VD 17 12:103382F (key pages). 58 Breuer 2003, 779–800, dates Segen’s business activity in Munich to the years between 1626–1648 and lists 35 titles. According to Reske 22015, 682, Segen handed the Berg printer’s office down to his son-in-law Johann Wilhelm Schell in 1655, but continued to run his bookshop and publishing house. 54 titles are entered for Segen in the VD 17, the last of which is listed for 1648. 59 Cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11082888_00526.html (Staatl. Bibliothek Regensburg, shelf mark: Asc. 1082). 60 Cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10262050_00512.html (BSB München, shelf mark: 1558a). 61 Cesare Franciotti, Aureae asceses, praxes et preces. Munich 1631, cf. http://reader.digita­ le-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10262636_00231.html . 62 Cf. the key pages in the VD 17 to no. 12:665200X and to no. 12:665169Z. 63 Breuer 2003, 401-643, lists 389 titles for Heinrich. – Research assumes that Nikolaus Heinrich was the son of the printer Nikolaus Heinrich the Elder from Oberursel (Kopp 1964, 70–71; Reske 22015, 679). The question why Nikolaus Heinrich the Younger published his first print in Munich in 1597 (cf. VD 16 G 3228) but two further prints appeared under his name in Oberursel in 1598 (cf. VD 16 H 5319; VD 16 H 6330) remains unresolved.

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 Dietmar Peil

Triumphus Divi Michaelis Archangeli Bavarici (1597), a periocha accompanying a per­ formance of the Munich Jesuit gymnasium on the occasion of the inauguration of the Michaelskirche [Engl. “St. Michael’s Church”], he designed the periocha Argumentum Oder Inhalt der Comedi von S. Benno, printed one year later, more elaboratively. The signet of the Jesuit gymnasium appears on the title page (with the device STVDIO AC LABORE; Figure 12), the colophon of the print is provided with a Mariological

Figure 12

miniature, whose circumscription CRVCE ITVR AD CŒLVM NICOL: HENRI: proves this representation to be a printer’s mark (Figure 13); Heinrich used it several times

Figure 13



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around 1600, occasionally also on the title page. The miniature with the motif of the coronation of Mary, which Heinrich used in two prints, probably has to be classified differently. Both prints refer to the Archconfraternity Our Lady at Altötting and, thus, can perhaps also be understood as corporation signet of this fraternity.

Figure 14

Heinrich presented a new printer’s mark in 1612. It shows the sun chariot (?) with the motto Invidiae amuletum and gives the initials N H in its outer frame (Figure 14). The last occurrence of this signet can be dated to 1652;64 for a “running time” of 40 years, this printer’s mark was used rather rarely, which, however, is probably also due to the fact that Heinrich, when in cooperation with publishers such as Peter König and Raphael Sadeler, allowed their publisher’s signets to take precedent over his own and with publications from the Jesuit circle it is their corporation signet (and its vari­ ants) that takes priority. Similar to Melchior Segen, the efficient Dutch publisher Johannes Hertsroy (active in business between 1604–1624), who worked together with different printers in Antwerp, Augsburg, Dillingen, Ingolstadt and Munich, also refrained from using his own signet and, in this regard, gave free rein to his business partners. 179 prints are attributed to him in the VD 17,65 which often display the Jesuit signet on the title page. This perhaps raises the suspicion that a kind of “certificate of harmlessness”

64 Francisco Arias, Thesaurus Inexhaustus Bonorum, Quae In Christo Habemus. Munich 1652; shelf mark: 2 Asc. 3–1/3. Cf. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10621046_01132.html . 65 Breuer 2003, 643–648, has only identified six prints and has thus estimated the publisher’s active years in business between 1615–1623.

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 Dietmar Peil

(at least in the Catholic heartland) was supposed to be issued by using the signet to then possibly increase sales figures.

Cornelius Leysser Cornelius Leysser (active in business between 1625–1643) married Hertsroy’s widow Anna Maria in 1625, continued to run Hertsroy’s publishing house, and is also verifia­ ble as printer.66 After the death of his wife, Leysser married Sophie Lay in 1641 who sold the bookshop after Leysser’s death but continued to run the printer’s office till 1645. As early as 1626, Leysser presented a signet which he used all of his life and which his widow continued to use as well. The pictura shows a human figure adorned with a wreath of laurels who is swimming in the sea and is holding a plate with the inscrip­ tion emergam (Figure 15) up into the air in its left hand. A sinking ship seems to be

Figure 15

represented on the left side in the background of the picture, and, on the right side, the silhouette of a city can be made out on top of a steep coast. The name of the printer is inscribed into the frame of the oval medallion. The printer’s mark could go back to the Diving-Bird emblem of Joachim Camerarius, which has the motto Mersus ut emergam and offers the illustrating distich Non raro mediis vir fortis mergitur undis //Adversae

66 Breuer 2003, 653–767, lists 187 titles for Leysser and his successors, 235 prints are listed in the VD 17. – For Leysser’s biographical data, cf. Reske 22015, 681.



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sortis, nec tamen obruitur.67 The anecdote of the shipwreck of Zeno in c­ ombination with Bias’s dictum (Omnia mecum porto mea) or with the aphorism Sapiens omnia sua secum portet (which is derived from it) could have given further inspiration. In the same way as they influenced Adam Berg the Elder, biographical facts thus may have governed the design of the printer’s mark of Cornelius Leysser, without the current state of research permitting to determine this background in more detail for Leysser.

Peter König With regard to the Savoyan “Kunstführer” Peter König, the relevant research has only little information to offer.68 Breuer only gives two prints and dates König’s active years in business between 1622 and 1631,69 while the VD 17 lists 26 titles, which have been published between 1614 and 1631, 17 of which display a publisher’s signet. Similar to Heinrich, König changed his signet after a couple of years. In 1620 König used the pictura of a rock in the sea with the motto Durus et constans ut petra (Figure 16) in the colophon to Antonio Daça, Histori von dem wunderbarlichen Leben,

Figure 16

67 Cf. Henkel & Schöne 21976, 839, with the translation: “Untergetaucht, um wieder aufzutauchen. Nicht selten wird ein tapferer Mann mitten in die Wogen eines feindlichen Geschicks getaucht, und doch wird er nicht vernichtet.” [“Submerged to re-emerge. Not infrequently is a brave man submerged right within the wave of a hostile fortune, and yet he is not destroyed.”] 68 Cf. Benzing 1977, 1191. 69 Breuer 2003, 649–651.

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 Dietmar Peil

Wunderzeichen, Verzuckung, und Offenbarungen der seligen Jungfrawen Joanna von dem Creutz,70 thus alluded to his own name and simultaneously ascribed the virtue of constantia to himself.71 König chose a new signet in 1623. From now on, the pictura shows three miners at work. The motto Deus labore omnia vendit as well as the name of the publisher are inscribed into the frame of the oval medallion (Figure 17).72 Both signets are verifiable

Figure 17

for 1623, after that König only used the new motif. In contrast to Hertsroy, König did not allow the printers who were working with him to use their own printer’s mark in the colophon. He also refrained from using the Jesuit signet.

The Sadeler Family The last publishers to be discussed here belong to the Sadeler family of artists and are perhaps not always identifiable with certainty.73 Benzing distinguishes between Raphael Sadeler the Elder and Raphael Sadeler the Younger, and also mentions a Johann Sadeler

70 This print is not listed in the VD 17. 71 For the rock in the sea as a symbol for constancy, cf. Henkel & Schöne 21976, 67–68. 72 König perhaps drew on an emblem by Pierre Coustau for his device; cf. Henkel & Schöne 21976, 1163: Dii laboribus omnia vendunt. 73 For the Sadeler family of artists, cf. Wessley 1890; Prange 2005.



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the Younger († 1655),74 but only offers sparse data. Breuer only knows of Raphael Sadeler the Elder, for whom he lists eleven prints between 1623 and 1624.75 1560–1624 is given as basic biographical information for Raphael Sadeler the Elder and his active years in business in Munich are dated to 1607–1624 in the VD 17, while his son Raphael the Younger (1584–1623) is supposed to have been active as publisher from 1624–1628. Addi­ tionally, Johann Sadeler (the second son?) is also given with four titles between 1623 and 1625. Out of the 51 prints that are attributed to the publisher Raphael Sadeler in the VD 17, only two are definitely assignable to Raphael Sadeler the Younger; some cases may be disputable but undoubtedly the greatest part of them are attributable to his father. The signet of the Sadeler family is almost identical for all three of them. Raphael Sadeler’s publisher’s signet was probably first used in 1612. It can be found on the lower border of the image of the title illustration accompanying the Triumph Christi by Aegidius Albertinus (Figure 18) – in the colophon, on the other hand, only the names of the female printer (Anna Berg) and the publisher are given. In the second edition of this work (1617), the title illustration is taken up again, and the signet is now also used in the colophon but is given there in a medallion with the name of the publisher in the frame (Figure 19).76

Figure 18

Figure 19

74 Benzing 1977, 1250–1251. 75 Breuer 2003, 769–777. 76 Kind suggestion given by Henrietta Danker, HAB Wolfenbüttel.

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Accompanying the “speech bubble text” Sub parvo sed meo, the pictura shows a turtle who is (unsuccessfully) attacked by insects.77 This version of the image,78 which is perhaps taken from Guillaume de La Perrière’s Théâtre des bons engins (1539), actually aims at the inviolability of virtue,79 whereas the motto rather refers to a certain self-modesty and self-sufficiency (“small, but mine”).80 In this case as well, one should search for possible biographical facts that might have motivated this signet. The turtle also appeared in the title page illustration of Aegidius Albertinus’s Himmlische(n) Frawenzimmer (1613). The motif probably first appeared in 1615 in the colophon of Matthäus Rader’s Bavaria Sancta, together with the name of the female printer.81 Similar to Peter König, the Sadelers refused their printers (with few excep­ tions) the presentation of their own printer’s mark in the colophon. Raphael Sadeler the Younger adopted his father’s signet in the colophon of the title Petra Salis Pauperibus Relicta printed in Bamberg in 1624 and for Matthäus Rader’s Bavaria Pia printed in 1628 by Anna Berg.82 It remains unclear whether further prints can be attributed to Raphael the Younger between 1624 and 1628. Johann Sadeler removed the name of the publisher in the frame and used the signet in Anna Berg’s 1623 print of Bartolomeo Cambi’s Seelen Paradeis (Figure 20) and in 1625 for Cambi’s Geistliche(r) Academia.83 In what was probably his first pub­ lication, Cambi’s Seelen Liecht, Johann still adopted the unchanged signet of his father in the colophon, while he himself was already identified as publisher on the title page.84 The Himmlische Bergstraß by Sisto da Bergamo, printed by Nikolaus Heinrich in 1624, only gives the name of the printer and a decorative vignette in the colophon.85

77 The insects are not always clearly recognisable in the several (re-engraved) versions of the signet. 78 For the different turtle emblems, see Henkel & Schöne 21976, 607–1616. 79 Henkel & Schöne 21976, 611. 80 Filippo Picinelli, Mondo simbolico. Milano 1653, 233 (VI, § 191) refers to the turtle emblem of Aresi (without indicating the title) and conveys the meaning contarsi in the marginalia; his Latin translator Augustinus Erath paraphrased: contentum esse sorte sua (Mundus symbolicus. Cologne 1681, v. 1, 471 (VI, § 259). 81 cf. VD17 547:642523E (key pages). The signet is missing in the colophon of the respective copy of the BSB München; cf. permalink http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de: bvb:12-bsb10317081-1. 82 Cf. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:urmel-70058c52-c5c8-4b2f-a4b7-71e9af4a98d47-000071371959. 83 Cf. VD17 23:675614K (key pages). 84 Cf. VD 17 12:103627W (key pages). 85 Cf. VD 17 12:103797X (key pages).



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Figure 20

Conclusions The conclusions that can be drawn from this review of Early Modern Munich printer’s and publisher’s marks may be disappointing as there are more questions raised than there are answers given. Perhaps the first thing to be noted is that the years between 1620 and 1635 offer most material for this research area. Random samples taken from the second half of the seventeenth century yield fewer results. This does not, however, justify the restriction of the analysis to these 15 years; Nikolaus Heinrich was active in business in Munich between 1597 and 1654 and it would not be reasonable to only take his work from 1620 to 1635 into consideration. The review was also meant to show that the rigid differentiation between printer’s and publisher’s mark is obsolete (especially as many printer-publishers existed) and that related issues should also be considered – phenomena that can take the place of a printer’s/publisher’s mark as, for example, author’s and corporation signets do. Thus attention is also drawn to the relationships between these institutions: Why do Herts­ roy and Segen behave differently towards their printers than König and Sadeler do, and how is the “omnipresence” of the Jesuit signet with some printers and publish­ers to be explained whereas others refuse to “play along”? The title page illustration, which points to the content of the respective work or indicates the “genre” of the prints, as is, for example, the case with Adam Berg’s printed music, deserves special attention as well. And, last but not least, it was possible to show that a comprehensive under­ standing of printer’s and publisher’s marks is also dependent on both the illu­

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mination and the sound documentation of biographical facts. Much remains to be done in this area with regard to the Early Modern Munichbook and publishing business.

Appendix The different editions of Antonio de Guevara’s Sendtschreiben with Adam Berg’s printer’s signet 1598/99 Bd. 1: BSB München, Sign.: Epist. 1052 z-1; vgl. VD16 G 4012, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/ de/fs1/object/display/bsb11022128_00466.html Bd. 2: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 97 a-2; vgl. VD16 G 4013, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11019957_00546.html Bd. 3: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 97–3; vgl. VD16 G 4014, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/ de/fs1/object/display/bsb10159013_00423.html 1600 Bd. 1: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 98–1; vgl. VD16 G 4015, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/ de/fs1/object/display/bsb10159015_00450.html Bd. 2: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 98–2; vgl. VD16 G 4016, http://daten.digitale-sammlungen. de/~db/0002/bsb00021339/images/index.html?id=00021339&groesser=&fip=yztsxdsydxdsydenweayasdasfsdr&no=9&seite=506 Bd. 3: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 98–3; vgl. VD16 G 4017, http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~ db/0002/bsb00021341/images/index.html?id=00021341&groesser=&fip=yztsxdsydxdsydenweayasdasfsdr&no=7&seite=410 1603 Bd. 1: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4587:1; vgl. VD17 3:605729M, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ dms/load/img/?PID=PPN73021995X|LOG_0130&physid=PHYS_0447 Bd. 2: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4587:2; vgl. VD17 3:605731G, Kolophon über Schlüsselseiten einsehbar Bd. 3: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4587:3; vgl. VD17 3:605733X, Kolophon über Schlüsselseiten einsehbar 1607 Bd. 1: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4590:1; vgl. VD17 7:633958L; http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ dms/load/img/?PID=PPN777108054|LOG_0010&physid=PHYS_0447 Bd. 2: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 98 c-2; vgl. VD17 7:633961P, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352175_00506.html Bd. 3: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 98 c-3; vgl. VD17 7:633965U, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352176_00410.html 1610 Bd. 1: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 99–1/3; vgl. VD17 23:293331X, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352177_00444.html Bd. 2: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 99–1/3; vgl. VD17 23:293338A, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352178_00544.html Bd. 3: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 99–1/3; vgl. VD17 23:293338A, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352179_00422.html



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Anna Berg’s Guevara prints 1615 Bd. 1: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 100–1/3; vgl. VD17 12:108266Q, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352180_00442.html Bd. 2: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 100–1/3; vgl. VD17 12:108269N, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352181_00502.html Bd. 3: BSB München, Sign.: 4 Epist. 100–1/3; vgl. VD17 12:108273Y, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen. de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10352182_00406.html 1618 Bd. 1: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4593:1; vgl. VD17 7:634040Y, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen. de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN682442364&physid=PHYS_0447 Bd. 2: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4593:2; vgl. VD17 7:634045M, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen. de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN68244247X|LOG_0010&physid=PHYS_0503 Bd. 3: SUB Göttingen, Sign.: 8 SVA VI, 4593:3; vgl. VD17 7:634040Y, http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen. de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN682442364&physid=PHYS_0447 1625 Bd. 1: SLUB Dresden, Sign.: Epist.340.m,misc.1; vgl. VD17 14:634293Q, Illustration und Kolophon über Schlüsselseiten einsehbar Bd. 2: SLUB Dresden, Sign.: Epist.340.m,misc.2; vgl. VD17 14:634300P, Illustration und Kolophon über Schlüsselseiten einsehbar Bd. 3: SLUB Dresden, Sign.: Epist.340.m,misc.3; vgl. VD17 14:634324G, Illustration und Kolophon über Schlüsselseiten einsehbar

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Author’s signet of Jakob Feucht, from: Jakob Feucht: Bescheidne und wolgegründte Rettung. Munich 1573 (BSB München: 4 Polem. 1182). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/ display/bsb10167628.html Figure 2: Printer’s mark of Adam Berg, from: Antonio de Guevara: Guldene Sendtschreiben. Th. 2. Munich 1598 (BSB München: 4 Epist. 97 a-2). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb11019957_00546.html Figure 3: Printer’s mark of Adam Berg (Assumption), from: Aegedius Albertinus: Der Geistliche Seraphin. Munich 1608 (BSB München: 4 P.lat. 220). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/ de/fs1/object/display/bsb10685741_00350.html Figure 4: Printer’s mark of Adam Berg (Easter Lamb), from: Ordnung der gantzen Procession deß allerheil. Sacraments. Munich 1603 (BSB München: Res/4 Bavar. 3000, XII,42). http://bavarica. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10886470_00036.html Figure 5: Title page miniature for: Abraham Schädlin: Rosengärtlein der andächtigen Brüderschafft deß ­allerheiligsten Fronleichnams Jesu Christi. Munich 1607 (BSB München: Res/4 Asc. 541#Beibd.1). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/ bsb10873416_00002.html Figure 6: Title page miniature for: Laurentius Surius: Bewerte Historien der lieben Heiligen Gottes. 5 Th. Munich 1579 (BSB München: 2 V.ss.c. 129–5,1). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/ fs1/object/display/bsb10150201_00005.html Figure 7: Dedication picture for Duke Albrecht V., from: Laurentius Surius: Bewerte Historien der lieben Heiligen Gottes. 5 Th. Munich 1579 (BSB München: 2 V.ss.c. 129–5,1). http://reader. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10150201_00007.html

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Figure 8: Emblem of St. Benno with Kolophon of Adam Berg, from: Gewiß: und Approbirte Historia Von S. ­Bennonis. Munich 1609 (State Library Regensburg: 999/Bav. 329). http://bavarica. digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11083455_00079.html Figure 9: Printer’s signet of Anna Berg as title illustration, from: Horatius Flaccus [...] expurgatus. Munich 1613 (BSB München: A.lat.a. 299). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb10241235_00003.html Figure 10: Printer’s signet of Anna Berg, from: Marcos de Lisboa: Cronicken der eingesetzten Orden deß heiligen Vatters Francisci. 2. Th. Munich 1620 (BSB München: 4 H.mon. 416 d-1/2). http:// reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10006732_00518.html Figure 11: Printer’s signet of Adam Berg the Younger, from: Statuta und Satzungen des H. Ritter und Mart. Sebastiani Bruderschafft zu Braunaw. Munich 1630 (BSB München: Bavar. 2534). http:// bavarica.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10378928_00374.html Figure 12: Corporation’s signet of the Jesuit gymnasium in Munich as title illustration, from: Argvmentvm Oder Inhalt der Comedi von S. Benno. Munich 1598 (BSB München: 4 Bavar. 2197,I#Cah.58). http://bavarica.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb10152431.html Figure 13: Printer’s mark of Nikolaus Heinrich with Kolophon (miniature of Maria), from: Argvmentvm Oder Inhalt der Comedi von S. Benno. Munich 1598 (BSB München: 4 Bavar. 2197,I#Cah.58). http://bavarica.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10152431_00040.html Figure 14: Printer’s mark of Nikolaus Heinrich (sun chariot), from: Anton Holzner: Canticum virginis. Munich 1625 (BSB München: 2 Mus.pr. 7). http://stimmbuecher.digitale-sammlungen.de/ view?id=bsb00086583 Figure 15: Printer’s mark of Cornelius Leysser, from: Jeremias Drexel: Christlicher Trismegistus. Munich 1626 (BSB München: Asc. 1579). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb10262077_00789.html Figure 16: Publisher’s signet of Peter König (rocks in the sea), from: Antonio Daça: Histori von dem wunderbarlichen Leben, Wunderzeichen, Verzuckung, und Offenbarungen der seligen Jungfrawen Joanna von dem Creutz. Munich 1620 (State Library Regensburg: 999/Hist. eccl. 1151). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11288059_00499.html Figure 17: Publisher’s signet of Peter König (miners), from: Alessio de Salo: Nutzliche kurze Practic und sonderbare Weiß die Laster auszureiten und Tugenden in die Seelen zu pflanzen. Munich 1629 (BSB München: Asc. 1566#Beibd.1). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb10262059_00315.html Figure 18: Publisher’s signet of Raphael Sadeler the Elder (as a part of the title illustration), from: Aegidius Albertinus: Triumph Christi. Munich 1617 (HAB ­Wolfenbüttel: 894.1 Theol. (2)). © HAB http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/894-1-theol-2/start.htm?image=00001 Figure 19: Publisher’s signet of Raphael Sadeler the Elder (with Kolophon), from: Aegidius Albertinus: Triumph Christi. Munich 1617 (HAB Wolfenbüttel: 894.1 Theol. (2)). © HAB http:// diglib.hab.de/drucke/894-1-theol-2/start.htm?image=00391 Figure 20: Publisher’s signet of Johann Sadeler (with Kolophon), from: Bartolomeo Cambi: Seelenparadeis. Munich 1623 (BSB München: Asc. 4273). http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/ fs1/object/display/bsb10267196_00667.html

Bibliography Alewyn, Richard, “Albertinus, Aegidius.” In: Neue deutsche Biographie 1. Aachen-Behaim. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1953, 143. Benzing, Josef, “Die deutschen Verleger des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Eine Neubearbeitung.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 18 (1977): 1077–1322.



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Dirr, Pius, Buchwesen und Schrifttum im alten München 1450–1800. Kulturgeschichtliche Studien. Munich: Knorr & Hirth, 1929. Fournée, Jean, “Himmelfahrt Mariens.” In: Kirschbaum, Engelbert & Wolfgang Braunfels, eds., Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 2. Rome: Herder, 1970, 276–283. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Grimm, Heinrich, “Über deutsche Buchdruckersignete im XV. und XVI. Jahrhundert.” Philobiblon 2 (1967): 135–153. Held, Jeremias, Andrea Alciato’s Liber Emblematum. Frankfurt am Main: Georg Raben, 1566. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, ²1976. Kaul, Otto, “Adam Berg.” In: Blume, Friedrich, ed., Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik. Band 1. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1949, 1680–1681. Kopp, Manfred, Nicolaus Henricus und Cornelius Sutor. Bürger und Drucker zu Ursel. Eine Chronik der Oberurseler Druckereien von 1557 bis 1622. Oberursel: Pharma-Druck Hartmann, 1964. Prange, Peter, “Sadeler.” In: Neue deutsche Biographie 22 (Rohmer-Schinkel). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2005, 345–347. Reske, Christoph, Die Buchdrucker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgebiet. Auf der Grundlage des gleichnamigen Werks von Josef Benzing. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 22015. Roth-Scholtz, Friedrich, Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum i. e. insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum. Nuremberg & Altorf: heirs of Joh. Dan. Tauber, 1730. [http://diglib.hab.de/ drucke/bd-2f-84-1s/start.htm] Wendland, Henning, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlüter, 1984. Wessley, Joseph E., “Sadeler.” In: Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 30 (Rusdorf-Scheller). Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot 1890, 164-166.

Kristina Lundblad

The Printer’s Mark in Early Modern Sweden In February 1527 King Gustav Vasa (1496–1560) explained in a letter to the Bishop of Linköping, Hans Brask (1464–1538), that printed matter no longer would be allowed to be distributed “amongst simple people” unless he, the king, had inspected and approved of it beforehand.1 The letter is probably the earliest articulation of censors­ hip within Swedish print culture. At the same time, it is the last word in a bitter debate between Brask, head of the Catholic church, and Gustav Vasa, newly appoint­ed king and instigator of the Protestant reformation in Sweden. Bishop Brask had had a press set up in Söderköping, close to Linköping, around 1522, realizing that the power of printed communication was a forceful weapon in the struggle against Luther and his adherents.2 The clergyman Olaus Ulrici (Olof ­Ulrichsson) served as printer, and although only two titles, and in just one copy each, have survived until our days, it is known that several anti-Luther works left the press during its short history. In 1526 the printing house was sequestrated on the order of the king. The same year Gustav Vasa established a royal press in Stockholm, and declared that there would be no room for more printing offices within the borders of Sweden. The role of the printing press as a political tool in the consolidation of a new national order is made clear in another letter to Brask; the king states that the royal press will be served “by good, Swedish men so that there will be no further need to call in any Germans”.3 For the rest of the sixteenth century the royal press would remain the sole mani­ festation in Sweden of the technology that transformed the Western world. Under strict surveillance by the kings – Gustav Vasa (Protector of the Realm 1521) 1523–1560; Erik XIV 1560–1568; Johan III 1568/1569–1592; and Sigismund 1592–1599 – it would be used as a vehicle for the power of the House of Vasa. Regulations, laws and everything else that the new bureaucracy promulgated was produced by means of the press, as were the first Swedish translations of the New Testament (1526), and the whole Bible (1541) alongside other texts needed by the new church.4 The print shop was situated in Uppsala for a short period, circa 1540–1541. Apart from that the press was located in Stockholm.

1 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 283. 2 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 282–283; see also Stobaeus 2008, 150, 186. 3 Swedish original: “medh goda swenska karla ath vj ephter thenna dagh icke skwle behöfwa ther tijl inkalla några tiszka”. Citation and information from Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 282–284. 4 The meagre production of the royal press may be said to reflect Gustav I‘s and his heirs’ lack of inte­ rest in books and culture, an indifference which was echoed in their personal book collecting habits too. As Eva Nilsson Nylander has pointed out, “Gustav Eriksson Vasa, is better known for destroying books than for collecting them, and the Vasa princes, though learned and well-schooled in theology, presumably had other, more urgent matters with which to deal than the collecting of books. According to an inventory of 1568, one of Christina’s great uncles, Eric XIV, owned 216 titles, including printed DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-010

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The number of identified printers working at the royal press during the sixteenth century is six. Alongside them, three printers from before 1526 can be identified in documents from that century. Together with the three names that appear in prints from the fifteenth century we get a sum of twelve practicing printers during the first 117 years of printing in Sweden, from the introduction in 1483.5 Even though the actual output might have been somewhat larger than the nearly 500 different sixteenth century editions that are often reckoned, Swedish print production in the sixteenth century must still be regarded as very restricted. Five hundred prints approximate to one year’s production by the printers in Paris in the mid sixteenth century.6 The ambition of this article is to present an overview of printers’ marks in Early Modern Sweden up to 1699, without making claim to completeness, and to approach the question of the function of printers’ marks on the level of what could be called historical epistemology. That is to say that the marks are viewed as a means to draw boundaries between various functions in the production of books and thus create separate entities in the form of specialized professions.7 The main part of the text con­ sists of the survey, an admittedly basic survey that primarily aims to record as many printers’ marks as possible.8 The historical context of the marks is outlined in order to indicate the conditions behind their conception and employment. All printers’ marks that can be regarded as personal marks are included, whereas the fairly large number of marks composed of the coats of arms of Sweden have been left out. The armorial

books and manuscripts, and in 1571 another great uncle, John III, had 56 titles. There was no librarian to care for the royal books, and Uppsala University, founded in 1477, and the only learned institution in the country, did not have a library until 1620.” Nylander 2011, 45–46. 5 The following is a list of identified printers in Swedish print history. Years designate signed works. Source: Isak Collijn 1927–1938, vols. 1–3, fifteenth century: Johann Snell, Stockholm, 1483–1484; Bartholomeus Gothan, Stockholm, 1487; Johannes Fabri (Smedh), Stockholm, 1495–1496. Sixteenth centu­ ry: Paul Grijs, Uppsala, 1510–1519; Olaus Ulrici, Söderköpinge, 1523–1525; Bartholomaeus Fabri, Upp­ sala, 1525; Jürgen Rickholff junior, Uppsala 1525–1526, Stockholm, the royal press (RP), 1526, Uppsala 1539–1541; Claes Pederson, Stockholm RP 1530; Amund Laurentson, Stockholm RP 1543–1575; Torbjörn Tidemansson, Stockholm RP 1576–1578; Anders Torstensson, Stockholm RP 1578–1582; Andreas Gutterwitz, Stockholm RP 1582–1599 (active till 1610). Johannes Fabri’s wife Anna, who had a breviarium completed after her husband’s death, has not been included in the total number of printers. The mo­ nastery of Mariefred had a press from which one print, dated 1498, is known; printer unidentified. Collijn lists 36 anonymous prints from the royal press, one of which (Olavs Petri, En liten postilla, 1530) however states Claes Pederson as printer, his name being mentioned in the register. Pederson has been included in the total number of printers. On the Fabris, see Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 142–154; on Pederson see Collijn, ibid., 15. 6 Cf. Lindberg 1983, 12–13. 7 “Historical epistemology” is a notion originally coined by Lorraine Daston, see Daston 1994, 282– 289. In my concluding discussion I refer to Mary Poovey who uses the same concept: Poovey 1995, chapter 1. 8 I wish to thank Eva Nilsson Nylander and Per Stobaeus for advice on Latin dicta, and for helping me to locate books with printer’s marks.



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marks were used by the royal press and exist in many different designs. In this article, “Sweden” is confined to today’s mainland except for the southern provinces which belonged to Denmark up to the middle of the seventeenth century. Finland, under Swedish rule until 1808, and Swedish possessions in Germany and elsewhere will not be considered. Swedish sixteenth and seventeenth century printing history has been little dealt with in depth since G. E. Klemming’s and J. G. Nordin’s Svensk boktryckeri-historia 1483–1833, published in 1883. Despite its flaws, it still constitutes a standard work. In it, sporadic mention is made of printers’ marks.9 After Klemming’s and Nordin’s study, only a few printers and printing offices, for example the printers of Uppsala University, have been thoroughly researched.10 Printers’ marks are in focus in a number of articles by Arthur Sjögren, three of them concern Swedish marks.11 In 1925, printers’ marks used in Finland were the subject of a study by the librarian Holger Nohrström.12 Finland received its first printing office in 1642 when the Swedish printer Peder Ericsson Wald was put in charge of the shop at the Academy of Åbo. Before that, the Finnish demand for printed matter was supplied by printers in Sweden, which is why their marks sometimes turn up in books for the Finnish market, and in Nohrström’s study. Danish printers’ marks were subject to three dedicated articles by Mogens Haugsted in the 1950s, and in his book on the Copenhagen printers, c. 1600–1810, Harald Ilsøe comments on some devices.13 None of the Danish devices, however, seem to have been employed by Swedish printers. For the period 1483 until 1599, Isak Collijn’s bibliography, published 1927–1938, is the most important source for anyone looking for printers’ marks, even though some marks are missing.14 Collijn lists 431 titles for the period.15 Due to the small amount, Collijn was able to cover the principal events of the history behind the documents, and to give detailed descriptions of all books including comments on printer’s marks. For the print production of the following century, which is covered in Collijn’s Sveriges bibliografi, 1600-talet, such meticulous accounts proved impos­ sible, and only very occasionally does the national bibliography of the seventeenth century mention the presence of a printer’s mark.16 For the seventeenth century, then, one has to go to the primary sources, namely the books themselves, when no

9 Klemming and Nordin 1883. Marks of the following printers are reproduced in Klemming and Nor­ din: Snell, Richolff x 2, Meurer, Janssonius (Jansson), Henrik Keyser II, Burchardi, and Curio. 10 Bring 1962 treats the Uppsala University printers. Other studies dedicated to a distinct press shop are Engström 1983 and Almqvist 1965. 11 Articles on Swedish printer’s marks by Sjögren 1914, 256–275; Sjögren 1907, 427–435; Sjögren 1917. 12 Nohrström 1925. 13 Haugsted 1955, 39–58; Haugsted 1956, 44–61; Haugsted 1957, 7–23; Ilsøe 1992. 14 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1–3. 15 This is exclusive of the titles that were printed in Finland and in the dominions of Sweden. 16 Collijn 1942–1946, 2 vols.

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secondary sources are at hand. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to go through the approximately 6.000 seventeenth-century titles listed in the national bibliography. My contribution consists in gathering together, for the first time, all recorded printers’ marks from this period. At least 30 individual printers, 1483–1699, can be identified by their names in the documents they printed, but this does not mean that there were as many prin­ ting establishments. Printing houses were inherited, bought or incorporated in other establishments, and many of them only lasted for a short period. Few printers used personal printer’s marks, and some marks were inherited, copied and reused – an interesting fact in itself as it suggests that the copyright function of marks, if they were intended to have such function in Sweden, was only partially in operation. Another interesting question that would deserve more attention is why and when a printer decided to employ his mark. In some cases, a mark only occurs in a small share of a certain printer’s production.

The Housemark and Its Context: Snell, Ulrici & Richolff The earliest printer’s mark in Sweden, and the only one from the fifteenth century, belongs to the first book printed in the country – Dialogus Creaturarum Moralisatus produced in 1483 by Johan Snell, an itinerant printer from Lübeck. The colophon in the Dialogus – Impressus per Johanem Snell artis imp[re]ssorie m[a]g[ist]r[u]m in Stockholm inceptus et munere Dei finitus est – is the only testimony of his presence in Sweden, but extensive typographical analysis has put forward evidence of Snell’s activities that supports his responsibility for three more editions. Snell was most likely summoned by the archbishop Jakob Ulfsson in order to print the Missale Upsalense.17 The Dialogus – a collection of fables – was probably an enterprise carried out on Snell‘s own initiative. Attributed to Mayno de Mayneri from Milan, and sometimes to Nicolaus Pergamenus, the collection became very popular during the second half of the fifteenth century with editions in Latin, English, German and French. The majority of the editions originates from the Dutch printer Gerard Leeu in Gouda, and Snell’s Stockholm edition is, as Isak Collijn writes, “a direct reprint of one of the three earliest Gouda editions 1480–1482”.18 The book contains 122 fables and 120 different woodcut illustrations including the printer’s mark, placed on the last page (Figure 1). All pictures are reversed copies of Leeu‘s illustrations, also the printer’s mark, although it is modified to suit Snell’s

17 On Snell, see Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 22–44. 18 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 24.



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Figure 1:  Johan Snell’s remake of Gerard Leeu’s ­printer’s mark in Snell’s Dialogus Creaturarum Moralisatus, ­Stockholm 1483.

edition. Fitted into a square frame two lions, in turn framed by an arch held by two columns, display the coat of arms of Sweden, the three crowns. In Leeu‘s edition the coat of arms is that of Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Beneath the image there is a tree branch and two smaller coat of arms hanging down from it, a composition very similar to that of e. g. Peter Schöffer. The one on the left might be that of the promotor operis, as Schröder has proposed, whereas the housemark on the right is thought to be that of Johan Snell.19 The text of the colophon is arranged in two columns on either side of the smaller coats of arms, beneath which the columns unite into one. When in 1524, Bishop Brask‘s printer Olaus Ulrici laid out the final page of the Manuale Lincopense he may have been inspired by Snell‘s design. Ulrici‘s final page is basically an upside-down version of Snell‘s arrangement, although simplified (Figure 2). The Swedish coat of arms, the three crowns, organized in an uncommon upside-down way, is supported not by two lions but by an angel, all of it fitted into a crowned and fairly small square. Ulrici’s housemark stands on its own above the coat of arms image in contrast to Snell’s which is displayed below the three crowns arrangement. Ulrici signed his work in a seemingly simple way, with his housemark. However, if the entire page is taken into account, it is clear that Ulrici’s arrangement is quite complex, and that the Söderköping printer had a well-developed understanding of typography as an art where the non-printed areas are as important as the printed ones. Surrounded by symmetrically organized text, the empty space above the image

19 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 27. In the Gouda edition these shields contain the weapon of the city of Gouda and the housemark of Leeu respectively.

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Figure 2: The printer Olaus Ulrici’s housemark c­ onspicuously placed on the final page of Manuale Lincopense, printed in Söderköping 1525.

stands out as the very centre of the page. In this focal point Ulrici places his house­ mark. In order not to make the coat of arms, which is printed in red, too heavy, he balances it by printing the alinea in red, and by introducing a paragraph break at the bottom, turning the last line into steady ground for the entire message. The Ulrici example illustrates why a fuller understanding of the work carried out by a printer’s mark is sometimes dependent on the mark’s being examined in its gra­ phical context. The effect it has on the reader – who always perceives a page as an image before seeing it as readable text, before reading – is conditioned by its size and by its place within the book and on the page. The focal point of the last page of the Manuale Lincopense – the space above the coat of arms – dissolves into nothing if the image and the surrounding text that creates it is ignored when the mark is reprodu­ ced. Housemarks are signs of rights and ownership. Unlike hieroglyphs and emblems, they rarely invite interpretation or analysis. Like most things, however, the house­ mark interacts with its context and its meaning and is therefore always to some extent subject to its location and to the elements of the assemblage in which it participates. Owing to the imagery within which it is arranged, Jürgen Richolff‘s housemark takes on quite different qualities from those of Snell and Ulrici. Two of his devices will be dis­ cussed here. Neither of them contains the coat of arms of Sweden even though Richolff worked on the king’s commission from 1526. Richolff probably arrived in Sweden in 1522 or 1523, either in the company of Gustav Vasa‘s delegate in Lübeck, Johan Strasse, or as a result of negotiations of a planned edition of the New Testament in Swedish translation, negotiations carried out by the Magnus’ brothers (or one of them) in Lübeck.20 There is no firm empirical evidence of either version but in any case Richolff ended up in Uppsala in 1525 printing, among other things, the first Book of Hours in Swedish, Vor fruwe tydher, probably in cooperation with the printer Bartholomeus Fabri.21

20 For details, see Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 316–318. 21 Collijn 1927–1938, vol.1, 318.



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Jürgen (Georg) Richolff came from Lübeck where his father, also called Jürgen Richolff, worked as a printer in the shop of Lucas Brandis before establishing himself as an independent printer. After the father’s death around 1516 the print shop was run by Jürgen‘s mother Anne till around 1518 when she died and Jürgen Richolff the Younger in all probability took over the business. In Richolff the Elder‘s production five different printer’s marks are found. Two of them contain a housemark that later on turns up in Richolff the Younger’s printer’s devices. Its earliest employment was in the Swedish Book of Hours.22 When Richolff incorporated his family’s housemark in his printer’s mark in Vor fruwe tydher, he was the first printer to use a self-contained printer’s device in Swedish print. Olaus Ulrici’s mark of the same year is a traditional housemark, although, as discussed, it unites into a more impressive design due to its arrangement. Snell copied Leeu’s device, and applied his housemark in combination with the Swedish coat of arms. Richolff‘s mark, in contrast, stands for the printer himself and for no one else. The shield that carries the housemark is inserted into a circle which in turn is integ­ rated within a rectangular framed field. On top of the circle a cross – and together, of course, they amalgamate into an orb and cross – and on either side of it the prin­ ter’s initials, G and R.23 To further enforce his important role, Richolff has printed his name in full length below the mark, and as if to give the device an even more glorious effect, a number of asterisks are spread out around it, forming a kind of printer’s starspangled firmament. In 1526 the printing house in Söderköping was forced to close down, and in the same year the press in Uppsala, where Richolff worked, moved to Stockholm to be incorporated with the royal press founded that year. The first publication from the new press, Een nyttwgh wnderwijsning, dated 14 February 1526, is set with the same types as Richolff used in Uppsala.24 While it has not been possible to prove that Richolff was sent for in order to print the New Testament, it is certain that, on the king’s order, he watched over the move of the print shop from Uppsala to Stock­ holm, including among other equipment, type material that he had brought from Lübeck.25 Een nyttwgh wnderwijsning (in modern Swedish: En nyttig undervisning, “A useful lesson”), a sort of catechism, is often seen as the earliest Reformation print in Sweden. In this politically and symbolically important publication, Richolff introduced a new mark (Figure 3). Henning Wendland gives a description of it in his study of German printers’ marks but offers no further explanation on the possible meaning of the

22 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2, 83. 23 The “orb and cross” is a symbol of Christian authority over the (orb of the) world, dating back to medieval times. 24 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 316. 25 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 318.

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Figure 3: The mark of Jürgen Richolff the Younger, with reindeer as supporters.

motif.26 A delightful scene, arranged within a rectangular line frame, presents itself to the observer: Standing in front of an oak tree with enormous acorns, two reindeer act as supporters of the Richolff “coat of arms” which is suspended from the tree. Hein­ rich Grimm has pointed out the caution with which commoners such as printers had to navigate when making up devices in the form of coats of arms.27 It is an interesting remark that points to the social function of signs. The structure of Richolff’s device is well known from other printers’ marks, but Richolff’s use of reindeers seems to be quite original. Simon Vostre, Paris, used genets; Carlos Amoros, Barcelona, used griffins, and Ursyn Mylner (possibly in cooperation with Wynkyn de Worde) displays a bear (ursus) and an ass in his device.28 Reindeer are arctic animals, found in the very north of Scandinavia. I would say that their presence in Richolff‘s mark alludes to his cooperation with the Hyperboreans. There is no individual printer’s mark or other signature in the New Testament, completed in 1526, but various evidence suggests that Richolff was responsible for its printing. It is also quite certain that he was in charge of the royal press during its first year or until Swedish printers could man the printing house, as the king wished.29 There would soon, however, be need for German printers again, as will be seen. Richolff returned to Germany, perhaps to Lübeck. Between 1529 and 1531 he printed

26 Wendland 1984, 221. 27 Grimm 1965, 13. See also Wendland 1984, 9. 28 Reproductions of Vostre’s and Amoros’ devices are found in Victoria & Albert Museum 1962, plates 11 and 14. On Mylner’s device see McKerrow 1949, 14 and figure 38. 29 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 1, 318.



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a number of publications in Hamburg. Many of them are Reformation texts of impor­ tance, such as the first edition of Luther’s catechism, and some of them have the same printer’s marks as his Swedish work. In 1539 Richolff returned to Sweden where he printed the Swedish translation of the Bible during the following two years.30

Renaissance Imagery Makes Its Mark Eighteen distinct printer’s marks are found in Swedish print production from the six­ teenth century. Eleven of them consist of the coat of arms of Sweden, often supported by wild men and/or women.31 These marks were frequently used by the royal press but they will not be treated in this article. The remaining seven marks are divided among four printers. The earliest marks in use, those of Ulrici and Richolff, consist of – or are based on – housemarks, signs that date back to the Middle Ages and were used as marks of property and later, as for example in the case of the printers’ marks, as family emblems. The last time a housemark was used as a printer’s mark in Swedish print was probably in 1541 when Richolff printed Handbok på svenska and inserted his mark in the title-page frame.32 From the late 1540s onwards a new visual culture would make its mark. Northern imagery gave way to a Mediterranean tradition of hieroglyphs as interpreted by the Renaissance humanists, and to emblemata where the picture was paired with a lin­ guistic enigma in the creation of learned puzzles or puns. Due to the small output and the fact that only one print shop existed, there is no abundance of either kind of marks, however. Amund Laurentsson, who probably worked for Richolff on the Swedish Bible, became royal printer in 1543, a function he retained for more than 30 years. Laurentsson applied two hieroglyphs and one emblem. He was followed by Torbjörn Tidemansson, 1576–1578, Anders Torstensson, 1578–1582 – neither had a per­ sonal mark – and by Andreas Gutterwitz who served as royal printer from 1582 until his death in 1610. Despite his long service and important improvement of t­ ypographical

30 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2, 85, 102. 31 “The purpose of stationing the wild man as a retainer outside the shield rather than an emblem within it was probably a talismanic one, based upon the thought that a creature as overwhelmingly strong as the wild man could surely be trusted to protect and defend the escutcheon” Richard Bern­ heimer writes in his Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study of Art, Sentiment, and Demonology (Bernhei­ mer 1952, 177–178). Bernheimer seems not to be aware of the frequent use of wild men, and women, as supporters of the Swedish coat of arms, but he suggests (p. 177) that “the Swedish province of Lap­ land, for instance, is likely to owe the presence of the wild man in its armorial shield to the existence within its borders of a primitive people whose appearance and mode of life must have seemed ‘wild’ to their Germanic neighbors.” 32 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2, 105. Around 1600 the bookbinder and publisher Herman Sulke use a publisher’s device which includes his housemark.

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equipment and sorts – among this a Greek style – there is only one printer’s device that can be considered his personal one.33

Figure 4: A Salvator Mundi treading on a snake in Amund Laurentsson’s the New Testament in Finnish translation, printed in Stockholm in 1548.

Two of Laurentsson’s devices appear for the first time in the beautifully worked edition of the New Testament in Finnish translation, printed in Stockholm in 1548.34 At the end of the first part of the Testimony, Laurentsson placed a woodcut of the Christ child with the orb and cross in his hand, a Salvator Mundi reinforced, as it were, with the Christ child’s treading on a snake (Figure 4). A woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder has served as inspiration but Laurentsson has modified it. In Cranach’s picture Christ stands on the tomb stone of an open grave.35 The other device is found on the last page, below the impressum. The image of a hand that holds a sword encircled by flames fills up the centre of a double circle with the motto “Sermo Dei ignitus et penetrantior quovis gladio ancipiti”, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword (Figure 5).36 Isak Collijn notices that Andreas Petri (1565–1593) in Eisleben used the same device. Even more interestingly, as Bengt Bengtsson has pointed out, the device is an exact copy

33 On Laurentsson, Tidemansson, and Torstensson see Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2. 34 A digitized copy is found at http://digi-tilaukset.lib.helsinki.fi/pelastakirja/p21-06_se_­­­ wsi_­ testamentti.pdf. 35 A woodcut by Cranach made for Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch, 1509. Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2., 166. 36 The words come from the epistle to the Hebrews 4:12: Vivus est enim sermo Dei, et efficax et penetrabilior omni gladio ancipiti: et pertingens usque ad divisionem animae ac spiritus: compagum quoque ac medullarum, et discretor cogitationum et intentionum cordis. [“Because God’s word is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the point that it separates the soul from the spirit and the joints from the marrow.”]



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Figure 5: “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.” Amund ­Laurentsson introduced this printer’s mark in the royal printing office’s edition of the New Testament in Finnish, 1548. Laurentsson probably obtained the mark from the Nuremberg printer Johannes Petreius.

of the Nuremberg printer and type founder Johannes Petrejus’ (1497–1550) mark, from whom Laurentsson in all probability obtained both plates. Andreas Petri was a cousin of Petreius’, and worked as typesetter in his workshop.37

Figure 6: It is necessary to take occasion by the forelock, because the back of Occasio’s head is bald. Laurentsson’s mark with Occasio, the personification of opportunity, is a copy of the Basle printer Andreas Cratander’s printer’s mark, cut by Hans Holbein the Younger.

In 1549, in Judiths book, Laurentsson introduces a new device (Figure 6). Again, it is a copy of another printer’s mark, namely an Occasio image used by Andreas C ­ ratander (died 1540) in Basle. Cratander actually had seven different Occasio images, some

37 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 2, 166; Bengtsson 1956, 82 (diss.). On the relation between Petri and Petreius see Benzing 1952, 44.

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of them bearing mottos, some not.38 Three of them were cut by Hans Holbein the Younger, and the one Laurentsson reproduced is one of them.39 The last printer of the sixteenth century was Andreas Gutterwitz, summoned to Sweden by Johan III in 1583. The engagement of Gutterwitz once again ran counter to Gustav Vasa’s resolution not to call in German printers. Gutterwitz came from Lübeck, like many of his forerunners. He managed a print shop in Rostock in company with Hans Stöckelman (Stockelmann) at least from 1571 until 1574 when they moved to Copenhagen to work as university printers. He held the position as royal printer for almost 30 years and yet there is only one device that can be attributed to him. It is a depiction of Iustitia standing on the world globe holding the scales in her left hand (Figure 7). The device was used on the title leaf of Melanchthon’s Grammatica, 1584, but apparently in no other editions, and therefore Collijn hesitates to designate it as a printer’s mark. On the verso of the title page, Gutterwitz placed the Occasio of Laurentsson/Cratander, probably as a mere embellishment.40 Like the Christ child hieroglyph, and the sword in flames device, the Occasio image was introduced by Laurentsson and subsequently used by the printers who succeeded him at the royal press: Torbjörn Tidemansson, Anders Torstensson, and Andreas Gutterwitz. This indicates that the marks were not perceived as strictly personal devices but rather as marks of the royal printer. They can be found in works printed on the commission of

Figure 7: This kind of ornamental framework was typical of Andreas Gutterwitz, whereas it is more uncertain whether the Justitia image should be regarded as his printer’s mark. It is known only from the 1548 edition of Melanchthon’s Grammatica, and it has survived in just one copy, that of the National Library in Stockholm. 38 For an in-depth analysis, see Wolkenhauer 2002, 216–225. The model which Laurentsson copied was used by Cratander until 1538. From 1540, Cratander’s mark was taken over by the Antwerp printer Johannes Crinitus, see Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993, 110. 39 Ibid.; Wendland 1984, 92–94. 40 Collijn 1927–1938, vol. 3, 1–3.



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the state, but also in editions produced at the expense of other parties. Whether this is true also for the employment of the various coats of arms of Sweden is a question that would deserve further examination as it might shed light on the function of a mark in relation to printer, printing office, and financier.

A New Print Culture Emerges Political and cultural changes are rarely as chronologically distinct as they may seem in historical overviews, but the period covering the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth actually marks a paradigm shift within Early Modern Swedish print history and media policy. Gustav Vasa’s monopolistic strategy had per­ sisted throughout the sixteenth century. With the new century, there was still only one printing office in the country, the royal one. Moreover, the output indicates that it only possessed one press.41 Gustav Vasa’s son Karl (Charles) was appointed regent in 1599 and became king (Karl IX) in 1604. Already in 1601 Karl promoted the installation of a new press in Uppsala, but it would take some years before the idea was realized. In 1611 Karl was succeeded by his son Gustav II Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus) with whom Sweden’s Age of Greatness, (Stormaktstiden), is normally considered to have begun. Both of them pursued a more liberal media policy than their predecessors. Especially during Gustav II Adolf’s reign cultural and educational issues were parts of a political programme that not only led to territorial expansion but also allowed an educated elite to emerge within the nobility and the clergy. The lack of books, Gustav II Adolf wrote in a charter for Johannes Matthiaes in 1628, explains why “studier och Boklige kånster icke kunne komma till den profection, som det sigh medh retta borde och wij giärna såge” [ “studies and bookish art cannot arrive at such perfection as they rightly should, and such as we would like to see”].42 In order to remedy this deficiency, and to foster a cultural level of higher standards it was necessary to promote the production and distribution of books. In 1632, when Gustav II Adolf‘s reign had come to an end, five print shops had been set up in the capital of Sweden, and four in the provinces; Uppsala (1610), Västerås (c. 1622), Strängnäs (1622) and Kalmar (1626). Twenty years later only one remained in Stockholm, but new ones would turn up – and close down – both there and in the rest of the country. Queen Christina, during her ten-year period on the Swedish throne, (1632–1654, of age from 1644) continued to promote cultural development while her ­successors Karl X Gustav (1654–1660) and Karl XI (1660–1697) are more associated with warring. From the perspective of printing history, it is interesting to note that the most

41 Cf. Ridderstad 1997, 345. 42 Gustav II Adolf, charter for Johannes Matthiæ 1628, here from Schück 1900, 29.

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­ rominent and long-lived printers of the seventeenth century had begun their busi­ p nesses in the early part of the century and continued well into the later half. Ignatius Meurer worked as royal printer between 1613 and 1672, and Henrik Keyser‘s printing office, started around 1635 and run by Henrik Keyser II from 1670, was continuously in service till 1716.43 By the end of the seventeenth century, there were six printing offices in Stockholm and eight outside the capital.44 The first one to establish an independent printing enterprise in the capital was Anund Olofsson Helsing. He set up a print shop in Stockholm in 1603, and began to work on commission for the German bookseller, bookbinder and publisher Herman Sulke among others. Sulke had opened Stockholm’s first bookshop in 1594.45

Figure 8:  The device of the bookbinder and publisher Herman Sulke depicts the crossing of the Red Sea. It shows Moses with his staff in front of a rogue wave about to drown the Egyptians. The Israelites, seen to the right of the wave, are walking ashore in the land of Canaan. Sulke’s housemark is placed in an escutcheon at the base of the oval.

As a publisher Sulke made frequent use of a device that depicts the crossing of the Red Sea surrounded by the dictum Deus adiutor in tempore opportuno [“God is a helper at the right time”] (Figure 8). The woodcut occurs in two different versions, both include Sulke’s housemark, and represent the first publishers’ marks in Swedish print history. There is an interesting resemblance between these devices and the design of some panels that Sulke used for the decoration of bookbindings. Apart from dicta and motifs, the centrepieces on a binding for Bünting’s Itinerarium sacræ scrip-

43 Henrik Keyser I died in 1663 and his widow continued work till 1670 when their son, Henrik Keyser II, took over. He ran the business until his death in 1699. Klemming and Nordin 1883, 163–173. 44 Numbers according to Lindberg 1993, 14. 45 On Sulke, see Schück 1923, 105–106.



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turæ, printed by Gutterwitz in 1595 and described by Arvid Hedberg, have the same structure and expression as Sulke’s printer’s marks.46 A number of editions that Anund Olofsson printed for Sulke bear Sulke’s mark, but for Olofsson there is no personal mark recorded in the literature. Yet on the last page of Ericus Svenonis’ Spörsmål och swar öfwer begge sacramenten, 1606, and on the last page of a funeral oration printed by Olofsson’s widow in 1612, I have found an image that appears to function as a printer’s mark (Figure 9).47 It depicts a pelican, and it is identical to a mark that Holger Nohrström, in his survey of Finnish printers’ marks, attributes to the German printer Ignatius Meurer.48

Figure 9: This pelican mark was used by both Anund Olofsson and Ignatius Meurer.

Olofsson died in 1610. Three years later his widow, who in the meantime had con­ tinued service, married Ignatius Meurer who had worked with Gutterwitz. Gutterwitz too died in 1610, and some years later Meurer was appointed royal printer. However, as the new media policy allowed competition, he was not alone in bearing this title. Christoffer Reusner from Rostock had been given the same status when he arrived in Stockholm, invited there by Karl IX around 1610.49 Policies do not always match reali­ ties though, and in 1635 Reusner moved to Reval (today’s Tallinn in Estonia), ousted, he declared, by the other printers in Stockholm.50 Overthrown or not, his place as one

46 Hedberg 1914, 195. 47 Ericus Svenonis Roslagius, Spörsmål och swar öfwer begge sacramenten, Stockholm 1606; Een Christeligh liikpredikan uthöfwer then edle och wälborne herren Per Sören Claessons [...] begrafning, Stockholm 1612. 48 Nohrström 1925, 31. As Nohrström remarks, the pelican device has not been ascribed to Meurer before. It appears in, e. g., Thomas Florinus, Explicatio Catecheseos minoris [...] Lutheri, 1634. 49 Ridderstad 1997, 346–347 with further references. 50 Ridderstad 1997, 348. Ridderstad claims that Stockholm‘s market size actually only allowed for two printers. Ibid., 350.

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of the royal printers was taken over by Henrik Keyser the Elder, who not only printed but is also described as the foremost publisher amongst the printers of his time.51 Even so, it seems that Keyser never used a personal printer’s mark.

Figure 10: Ignatius Meurer’s intriguing printer’s mark in a collection of Sweden’s medieval provincial laws that he published at his own expense in 1666. At some point in history this particular copy was rescued from the flames, which seems unusually apposite given the etymology of the printer’s name, and the content of the emblem.

Meurer made use of three devices, among them the pelican that can be found in Anund Olofsson’s printed works. The pelican thus came into Meurer’s possession through his marriage to Olofsson‘s widow. Meurer’s other marks both include a cir­ cular plate, a medallion, with his initials, I. M., and the dictum Immolor Malis Bestiis [“I am sacrificed to wicked beasts”]. In one version, the plate is supported by two lions.52 The other and more intriguing version is a depiction of a man being thrown down from a fortification tower by soldiers (Figure 10). Beneath the tower two malae bestiae, in the form of lions, are eagerly waiting. The plate with Meurer’s initials is placed at the bottom of the oval emblem. Nohrström notices that the initials of the dictum’s three words correspond to Ignatius Meurer Buchdrucker or, in Swedish, Boktryckare.53 But why victim (‘I am sacrificed’) and who are the beasts, and what is the meaning? I have found no interpretation and would like to suggest the following: It seems clear to me that the clue lies in the name Ignatius, derived from a family name of Etruscan origin, Egnatius, and later altered into a form that resembles the Latin word ignis, [“fire”]. A famous bearer of the name is Ignatius of Antioch, also known as Ignatius Nurono, the fire-bearer, bishop of Antioch in Syria 69–107. He is one of the Apostolic Fathers and is regarded as the originator of the phrase “catholic

51 Rinman 1983, 81. 52 Amund Grefwe, the first printer in Gothenburg (active there from 1650 until his death in 1671), made use of the same mark but, of course, with a different medallion. See e.  g. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Selectarum Epistolarum ex M. T. Ciceronis familiaribus, Gothoburgi: Amundi Grefwes 1671. See also Sjögren 1907, 427–430. Sjögren shows that Grewfe’s successors Laurentius Lönbohm and Zacha­ rias Hagemann reused the mark in some works. 53 Nohrström 1925, 30.



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church”.54 He met his martyrdom in Rome, and explained in one of his letters that he would be thrown to the beasts. The damnatio ad bestias is supposed to have taken place at Coliseum. Whether Meurer was a Catholic or not, and how he felt about the Protestant milieu in Stockholm is not known, but his device is perhaps the most interesting one within the range of printers’ marks in use in Early Modern Swedish print. I have not been able to find any other printer in Europe who used this motif or the dictum. If that is a correct observation, Meurer should be regarded as the first true inventor of a printer’s device in Sweden.

Figure 11:  A vignette or cul-de-lampe turned into a printer’s mark. This was employed by Henrik Keyser II, but a number of printers used similar devices.

The last of the Stockholm printers’ marks that I will mention here belonged to Henrik Keyser the Younger. He succeeded his father in 1670 and ran his business until his death in 1699. During his entire career, there were all sorts of complaints about him, his print shop and its output. He was not formally trained as a printer, which upset his colleagues, and his printer’s marks do not indicate any major typo­ graphical feeling. He had at least three different marks; one mirror monogram and two or more variants of the cul-de-lampe with his initials and an integrated image of a book (Figure 11).55 An identical mark as that shown in Figure 11 was used by Henric Curio in Uppsala, at least from 1675, and very similar marks can be found in works printed by Amund Grefwe in Gothenburg and in foreign printers’ works, sometimes with no initials at all in the space of the shield.56 This might indicate that the mark was a mass-produced copy, cast perhaps in Germany or the ­Netherlands – and possibly brought to Sweden by Janssonius – or made from a plate in, say, Key­ ser’s possession.57 This kind of printer’s marks lacks the mythological hints and

54 Cf. Catholicisme hier, aujourd’hui, demain. Encyclopédie publiée sous la direction de G. Jacquemet de clegé de Paris, Paris: Letouzey et ané 1962: “Ignace d’Antioche”, p. 1191. 55 For details about the complaints, see Klemming and Nordin 1883, 163–173. Georg Gottlieb Buchar­ di, who founded a print shop in 1693, used a monogram too. A reproduction can be found in Klem­ ming and Nordin 1883, 176–177. 56 See Sjögren 1907, 427–435, and Sjögren 1914, 271. 57 Arthur Sjögren’s article “Ur anteckningsboken, V” is a study of different printers’ use of identical copies of cast metal plates for vignettes and the like; Sjögren 1909, 13–23. Meurer‘s smaller mark with

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hidden messages of the armorial arrangements with their imaginative supporters and botanical symbolism, as well as the allegories and learned enigmas of the Renaissance devices. They are simply decorative trademarks, and their occurrence in Keyser’s, Curio’s and other printers’ work anticipates the advent of the bourgeois printer-publisher.

Printers’ Marks in the Provinces The expansion of print production in the provinces was in many ways a more impor­ tant development than the events in the capital. With the exception of Uppsala, where a press had been installed at the university, the provincial presses were connected to dioceses and gymnasiums (schools preparing pupils for university). They were mainly used by the clergy but nonetheless they transformed rural com­ munities into bibliotopes, “local cultures of written communication where printed documents of many kinds played a central role”, as Per S. Ridderstad has it.58 Apart from the places already mentioned, the following municipalities were provided with presses, at least for some periods: Linköping (1636), Nyköping (1645), Göte­ borg (1650), Malmö (1659), Lund (1663), Visingsö (1666), Norrköping (1682), and Jönköping (1688).59

Figure 12: Arosia was the old name for the city of ­ ästerås where Bishop Johannes Rudbeck set up a prinV ting office in 1621. Of the three different printer’s marks that were used at the press, this one was employed most frequently.

a medallion held by lion supporters might be another example. It was used by Grefwe in Gothenburg too, see note 52. 58 Ridderstad 1997, p. 353. 59 Lindberg 1983, p. 13.



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Few printers’ marks from the provincial printers are recorded, but some print shops employed multiple marks. Bishop Johannes Rudbeck‘s press is an interesting example. Johannes Rudbeck (1581–1646) was a man of incredible energy, and the entire city of ­Västerås, where he served as bishop from 1619, experienced a profound development under his governance. Here Rudbeck started the country’s first gymnasium, its first school for girls and, in 1621, the city’s first printing office. He introduced the earliest form of parish registration, and thus founded the Swedish system of population registra­tion ­(folkbokföring), he was professor of Hebrew and theology at Uppsala University, and also, in 1613, the university’s vice-chancellor. He was also personal chaplain to King Gustav II Adolf. He had eleven children with his second wife, one of them being the famous Olof Rudbeck the Elder, author of Atland eller Manheim (Atlantica), a 3.000page treatise in which he sought to prove that Sweden in actual fact was Atlantis.60 Rudbeck’s print shop engaged several different printers, and his press used three different devices, all of them with Christian dicta.61 The most frequently e­ mployed mark is an image of a plant with three flowers (Figure 12). The Latin name for V ­ ästerås, Arosia, is placed in an escutcheon at the base of the emblem, and the dictum Caelum non inferiora sequor [“I strive toward heaven, not toward the lower”] forms a circle around the plant.62 Another mark has the dictum Cernit deus omnia vindex [“There is an avenging God who sees all”] enclosed in a double circle ­­surrounded by ornaments, and filled with a depiction of a tree that foregrounds the silhouette of a city (Figure 13). Inside the image, the words nusq[ua]m solus [“nowhere alone”] are printed.

Figure 13: The skyline of Arosia can be faintly seen behind the tree. The dicta of the emblem together seem to make up a whole: The presence of the “avenging God who sees all” also means that one is “never alone”.

60 Svenskt biografiskt lexikon: “Johannes Rudbeckius”, article by Erland Sellberg https://sok.­ riksarkivet.se/sbl/artikel/6999, 4 March 2017; Eriksson 1984, 78–79. 61 The printers who worked for Rudbeck were Olof Olofsson Helsing, Peder Ericsson Wald and Eu­ charius Lauringer. For Olofsson, see Rudbeck 1916, 131–141. 62 According to Johannes Rudbeck (1867–1935) the woodcut was later damaged and repaired, and therefore the appearance of the plant varies. See Rudbeck 1906, 106–108.

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Bishop Rudbeck’s spiritual orientation is expressed in all of the devices, and the fact that he had three different emblems created for him could be seen as an expression of the entrepreneurial genius that seem to have invigorated all of his deeds. The emblems incarnate his religiosity as well as his talent for administration and industry. They were in place already in the print shop’s beginnings, which indicates that the bishop had a premeditated plan for his publication business. Olof Olofsson Helsing, Rud­ beck‘s first printer, sold his equipment to Rudbeck in 1624. In the proof of payment, all three printer’s mark plates – “figures” – are listed. The Cernit deus omnia vindex emblem was valued at 2 daler; the other two are grouped together at 4 daler.63

Figure 14: The most complex printer’s mark employed by Rudbeck’s printing office in Västerås.

The third emblem is the largest, and also the most complex one (Figure 14). Just like the plant emblem it has Arosia at the base, but this time combined with Suecorum. In a double circle frame we find two dicta. To the left, the Caelum non inferiora sequor is used again, but now completed with solem, the sun [“I strive toward heaven and sun”], a fairly unusual object of devotion within Christianity, I would believe. On the right-hand side there is a line from Psalm 73:28, Mihi non mundo sed adherere Deo bonum [“But it is good for me to draw near to God”]. The motif inside the circle is a symbolic representation of Christian devotion set in a landscape which is simulta­ neously local and realistic –  with the skyline of Västerås in the background  – and cosmic with its rayed sun with the word Jahve printed in Hebrew, flanked by the moon and the sun in splendour (with face). The cross in the centre of the motif almost appears as a projection from the sun. Ray-like lines from the foot of the cross seem to radiate downwards into the chalice that is placed before a praying child, who is holding another cross on which the Swedish flag is mounted. The plant with three flowers, which also has an emblem of its own, described above, is seen in full flourish in front of the praying figure.

63 Collijn 1906, 38–45 with further references. As a comparison, five pounds of Roman type of the size “cicero” was valued at 40 daler. Cast type was measured in weight. One pound (in Swedish pund, or skålpund) equalled approximately 450 grams.



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No interpretation of the letters inside the image is provided in the literature on Rudbeck and his printing office. I can unfortunately not offer a definitive explana­ tion either, but thanks to skilled colleagues I can at least suggest that it probably is an epistolary formula, and that P. M. T. O. I. R. C. could stand for P(atri) M(agno) / ­M(aiestatis) T(errarum) O(rbis) I(hesu) R(egi) C(aelorum) or P. M. could stand for P(ontifex) (Maximus) /M(aior), and I. R. for I(oannes R(udbeckius), but then T. O. C. would have to represent other words. Further, V. P. N. V. S. D. might stand for V(erecundo) P(atri) N(ostro) S(alutem) D(icit) – or perhaps instead V(otum) P(osuit) M(erito) N(ostro?) S(ancto) / S(alvator [et]) D(omino).64 In 1647 the famous Dutch cartographer, printer and bookseller Johan Janssonius the Elder (1588–1664) set up a Swedish branch of his Amsterdam establishment with printing office and book shops in Stockholm and Uppsala.65 Janssonius was granted great privileges by Queen Christina who wanted him to raise the standard of Swedish book culture by bringing “good paper, and all sorts of graceful types and letters”, as well as “the best available editions of books” from Holland.66 Janssonius called himself “Imprimeur ordinaire de Sa Majesté de Svede” and “Libraire & Imprimeur du Roy”, but he never settled in Sweden.67 Instead, his business was taken care of by Henric Curio (1630–1691), of German origin, until 1664 when Janssonius died and Curio bought his press.68 By that time Curio also functioned as printer of Uppsala University. Or, to be more precise, he was appointed university printer but apparently he did not function very well, and after a litigation that went on for ten years he was finally dismissed.69 Despite the fact that no books were printed in the name of Janssonius after 1656, and despite the death of the Dutch printer in 1664, Curio kept on using his former employer’s emblems; one a depiction of Minerva, an olive tree and a banner with the words Pacis opus (designwise a variant of Elsevier’s emblem), and the other being the perhaps more well-known device with Virgil’s dictum vivitur ingenio [caetera mortis erunt] [“man lives through his genius, all else shall pass away with death”].70

64 I wish to thank Heidrun Führer, Elisabet Göransson, Matthew Norris, and Kristiina Savin for en­ gaging in this mystery. 65 It is somewhat unclear whether the press was located in Uppsala or in Stockholm, Klemming and Nordin 1883, 183. 66 Klemming and Nordin 1883, 166. 67 Klemming and Nordin 1883, 166. 68 For Janssonius and Curio, see Bring 1962, vol. 1, chapter 4. See also Klemming and Nordin 1883, 165–167, 183–192; Bennich-Björkman 1998, 21–26. 69 See Klemming and Nordin 1883, 187–192. 70 Cf. Bring 1962, 180. In fact, Curio ‘s predecessor as university printer in Uppsala, Johannes Pauli , also used the Minerva emblem of Janssoniu Pauli, who was Dutch, was head of the print shop 1650– 1660, but was simultaneously employed by Janssonius. According to Sjöberg, the emblem was also used by Paolo Frambotti, printer in Padua 1642–1654. See Bring 1962 and Sjögren 1917, 68–75. The Virgil dictum is inscribed on the fundament against which the skeleton leans in one of the wood engravings in Vesalius’ famous De humanis corporis fabrica, 1543. Only the work of one’s mind resists destruc­tion. The dictum appears in other emblems too, see e. g. Henkel & Schöne 1996, 1055.

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Figure 15: One of the printer’s marks of the Dutch cartographer, printer and bookseller Johan Janssonius the Elder, also used by Henric Curio in Uppsala.

Curio employed the latter emblem quite frequently, for example in a dissertation printed in Uppsala in 1684, twenty years after Janssonius’ death (Figure 15).71 It depicts Fama, the goddess of fame and renown, with spread wings. She stands on an armillary sphere blowing two trumpets. A banner with the words “vivitur ingenio” is stretched out on either side of her. On the left side of the sphere (from the observer’s point of view) there is a man with a spade, on the right side an astronomer, or at least a man looking upwards through an instrument that resembles a Jacob’s staff.72

Figure 16: Henric Curio’s device with a snake around a spade – a “very serious, even religious idea” or a result of Early Modern do-it-yourself emblematics? 71 Julius Micrander, Dissertatio politica, de induciis quam suffragente amplissimo ordine philosophico, in musarum incluto Atenaeo Upsaliensi sub moderamine [...] M. Julii Micrandri [...] pro gradu publico bonorum examini submittit Sueno Lyrell W. Goth. Wasb: ad diem 26 Novemb. Anni MDCLXXXIV. Loco & horis solitis, Diss. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet 1684. 72 Jansonius’ emblem can be seen at http://pitts.emory.edu/dia/image_details.cfm?ID=132706. A Ja­ cob’s staff is an astronomical instrument of German invention, early seventeenth century. A descripti­ on and picture can be found at the website of Museo Galileo: http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/ JacobStaff_n01.html.



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Curio also had printer’s marks of his own ingenuity. The earliest is seen in Figure 16. The motto His coepta expedire tentabo, [“with the aid of these I shall try to carry out what has been begun”], stands out as an almost touching allusion to the commitment he had taken on as university printer and successor of Janssonius.73 Samuel E. Bring interprets the Latin word his as a reference to “hands clasped in prayer, directed towards the eye of God the Father”, and sees a “very serious, even religious idea” in Curio’s device. The snake around the spade, Bring sug­ gests, could be a symbol of the devil, threatened by the divine blessing and the force of prayers.74 Yes perhaps, but could the awkward figure also be a result of some Early Modern DIY emblematics where the spade from Janssonius’ device has been fused with a somewhat confused comprehension of various existing symbols with snakes around poles or staffs? At least I am not aware of any symbol where a spade is entwined by a snake, but snakes entwine staff-like objects in the Rod of Asclepius, in the Caduceus, and in the Nehushtan of Moses. In any case, the rela­ tion between dictum and image in Curio‘s second device appears more congruent and balanced (Figure 17).

Figure 17: Pedetentim, “step by step”, and Nimia ­festinatio noverca eruditarum cogitationum, ­[“excessive speed is the stepmother of learned thoughts”], accompany the turtle in the mark that Henric Curio introduced in 1682.

Curio introduced it in 1682, when the legal process was still running. The device has a fine and distinct design, and displays a turtle in an oval framed by Nimia festinatio noverca eruditarum cogitationum, “excessive speed is the stepmother of learned thoughts”. Pedetentim (step by step) on the banderole calls for thoughtfulness. Image and word unite in an emblem imbued with the same meaning and Renaissance spirit as Aldus’s famous dolphin and anchor.

73 See e. g. Olaus Verelius, Gothrici & Rolfi Westrogothiæ regum historia lingua antiqua gothica conscripta, Uppsala: Curio 1664. According to Bring 1962, 178, Curio used it in around 20 editions. 74 Bring 1962, 178.

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Imagined Communities, Communities of Imagery According to William Roberts, “a Printer’s Device may be described as nothing more or less than a trade mark”, and Margaret M. Smith, well over a century later, defines the information that successively appeared on early title-pages – such as the printer’s marks – as “the informal response to the developing role of the title-page in the marketing of books as mass-produced, commercial products”.75 Many students of Renaissance emblems and iconography would probably con­ sid­er such descriptions as grossly reductionist, as something that completely fails to understand the true nature of ars emblematica and its underlying wealth of mystery and hidden knowledge. A stance like that, however, would in itself be a reductionist view of trade and of the culture of economy with its underlying tensions between individualism and “the mass”, between imitation and inven­ tion, and between supply and demand. To separate economy from culture, aes­ thetics, politics and psychology is hardly possible, and the printers’ marks call for attention in all these fields. When Henric Curio reused Janssonius’ device, for example, he probably hoped that its beauty, reputation and intellectual content would enhance both his own reputation and his finances, and perhaps even benefit his case in court. Benedict Anderson’s concept of print capitalism applies to the formation of nation states and imagined communities as something that was spurred by the inter­ action between the printing press and the emerging capitalism.76 Books and other documents printed in the vernacular laid a new ground for a common discourse which in turn conditioned imagined communities such as – I would say, because many imagined communities developed – the nation state. Printers’ marks were part of this discourse, and the fact that much of the content of the devices, hieroglyphs and emblems dates back to the time before printing does not alter the fact that it was thanks to the printing press that they survived and came into circulation. Even secrecy needs a certain distribution since a symbol whose meaning is known only by one person hardly functions as symbol. Just as not all of the different species of the genus of the symbolum – the device, the emblem, the aenigma, the hieroglyph, the reverse of the medal – became produc­ tive in all places at the same time, different kinds of printer’s marks, too, came into circulation at different times in different places. Each region had its specific langu­ age and dialect and likewise it also had its repository of myths, imagery, forms and artefacts. This is why the typography of the earliest printed works imitates the manu­ scripts of the region in question – in northern Europe Gothic scripts resulted in Gothic

75 Roberts 1893, 1; Smith 2000, 92. 76 Anderson 1991.



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typefaces while south of the Alps the humanist script, developed from the Carolin­ gian minuscule, led to Roman typefaces. Along similar lines, the introduction of the various species of printers’ marks followed the logic of availability and tradition.

Repertoires and Imitation All printers had been trained by older printers for many years before they became masters and were allowed to set up a press of their own. Tradition and conform­ ity with the rules of typography reigned and were handed down from generation to generation.77 Few printers invented new typographical elements or designs. Instead their work was guided by imitation and they used the elements that were at hand in their geographical and cultural sphere. Depictions of wild men, for example, apparently have their roots in northern Europe and are rarely found in printers’ marks from southern Europe. Soon enough, though, the new technology and the ever-expanding dissemination of printed documents enabled the forma­ tion of a common body of images and visual elements. This body or repository exceeded the boundaries of spoken languages since images can be consumed by anyone regardless of nationality or level of knowledge in foreign languages. There­fore, Occasio and Iustitia as well as the pelican, the lion, the snake, the Christ child, and the orb and cross, are found in printers’ marks from many diffe­ rent countries. As I have shown in this article, the pattern of imitation endured throughout the period. Printers copied marks from both foreign and domestic colleagues, they reused devices that their predecessors had employed and they borrowed dicta and visual elements from well-established sources like the Bible or classical literature. The “system” had its counterpart in literature and the field of writing. As Horace Engdahl and Stina Hansson have shown, the idea of authorship as something that has do with invention, originality and the transformation of personal experiences, feelings and ideas into literature – what Engdahl calls verkdiktning [roughly “work writing”] – is a fairly modern concept. It was preceded by a quite different under­ standing of writing and poetry – repertoardiktning, [“repertoire writing”]– which built on a fixed and common repertoire of elements, rules and rhetorical princi­ ples.78 The repertoire could be studied, repeated and acquired, and it was shared by poets of all levels.

77 Cf. Engström 1983, 55 with further references. 78 Engdahl 2016; Hansson 2011. The development is of course more complex than this very short description suggests. Changes within literature interacted with many other processes. See e. g. Wood­ mansee 1994 for a very interesting account of the process by which “the writer becomes an author”.

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Demarcations of Professions The use of special marks for printers supported the creation of printing as a specialized profession, an imagined community consisting of persons who printed documents for money. From this perspective, printers’ marks took part in what Mary Poovey denomi­ nates processes of transformation, processes that involve “the drawing of boundaries and the codification of rules in such a way as to create from what once seemed to be an undifferentiated continuum of practices and ideas new and more specialized con­ ceptual – or imaginary – entities”.79 In the early days of printing, the same individuals produced the types and the ink, set the texts and printed them but soon a division of labour occurred. Typeface design and the cutting of punches for matrices would be separated from typesetting for example, and typesetting eventually separated from printing. Books not only depend on skilled craftsmen, though; somebody has to finance their production. The publish­ er’s role was that of supplying the means of production. In the Swedish and German languages, and some others, the word for publisher – förläggare/Verleger – originally designated a person who supplied raw material or, later, money for any kind of pro­ duction, for the weaving of textiles, for instance. Förlagssystemet (Swedish) or das Verlagssystem (German) – the putting-out system in English – was a distinct form of organization of the financing of production.80 The basic survey of Swedish print history provided in this article shows that the Church was the main publisher before Gustav Vasa, and that the state dominated as pub­ lisher for the rest of the sixteenth century. But almost all of the printers tried to make extra money on risky publishing enterprises too. With the seventeenth century, the printers’ publishing enterprises became a more important part of their business, as did their prin­ ting for other non-state parties. Some of the latter ran publishing as part of their trade. So, with the successive specialization, publishing was divorced from printing, and even though the separation would not be completed until the nineteenth century it is possible to follow its continuous advance within the realm of producers’ marks in books. Anund Olofsson, who set up the first independent print shop in Stock­ holm in 1603, is not known to have used a printer’s mark (although I have found a pelican device in his production). Instead a number of his editions display the mark of Herman Sulke, the man who commissioned and financed the publications. Sulke was the first publisher to make use of a personal publisher’s mark in Sweden. His mark turns up in books printed by different printers and by doing so the mark becomes a common denominator for a distinct group of products, namely, books published by Sulke. The mark draws a boundary between printing and publishing and demarcates the creation of a new entity, publishing as a specialization.81

79 Poovey 1995, 5. 80 On the history of the concept of förläggare (publisher), see Lundblad 2016, 3–11. 81 Cf. Grimm 1965, 12–14, and Wendland’s discussion with Grimm, Wendland 1984, 9.



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Over the course of the twentieth century, publishing eclipsed the role of the material production of books. Mediation and the creation of symbolic values came to overshadow the values of crafts and material production. Printing turned into an anonymous necessity, something that was carried out in production plants on distant continents. Most people today can easily name a couple of contemporary publishers but hardly anyone can mention the name of a contemporary printer. If people without particular interest in book history are familiar with any printers at all, these are likely to be printers from the Early Modern Age and almost certainly Aldus’s name will turn up –“the one with the dolphin and the anchor”. The printer’s marks of bygone times, then, still work, and continue to perform the creation of an imagined community – a community of imagery where art and economics interact in the production of meaning.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Dyalogus creaturarum moralizatus, Stockholm: Johan Snell 1483: Skapelsens sedelärande samtal 1483, John Bernström (ed.), Uppsala: ­Michaelisgillet & Höganäs: Bokförlaget Bra Böcker 1983. Facsimile edition. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 2: Manuale Lincopense, Söderköping: Olaus Ulrici 1525. Facsimile print. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Swedish Book Museum. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 3:  Een nyttwgh underwijsnīg wthwr scrifftenne om menniskiones fall, Stockholm: Jürgen Richolff 1526. Courtesy of Skokloster Castle. Figure 4: Se wsi Testamenti, Stockholm: Amund Laurentsson 1548. Courtesy of Uppsala University Library. Figure 5: Se wsi Testamenti, Stockholm: Amund ­Laurentsson 1548. Courtesy of Uppsala University Library. Figure 6: Judiths book, Stockholm: Amund Laurentsson 1549. Courtesy of Uppsala University Library. Figure 7: Philipp Melanchthon & Joachim Camerarius, Grammatica Philippi Melanthonis recognita et locupletata. Accessit tractatus de orthographia recens, Stockholm: Amund Laurentsson 1584. Courtesy of National Library of Sweden. Photo: National Library of Sweden. Figure 8: Olaus Petri, Tobiæ comedia., Rostock: Steffan Mölleman 1609. Courtesy of Lund University Library. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 9: Martin Luther, Then swenska psalmboken, Stockholm: Ignatius Meurer 1622. Courtesy of Lund University Library. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 10: Sverikes rikes lagh-böker, som äre, landz lagh, stadz lagh, Vplandz lagh, Wästgötha lagh, Östgötha lagh, Södermanl., Wästmanna och Helsing lagh, Stockholm: Ignatius Meurer 1666. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Einar Hansen Book Collection. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 11: En christeligh lijkpredikan öfwer [...] Hr. Anthoni Wijkmans elskelige kära hustrus hederlige jordefärd, Stockholm: Hendrich Keyser 1676. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Swedish Book Museum. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 12: Een Christeligh jordeferds predikan hållen uppå Strömsholms gård i Wästmanneland [över] fru Catharina [Stenbock] Drottning Enckia, Västerås: Oluff Olson (Olof Oloffson Helsing) 1622. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Swedish Book Museum. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 13: Petrus Johannis Rudbeckius, Diarium eller äwerdeligha skrijff-calender vthi hwilka månge högnödige saker både nu finnas [...] hwilka til en vnderwisning, på andra bladet, lika som vthi

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pennan dicterade warda, Västerås: Olof Oloffson Helsing 1621. Courtesy of Lund University Library. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 14: Johannes Aepinus, En liten tractaat om ogudhachtigha och ketterska menniskiors begraffning, Västerås: Olof Oloffson Helsing 1624. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Swedish Book Museum. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 15: Julius Micrander, Dissertatio politica, de induciis qvam suffragente amplissimo ordine philosophico, in musarum incluto Atenaeo Upsaliensi sub moderamine [...] M. Julii Micrandri [...] pro gradu publico bonorum examini submittit Sveno Lyrell W. Goth. Wasb: ad diem 26 Novemb. Anni MDCLXXXIV. Loco & horis solitis, Diss. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet, Henric Curio 1684. Courtesy of the Einar Hansen Library: the Swedish Book Museum. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 16: Olof Verelius, Gothrici & Rolfi Westrogothiæ regum historia lingua antiqua gothica conscripta, Uppsala: Henric Curio 1664. Courtesy of Lund University Library. Photo: Lund University Library. Figure 17: Johan Rolott, Tractatus historico-politicvs de professoribus academicis auctore Johanne Rolott Gevaliense, Uppsala: Henric Curio 1682. Courtesy of Lund University Library. Photo: Lund University Library.

Bibliography Almqvist, Sven, Johann Kankel, Pehr Brahes boktryckare på Visingsö. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, (1983) 1991. Bengtsson, Bengt, Svenskt stilgjuteri före år 1700. Studier i svensk boktryckerihistoria. Stockholm: Skolan för bokhantverk, 1956. Bennich-Björkman, Bo, “Eliternas gata och handeln på broar och marknader. Systemen för spridning av böcker i Sverige 1600–1850.” In: Pettersson, Jan-Erik, ed., Bokens vägar. Seelig & Co 150 år. Solna: AB Seelig & Co, 1998, 13–83. Benzing, Joseph, Buchdruckerlexikon des 16. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1952. Bernheimer, Richard, Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study of Art, Sentiment, and Demonology. Cambrigde, Mass.: Harvard University, 1952. Bring, Samuel E., Boktryckerierna i Uppsala. Vol. 1. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB, 1962. Catholicisme hier, aujourd’hui, demain. Encyclopédie publiée sous la direction de G. Jacquemet de clegé de Paris. Paris: Letouzey et ané, 1962. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Selectarum Epistolarum ex M. T. Ciceronis familiaribus. Göteborg: Amund Grefwe, 1671. Collijn, Isak, “Bidrag till det Rudbeckska tryckeriets i Västerås historia.” Allmänna svenska boktryckareföreningens meddelanden 6, 2 (1906). Collijn, Isak, Sveriges bibliografi intill år 1600. Vol. 1–3. Uppsala: Svenska litteratursällskapet, 1927–1938. Collijn, Isak, Sveriges bibliografi, 1600-talet. 2 Vols. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1942–1946. Daston, Lorraine, “Historical Epistemology.” In: Chandler, James, Arnold I. Davidson & Harry Harootunian, eds., Questions of Evidence: Proof, Practice, and Persuasion Across the Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, 282–289. Engdahl, Horace, Den romantiska texten. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag, (1986) 2016.



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Engström, Gösta, Amund Grefwe: Den förste boktryckaren i Göteborg. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek i samarbete med Stiftelsen Albert Ekmans fond, 1983. Eriksson, Gunnar, “Olof Rudbeck d.Ä.” In: Lychnos, Uppsala: Lärdomshistoriska samfundet, 1984. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Hansson, Stina, Svensk bröllopsdiktning under 1600- och 1700-talen: Renässansrepertoirernas framväxt, blomstring och tillbakagång. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, 2011. Haugsted, Mogens, “Ældre Danske bogtrykker- og forlæggermærker. I-III.” Fund og Forskning 2 (1955): 39–58; 3 (1956): 44–61; 4 (1957): 7–23. Hedberg, Arvid, “Bokbindare-bokförare i Sverige 1500–1630.” In: Lundahl, Carl, ed., Pro novitate pars secunda: festskrift utgifven af Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreningen till minne af dess 25-åriga tillvaro 1888–1913. Stockholm: Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreneningen 1914, 114–255. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, (1967) 1996. Ilsøe, Harald, Boktrykkerne i København ca. 1600–1810. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek & Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1992. Klemming, G. E. & J. G. Nordin, Svensk boktryckeri-historia 1483–1833. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söners förlag, 1883. Lindberg, Sten G., Svenska böcker 1483–1983. Bokhistoria i fågelperspektiv. Stockholm: Bokbranschens marknadsinstitut, 1983. Lundblad, Kristina, “Föreställningar om förlag. Gränser mellan produktion och förmedling i den svenska bokvärlden, 1600-tal till idag.” Biblis 72 (2016): 3–11. McKerrow, Ronald B., Printer’s & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1949. Nilsson Nylander, Eva, The Mild Boredom of Order: A Study in the History of the Manuscript Collection of Queen Christina of Sweden. (Bokhistoriska skrifter 8) Lund: Lund University, 2011. Nohrström, Holger, Boktryckarmärken i Finland. Helsingfors: Frenckellska tryckeri aktiebolagets förlag, 1925. Poovey, Mary, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830–1864. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. Rinman, Sven, “Förlagsverksamheten.” In: Järv, Harry & Egil Johansson, eds., Den svenska boken 500 år. Stockholm: Liber Förlag 1983, 79–112. Ridderstad, Per, “Tryckpressens makt och makten över tryckpressen: Om tryckerietableringar i det svenska riket 1600–1650.” In: Nilsson, Sten Åke & Margareta Ramsay, eds., 1600-talets ansikte. Nyhamnsläge: Gyllenstiernska Krapperupstiftelsen, 1997, 345–356. Roberts, William, Printers’ Marks: A Chapter in the History of Typography. London & New York: George Bell & Sons, 1893. Rudbeck, Johannes, “Nya bidrag till Västerås äldre boktryckerihistoria.” Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen 3 (1916): 131–141. Rudbeck, Johannes, “Det Rudbeckska tryckeriet i Västerås.” Allmänna svenska boktryckareföreningens meddelanden 6, 4 (1906). Schück, Henrik, Bidrag till svensk bokhistoria. Stockholm: Föreningen för bokhandtverk, 1900. Schück, Henrik, Den svenska förlagsbokhandelns historia. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedts & Söners förlag, 1923. Sellberg, Erland, Art. “Johannes Rudbeckius.” In: Svenske biografiskt lexikon. Vol. 30. Stockholm, 1998–2000, 631 (https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/artikel/6999, 4 March 2017). Sjögren, Arthur, “Ur anteckningsboken, I-II.” Nordisk boktryckarkonst 8 (1907): 427–435. Sjögren, Arthur, “Ur anteckningsboken, V.” Nordisk boktryckarkonst 10 (1909): 13–23.

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Sjögren, Arthur, “Något om äldre svenska bokförläggaremärken.” In: Lundahl, Carl, ed., Pro novitate pars secunda: festskrift utgifven af Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreningen till minne af dess 25-åriga tillvaro 1888–1913. Stockholm: Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreneningen, 1914, 256–275. Sjögren, Arthur, “Vandrande tryckare- och förläggaremärken.” Bibliografiska studier tillägnade friherre Johannes Rudbeck, Stockholm, 1917. Smith, Margaret M., The Title-Page: Its Early Development, 1460–1510. London: The British Library & New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000. Stobaeus, Per, Hans Brask, En senmedeltida biskop och hans tankevärld. Skellefteå: Artos, 2008. Vandeweghe, Frank & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15e en de 16e eeuw binnen de grenzen van het hidige België = Marques typographiques employées aux XVe et XVIe siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle. (Nationaal Centrum voor de Archeologie en Geschiedenis van het boek = Centre National de l’Archéologie et de l’Historire du Livre 5) Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1993. Wendland, Henning, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, 1984. Victoria & Albert Museum, Early Printers’ Marks. London: H. M. S. O., 1962. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2002. Woodmansee, Martha, The Author, Art and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Silvia Hufnagel

Iceland’s Lack of Printer’s Devices: Filling a Functional and Spatial Void in Printed Books during the Sixteenth Century Iceland is in the unique position that no printer’s devices are to be found in printed books from the sixteenth century: of all the books that were printed in Iceland none contains a printer’s device, neither on the title-page nor at the end.1 This perhaps sur­ prising lack stands in close connection with the general development of the printing press in Iceland2 with all its implications. Situated at the Atlantic fringe of Europe and under Danish rule since 1380, Bishop Jón Arason, Iceland’s last Catholic bishop, invited the Swedish printer and clergyman Jón Matthíasson to his bishopric in Hólar in northern Iceland. The exact year of his setting up the printing press is not known, but it must have been after 1525, when Bishop Arason was consecrated, and no later than 1535, when the printer is listed in a document as witness to Bishop Arason’s acquisition of property. Today there is a broad consensus that the printing press was established c. 1530. The first book printed in Iceland is a breviary: Breviaria ad usum ritumque Sacrosancte Holensis Ecclesie [“Breviary to use according to the rite in the holy church at Hólar”], an adaptation of Breviarium Nidrosiense [“Breviary of Trond­ heim”] (Paris, 1519). The last copy of it was burned in the great fire of 1728 in Copenha­ gen, but in 1913 the librarian Isak Collijn at the Royal Library of Sweden in Stockholm discovered that two leaves found in a book binding are indeed from the Breviaria.3 The breviary contained Latin hymns and songs printed in quarto-format, with two columns and 29 lines per page and red headers. Although only fragmentary, it can be dated to 1534. It seems that after the Breviaria no books were printed until the late 1550s, with the northern see still being Catholic until c. 1550, and the southern

1 This article appears as part of the project “Old and New: How Media Influenced Each Other and Society in Iceland during the 16th and 17th Centuries”, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant agreement No 658813. The illustrations are published with kind permission of the National and University Library of ­Iceland, Reykjavík. 2 General research on the printing press in Iceland is published almost entirely in Icelandic, and most of the overviews are based on the publications of Halldór Hermannsson, librarian at the Fiske-collec­ tion at Cornell University Ithaca, which is one of the largest collection of Icelandic books outside of Ice­ land. In this paragraph I thus refer to Hermansson 1930, unless otherwise stated. Hermannsson 1916, i-xii presents a concise overview in English, and Karlsson 2000, 136–137 gives a very short but perhaps more easily accessible overview in English. Hermannsson 1916 is a catalogue of sixteenth-century Ice­ landic books and the main source for this article. For typographic reasons the Icelandic letters þ and ð are replaced with th and d, respectively, except in the citation of primary and secondary literature. 3 Collijn 1914. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-011

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see in Skálholt having been converted to Lutheranism a decade earlier. The Lutheran bishop Gissur Einarsson (1540–1548) received no access to the printing press, which is why he had books printed abroad. In the first few years after 1552, when Ólafur Hjaltason (1552–1569), the first Protestant bishop was appointed in the northern see Hólar, Jón Matthíasson did not print anything, even though he converted, too. The first Protestant book, and the first book printed in Iceland in the Icelandic language, is PASSJO / ÞAT ER PJNJNG VORS HERRA JESV CHRJ=sti [“Passio: This is the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ”] from 1559, unfortunately extant only in a single copy, which lacks furthermore the last few leaves. The printing press was the private property of Jón Matthíasson, and the first few years he worked at Hólar, but was appointed vicar at the church at ­Breidabólstadur some dozen kilometres west of Hólar in 1535. When he died in 1567, his son Jón Jónsson inherited the printing press and became his father’s successor. Bishop Gudbrandur Thorláksson, consecrated in 1571, moved Jónsson and the printing press back to Hólar and ordered paper, ink and other necessities for printing from Copenhagen. Only a few years later the press broke down irreparably, however, and Bishop Thorláksson sent Jónsson to Copenhagen to buy a new press for the bishop. In 1575 printing commenced again. Between 1589 and 1594 the printing press was at the royal farm Núpufell, tens of kilometres east of the episcopal see, where the king granted the printer abode for the printing press.4 In 1594 it was moved back to Hólar, though. Jónsson stayed the main printer until his death in 1616, and Thorláksson became one of the most prolific book publishers of pre-modern Iceland. Unfortunately, many books printed in the early days of the printing press are either fragmentary or not extant anymore. Much is still unknown about the technical work flow and procedures of the printing press, such as who was responsible for the layout. There are also many open research questions in the study of decoration, wood­ cuts and printer’s devices. Concerning the latter, this article will close some gaps. It is important to keep in mind that the printing press came to Iceland at a time when printer’s devices were well established and at the height of popularity. ­Therefore, the bold statement that no Icelandic book contains a printer’s device ought to be put into perspective. The statement is true insofar as no image, neither on a title-page nor at the end of a book, can be interpreted as a visual sign of the printer or publisher of the specific book. There are woodcuts on title-pages, and those that were re-used from other printing houses might even have been printer’s devices earlier on. None, however, were used in the same sense and function in Iceland as on the ­continent. Whereas printer’s devices are signs traditionally used to refer to a printer or publisher or as advertisement of the provenance of the book and its high quality, none of this was necessary in Iceland, a country with one sole printing press until 1770. This printing

4 The fact that there was a printing press at Núpufell is sometimes used as argument for the existence of a second printing press in Iceland, but Hermannsson states that the types in books from the two places are the same and deduces that there was only one printing press that was stationed in different places over the years, cf. Hermannsson 1930, 34–36.



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press was furthermore owned by the Church, and the only ­publisher to speak of was the current bishop, who was in charge of the printing press. Competition of printers and publishers did not exist until much later, which made printer’s devices unneces­ sary. Thus, the questions arise if other factors influenced the lack of printer’s devices and how the available space on the title-page and at the end of a book was used. Beside reasons of market development and book production, there are also eco­ nomic reasons that could have played a role in the absence of printer’s devices.5 The equipment of a printing house was costly, and Iceland was an impoverished country that had little cash flow.6 Even the bishops, who were among the wealthiest people of the island, struggled with the investment that book printing needed, and it is stated several times that the printing press needed updates and new types and other equipment.7 Bishop Thorlákur Skúlason argued with economic reasons in his protest against the erection of a second printing press in Iceland in 1648. According to him, the population did not have enough purchasing power for more books than the ones that he had printed.8 The financing of the famous Biblía from 1584, the first printed Bible translation into Icelandic and nick-named Guðbrandsbiblía after its publisher Bishop Gudbrandur, was only possible because by royal decree each church had to contribute to the costs, while the bishop pre-financed the rest.9 A case in point is the first book printed in Iceland in the Icelandic language, which is also the oldest complete extant book: PASSJO / ÞAT ER PJNJNG VORS HERRA JESV CHRJ=sti, the afore-mentioned translation of volume four of Die Passion Christi [“The passion of Christ”] by Antonius Corvinus (Wittenberg 1537) and printed in quarto-­format in 1559 in Breidabólstadur. Its title-page features an elaborate woodcut depicting the crucifixion: Christ between the two thieves on crosses below a large and splendidly decorated archway. At the top left corner of the arch a cherub holds a shield with the intertwined letters M and S, and at the right corner a cherub holds a coat of arms. The printer of this book was Jón Matthíasson, and the publisher, if one might want to call him so, was Bishop Ólafur Hjaltason. Their initials do not match the one on the woodcut, and Bishop Hjaltason did to my knowledge not have a coat of arms. It seems furthermore unlikely that the woodcut was produced in Iceland.10 Given the close connections of the Bishop11 and printer with Denmark and Sweden,

5 Technical or artistic reasons were, however, unlikely to have played a role. Iceland had talented woodcarvers who produced fine and delicate ornaments, as can be seen in the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavík and various other museums across the country. It stands to reason that they would have been able to produce woodcuts for the printing press. 6 Kvaran 1995, 178. 7 For example around 1685 and 1744, cf. Jónsson 1930, 48–49 and 66. 8 Jónsson 1930, 45. 9 Kvaran 1997, 143. 10 Hermannsson 1930, 32 does not give any explanation to his surmise, but comparision of contem­ porary Icelandic art and craft objects corroborates his statement. 11 He spent some years in Copenhagen, where he was consecrated early in 1552 (Ólason 1948–1952, 4, 52–53).

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Figure 1: Title-page of SOLILOQVIA, Hólar 1599. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík.

the origin of the woodcut might be found there. In Iceland, however, the woodcut was used as decoration and as a visual introduction to the contents of the book, without explicit references to the printer and publisher or woodcutter. Most of the printer’s devices were perhaps also too large for Icelandic books, given the average size of printer’s devices and the most common Icelandic book format. Many printer’s devices measure c. 10 × 15, and the vast majority of the books printed in the sixteenth century are in octavo, with print spaces hardly larger than c. 12 × 7. This does not allow for a title set in several lines, as well as a printer’s device (Figure 1). An example of hindering format is a devotional book from 1599, the title-page of which reads: SOLILOQUIA DE PASSIONE IESU CHRISTI: That is a monologue of the soul with itself, how each Christian man should daily in prayer and lamentation to God consider and reflect on all the gre­ atest sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ and therefrom gain excellent knowledge and wholesome solace in order to live in a godly way and to die in a Christian manner. Compiled from the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the learned fathers [of the Church], and translated from German by Arngrímur Jónsson in the year 1593.12

12 SOLILOQVIA DE PASSIO=NE IESV CHRISTI. Þad er Eintal Salar=ennar vid sialfa sig / Huørsu ad huør christen Madur hann a Daglega j Bæn & Andvarpan til Guds / ad trac=tera og Hugleida þa allra Haleitustu Pijnu og Dauda vors herra Jesu Christi og þar af taka agiætar Kienningar og heilnæ=mar Hugganer / til þess ad lifa / gudlega og deyia Christ=elega. Saman teken vr Gudlegre Ritningu & Scrip­ tis þeirra Gømlu Lærefedra / Enn wr Þyskunne vtlógd Af Arngrime Jons Syne. ANNO. 1593. (Transla­ tion Silvia Hufnagel and Matthew James Driscoll).



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This book is in octavo and has a print space of c. 11.5 × 7 cm. As can be seen, the text goes over 19 lines. Even if it were set in justified or left-aligned print the size and format of the book would still not allow for a printer’s device. When titles are shorter, the blank space of the title-page could be filled with woodcut ornaments, however, out of 49 title-pages13 only 24, or approximately half, are equipped with woodcuts. Eight of them are the same medallion that depicts the Church reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) in his later years, bareheaded and wearing a high-­necked coat or ­waistcoat with a white shirt and dark bow underneath,14 and were used between 1589 and 1619. Whether the medallion can be interpreted as a printer’s or publisher’s device is doubtful, because the picture does not offer any obvious connection to a printer and seems too general for a bishop. Although all books that have this portrait on the title-page are of a religious or theological nature and thus in some way linked with Martin Luther – Iceland has been a Lutheran country since c. 1550 – only three of them are used for texts directly linked with the reformer, such as the ­catechism from 1594. Given this and the fact that the Church owned the printing press and only issued religious, theological and liturgical works, the medallion of Luther seems rather a decorative tool, not a symbol or reference to the contents. It is furthermore more plausible that its frequent use was also due to size and economic reasons, insofar as it was small enough for books in octavo and only few other ornaments were available. It was more common, though, to fill the spatial void on the title-page with text, ­particularly with citations from the Bible, from where 20 title-pages cite short passages. Only three title-pages contain both a portrait and a Bible verse: the two editions of ­Summaria [“Summary”] from 1589 and 1591 and Vm Eida og Mein=sære [“On oaths and ­perjuries”] from 1596. These Bible citations show, however, that the space on title-pages allocated to printer’s devices in other countries can be used for something else than identification and advertise­ ment: moral and religious edification. The space that printer’s devices take up was thus harnessed for a very different function, one which was perhaps more fitting for ecclesiastical publications. Information on the place of publishing and often also on the printer is rather ­mentioned in a colophon at the end of a book than in a printer’s device. The bulk of ­Icelandic manuscripts from the sixteenth century contain this information. Of 43 extant books, four lack the last leaves. Of the remaining 39, all but 12 contain a

13 Of the oldest book, the Breviaria from 1534, and of a catechism from 1576 we have no information on their title-pages, which is why they are not included in the counting. Several books have, however, multiple title-pages, all of which are included. 14 This particular portrait type of Luther was created around 1539, most likely by Lucas Cranach the younger (1515–1586) (Schuchardt 2003, 24). It seems possible that the Icelandic woodcut goes back to the woodcut “Martin Luther” by Lucas Cranach, inventory number DG 1929/248, dated 1546, now in the graphic collection of the Albertina, Vienna, online available at Sammlungen online, samm­ lungenonline.albertina.at/?query=Inventarnummer=[DG1929/248]&showtype=record (accessed 1st July 2016).

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c­ olophon, i. e. more than two thirds.15 There is furthermore a clear historical develop­ ment discernible, which might be in connection with a general strong increase in printing activity. It seems that as time went on and the printing press got better estab­lished, the focus was turned away from individual people towards more general remarks about printing. Up until 1594 15 out of 17 books contain a colophon that informs us about the name of the printer and the place and day of printing. From 1595 onwards colophons get rarer – contained in only 10 out of 22 books – and more general; usually only the place and year of production are mentioned. The end of a book was similarly void of printer’s devices in Icelandic books of the sixteenth century. Information on book ornaments, particularly tail-pieces, is rather sketchy and inconsistent,16 but based on digital images of c. 20 books,17 or half of the sixteenth-century books from Iceland, it seems that many of them have t­ ail-pieces at the end of the main text. In some cases their function seems to be to fill an otherwise blank space and can thus be purely decorative. When analysing all parts of the books it becomes clear, however, that such ornaments are often used to divide between the various parts of the book, particularly between text and peritext, to use Gérard Genet­ te’s term.18 As such they are visual markers of different levels of contents, as can be seen in the law book Lógbok Jslendinga [“Law book of Icelanders”], printed in Hólar in 1578. On the verso page of the title-page a woodcut represents a man with crown and nimbus and with three loaves of bread in his right and a halberd in his left hand, behind him lies some sort of animal with a long tail and a crowned human head.19 The introduction following is concluded with an ornamental woodcut. The law text is divided into several sections, all of which end without ornaments, except the final section on theft (Thjófabálkur), which is concluded with the same ornamental woodcut as the preface. The register following the law sections ends with a different woodcut. The last page of two sections of law amendments bears a third ornament, similar in style to the ornament at the end of the register. A comparison of specific sections across different law books comprises the last part of the book. On the final page the colophon is printed, followed by the same woodcut that was used at the end

15 One of the four books without extant last leaves is the third edition of Iceland’s lawbook, whose two previous editions contain a colophon, and another book most likely contained a colophon as well, since later sources inform us about the day and place of printing. The number of colophons was thus likely higher than my counting. 16 Hermannsson 1916 lists ornaments often, but not always, and in inconsistent terminology. 17 The National and University Library of Iceland in Reykjavík digitised most sixteenth-century books in its collection and made them available in open access at www.baekur.is (accessed 1st July 2016). The site provides chronological search functions. The Royal Library of Denmark in Copenhagen houses many early Icelandic books as well, but does not offer digital images in open access. 18 A peritext is information that accompanies the main text within the book and mediates it to the reader, such as titles, forewords, notes and epilogues. Together with the epitext, i. e. information on the main text outside the book, such as letters about the main text, it forms the paratext (Genette 1997). 19 The bottom right corner bears the year 1535, and the top left corner is taken up with a St. Anthony bell between the initials CT, referring to the Dutch artisan Cornelius Teunissen (Hermannsson 1916, 22).



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of the preface and law text. The woodcuts clearly distinguish not just between the various textual parts but also between levels of content. The full-page woodcut depict­ ing the crowned man and the human-headed beast mark the importance of the book, similar to full-page illuminations of medieval Gospel manuscripts,20 and functions as the visual opening of the law text, which it faces when the book is opened. The introduction is deemed as much an important part of the law book as the proper law text itself, and is thus concluded with the same ornament, which is also the largest ornament in the book. The register and amendments are additions to the law text and feature slightly smaller and stylistically different ornaments. The comparison with other law books at the end of the publication does not feature an ornament at its end, however, the last sentence is at the bottom of the page. There is thus simply no space for a separate ornament. The colophon with the concluding woodcut ornament takes up the last page of the publication. The ornaments in this law book are thus not just visual markers of various parts, but also graphic distinctions of different levels of textual content (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Colophon and ornamental woodcut on p. 550 of Lógbok, Hólar 1578. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík.

Printer’s devices were not alien to the Icelandic audience, however, as books printed abroad for an Icelandic audience do indeed contain such marks. Six of the seven oldest

20 It was a common feature of English Gospel manuscripts from the seventh to the tenth century that each Gospel had a full-page illumination of the evangelist facing the textual beginning of the Gospel (Nix 1994, 7).

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books were printed in either Germany or Denmark, and several of them bear printer’s devices, such as the publication of an Icelandic translation of Antonius Corvinus’ Postilla , printed by Ludwig Dietz in Rostock in 1546 in octavo-format. It bears several printer’s devices. The first title-page bears a woodcut border with Dietz’ motto Dorheit macht Arbeit [“folly creates work”], the second title-page bears the motto Amor omnia vincit [“love conquers all”]. On the verso of the latter there is a framed printer’s device with the motto Redemptoris mundi arma [“the weapons of the redeemer of the world”]. On the bottom of the device are two winged angels, each holding a coat of arms. The right coat of arms is blank, but the left one bears a globe divided into three zones with a six-pronged star on top, which forms an integral part of all of Dietz’ devices (Figure 3).21

Figure 3: Ludwig Dietz’ printer’s device on p. 238 of Postilla, Rostock 1546. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík.

It cannot be fully ascertained if the Icelandic audience understood the devices in their original meaning or if they just considered them as part of the decoration or visual content. It is safe to assume, however, that the printers and publishers in Iceland knew the function of the devices. It becomes therefore clear that they deliberately used the space that is elsewhere used for printer’s devices for different means. By filling it with Bible verses the space was used for moral and educational ­edification, and woodcut ornaments provided visual distinctions between texts and peritexts and between various levels of textual content. Icelandic books of the sixteenth century thus used the functional and spatial place of printer’s devices in very pragmatic and useful ways.

21 Cf. Wendland 1984, 243–244.



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List of Illustrations Figure 1: Title-page of SOLILOQVIA, Hólar 1599. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík. Figure 2: Colophon and ornamental woodcut on p. 550 of Lógbok, Hólar 1578. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík. Figure 3: Ludwig Dietz’ printer’s device on p. 238 of Postilla, Rostock 1546. © The National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavík.

Bibliography Primary sources Biblia Þad Er / Øll Heilóg Ritning / vtlógd a Norrænu. Med Formalum Doct. Martini. Lutheri. Prentad a Holum / Af Jone Jons Syne. M D LXXXIIII. Hólar 1584. Fol. “Breviaria ad usum ritumqve Sacrosancte Holensis Ecclesie, jam prius impressa, impensis ac mandatis insignibus, reverendi in Christo patris et Domini, Domini Joannis Arneri ejusdem Ecclesie Episcopi felix faustumqve adepta sunt exordium.” Hólar 1534. 8vo. [only fragmentary extant, title cited after Halldór Hermannsson 1916, 1.] “Catechismus þad er ein stutt Utlagning Catechismi skrifut a latinu fyre Norska Soknarpresta af Doct. Petro Palladio 1541, nu ad nyiu yfersiedur og prentadur 1576 [af] G Th.” Hólar 1576. 8vo. [title-page lost, title cited after Halldór Hermannsson 1916, 19.] Catechismus Þad er / Christeligur Lærdomur / Fyrer einfallda Presta og Predikara og Hwsbuendur / D. Mart. Luth. Hólar 1594. 8vo. Lógbok Jslendinga / Hueria saman Hefur Sett Magnus Noregs Kongr / Lofligrar minningar / So sem hans Bref og Formale vottar. yferlesin Epter þeim Riettustu & ellstu Løgbokum sem til hafa feingizt. Og Prentud epter Bon og Forlage Heidarligs Mans Jons Jons sonar Lógmans. 1578. Hólar 1578. 8vo. PASSJO / ÞAT ER PJNJNG VORS HERRA JESV CHRJ=sti / j sex Predikaner vt skipt af Antoio Coruino. Breidabolstadur 1559. 4to. Postilla. Stuttar vtskyringar þeira / Gudzspialla sem a ol=lum Sunnudogum, kringvm arit predikut verda. Samansettar fyre fatæka soknar Presta oc husbuendur / af vir=diligum manne / D. An=tonio Coruino. Enn a norrænu vtlagdar af mier Odde Gotzskalkzsyne. Prentadar i Raudstock af Ludowick Dietz. M. D. XLVI. Rostock 1546. 8vo. SOLILOQVIA DE PASSIO=NE IESV CHRISTI. Þad er Eintal Salar=ennar vid sialfa sig / Huørsu ad huør christen Madur hann a Daglega j Bæn & Andvarpan til Guds / ad trac=tera og Hugleida þa allra Haleitustu Pijnu og Dauda vors Herra Jesu Christi og þar af taka agiætar Kienningar og heilnæ=mar Hugganer / til þess ad lifa / gudlega og deyia Christ=elega. Saman teken vr Gudlegre Ritningu & Scriptis þeirra Gømlu Lærefedra / Enn wr Þyskunne vtlógd Af Arngrime Jons Syne. ANNO. 1593. Hólar 1599. 8vo. Summaria Yfer þad Gamla Testamentid. Þad er / Jnnehalld og meining sierhuers Capitula / Og huad Madur skal af sierhuerium Capitula hellst læra. Samsett af Vito Theodoro. Vtlagt a Jslendsku af Gudbrande Thorlaks syne. Sæler eru þeir sem ad heyra Gudz ord og vardueita þad Luc. XI. Núpufell 1591. 4to. Summaria Yfer þad Nyia Tes=tamentid. Þad er. Jnnehalld / Meining og Vnderstada Malsins / Og Þær sierlegustu Lærdoms greiner / sem eru / j Sierhuerium Capitula / Skrifadar j Þysku Male

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af Vel lærdum Manne Vito Theodoro / Sem var Predikare Gudligs Ordz j þeim Stad Norenberg j Þyska Lande. A Jslendsku Vtlagdar af Gudbrande Thorlaks Syne. Coloss. III. Latid Christi Ord Rijkugliga byggia a medal ydar med allre Visku. 1589. Núpufell 1589. 4to. Vm Eida og Mein=sære / Huad hrædeleg Synd þad sie fyrer Gude ranga Eida ad sueria. Ei mun Drotten Orefstan vera laata / þann sem misbrukar hans Nafn. Exod. xx. M D XC vj. Hólar 1596. 8vo. Cranach, Lucas the younger. 1546. “Martin Luther.” Inventory number DG 1929/248, woodcut and letterpress printing, Sammlungen online of the Albertina, Vienna. Accessed 1 July 2016. sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=Inventarnummer=[DG1929/248]&showtype=record. National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavik. 2016. “Baekur.is.” Accessed 1st July 2016. www.baekur.is.

Secondary literature Collijn, Isak, “Två blad af det förlorade Breviarium Nidrosiense, Hólar 1534.” Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen 1 (1914): 11–16. Genette, Gérard, Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. Foreword by Richard Macksey. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hermannsson, Halldór, Icelandic books of the sixteenth century, 1534–1600. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Library, 1916. Hermannsson, Halldór, “Prentsmiðja Jóns Mattíassonar.” Almanak 36 (1930): 21–37. Jónsson, Klemens, Fjögur hundruð ára saga prentlistarinnar á Íslandi. Reykjavík: Félagsprentsmiðjan, 1930. Karlsson, Gunnar, Iceland’s 1100 years: The history of a marginal society. London: Hirst & Company, 2000. Kvaran, Böðvar, Auðlegð Íslendinga: Brot úr sögu íslenzkrar bókaútgáfu og prentunar frá öndverðu fram á þessa öld. Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 1995. Kvaran, Guðrún, “Die Anfänge der Buchdruckerkunst in Island und die isländische Bibel von 1584.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 72 (1997): 140–147. Nix, Linda, “Early medieval book design in England: The influence of manuscript design on the transmission of texts.” In: Myers, Robyn & Michael Harris, eds., A millennium of the book: Production, design & illustration in manuscript & print 900–1900. Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1994, 1–24. Ólason, Páll Eggert, Íslenzkar æviskrár frá landnámstímum til ársloka 1940. 5 vols. Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 1948–1952. Schuchardt, Günter, “Luther seitenrichtig – Luther seitenverkehrt? Die Bildnisse im Leben und im Tod – Werkstattprinzip und Werkstattprivileg Cranachs und seiner Mitarbeiter.” WartburgJahrbuch (2003): 9–30. Wendland, Henning, Signete: Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlüter, 1984.

Part C: Concepts, Historical and Systematic

Bernhard F. Scholz

The Truth of Printer’s Marks: Andrea Alciato on “Aldo’s Anchor”, “Froben’s Dove” and “Calvo’s Elephant”. A Closer Look at Alciato’s Concept of the Printer’s Mark It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub-Librarian appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird’s eye view of what has been pro­ miscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own. From: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851).

Introductory Analyses of Early Modern printer’s marks of the type we have come to label “human­ ist” of late1 usually focus on what is depicted by the woodcut or engraving placed on the title page, and on the secondary meaning carried by what has thus been identi­ fied as the res picta of the printer’s mark under consideration. Questions about the “truth” of the res picta, epistemic questions about the kind of knowledge and the beliefs expressed by the pictures and texts of such printer’s marks, and about the evidence and the justification assumed to be available for them are rarely if ever raised in this context. The reason for thus neglecting questions concerning the “truth” of what is being represented pictorially by a printer’s mark, and of focusing on questions of meaning instead would appear easy enough to find. It can be seen as a corollary of a general modern tendency to identify literature with fiction that can at least be traced to Early Modern arguments back and forth whether or not the poet was a liar. The position that early on won the day, which involved throwing out the epistemic baby with the mendacious bathwater was given memorable form in Sir

1 Anja Wolkenhauer speaks of Early Modern “humanist” printer’s marks if contemporary recipients were able to relate them to images and texts from the humanist pictorial and textual canon (Wolken­ hauer 2002, 47). DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-012

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Philip Sidney’s (1554–1586) Apology for Poetry (1595): “the poet he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth.”2 The following reading of Andrea Alciato’s observations on three printer’s marks, Aldo’s Anchor, Froben’s Dove and Calvo’s Elephant, the first two really existing marks, the third an imaginary one, is an attempt at recovering some of that bathwater, and at demonstrating that we will not be able to obtain an adequate understanding of Alciato’s concept of the printer’s mark unless, besides accounting for its semantics, we also pay close attention to its epistemic implications.

Alciato’s References to Aldo’s, Froben’s and Calvo’s Printer’s Marks When Andrea Alciato undertook to explain to his printer-friend Francesco Calvo (d. 1548) why he had chosen the expression “Emblemata” as the title [titulus] of his book of epigrams in a by now famous letter dated 9 December 1522, he did so with the help of examples from what nowadays would be called the “applied arts”: using the descriptions of objects from history or nature offered by his epigrams, Alciato suggests to Calvo, craftsmen working in various materials could produce specimens of scuta, i. e. badges that people put on their caps or use as insignia, printer’s marks. In each of his epigrams, Alciato tells Calvo, he had described something either from history or from nature, which may signify [significet] something tasteful /refined [elegans]. On the basis of this (i. e. of these descriptions) painters, goldsmiths and metal founders can produce the kind of objects we call badges [scuta], and (either) attach to our caps, or employ as printer’s marks [insignes], like Aldo’s Anchor, Froben’s Dove and Calvo’s Elephant, which has been pregnant for such a long time, without giving birth to anything.3

It goes without saying that Alciato’s justification for using the expression “Emblemata” as the title for his epigrams could only have become plausible for Calvo if the latter was already aware of the fact that the terms “emblema”, “scutum” and “insigne” could be used interchangeably in certain contexts. One such context is adumbra­ ted by Alciato through mentioning the property of “describing something either for history or nature, which may signify something refined”, which he explicitly claims for his epigrams and tacitly predicates of scuta used both as badges on caps and as

2 Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry or The Defence of Poesy, ed. Shepherd 1973. 3 [...] singulis enim epigrammatibus aliquid describo, quod ex historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus aliquid elegans significet, unde pictores, aurifices, fusores, id genus conficere possint, quae scuta appellamus, et petasis figimus, vel pro insignibus gestamus, qualis Anchora Aldi, Columba Frobenii, et Calvi elephas tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens. (Barni I953, 46, letter 24 to Francesco Calvo, Milan, 9 December 1522).



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printer’s marks. Alciato apparently also saw no need to provide Calvo with specific examples of scuta as attached to caps. Perhaps he thought that being told that they were “attached our caps” was enough for the latter to realize that these were the kind of imprese or devise, which had first appeared on the Italian scene during Charles VIII of France’s 1494–1495 Italian campaign, had baffled an eye-witness of the siege of Milan under Louis XII in 1499, Alessandro Benedetti (1450–1512),4 but had soon after become the rage with the Italian nobility. Half a century later, when owning one or more imprese had become a must with the nobility not only of Italy, Paolo Giovio was to recall those early French beginnings of the Italian rage for imprese in his Dialogo dell’Imprese (1555): But in our own time, after the arrival of King Charles VIII and of Louis XV in Italy, everybody who belonged to the military sought to adorn himself with beautiful and splendid imprese by imitating the French officers [...].5

In the case of the scuta used as insignia Alciato does provide Calvo with three examples. He only refers to them as “Anchora Aldi”, “Columba Frobenii” and “Calvi Elephas”. But for a printer like Calvo,6 we may take it, that much information was all that was needed to let him identify at least the first two as the printer’s marks used by two of his famous fellow printers, Aldus Manutius (1449–1515) of Venice (Figure 1), and Johannes Frobenius 1460–1527) of Basle (Figure 2), with the former’s Anchor (plus Dolphin) by then so well known that it was being adopted by a number of other printers as an indication that they were working to “Aldine” standards in their own printing activities (Figure 3).7

4 On what very likely is the earliest extant written eye-witness account of the appearance of a devise on the Italian scene in the wake of Charles’ campaign, and on the difficulty of that eye-witness, Ales­ sandro Benedetti, with “reading” that device properly, see my “Paolo Giovio als symbolorum pater: Zur Erfassung einer neuen Gattung durch die topische Poetik der Frühmoderne.” (Scholz 2007) In: Frank, Kocher & Tarnow 2007, 67–101. 5 “Ma à questi nostri tempi doppò la uenuta del Re Carlo Ottavo, & di Ludouico XV. in Italia, ogniuno [sic] che seguitaua la militia, imitando i Capitani Francesi, cerco di adornarisi, di belle, & p ­ ompose ­imprese [...]” (Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell’Imprese Militari e Amorose. Rome 1555, p. 6). Kirsten ­Lipinkott 1990, 49–76 has argued for an earlier arrival of the Impresa in, tracing it to contacts with the courts of Anjou and Burgundy. 6 Francesco Calvo himself worked in Rome from 1520 to 1533, and in Milan from 1539 to 1542. See Barberi 1974, www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-giulio-calvo . On the titles printed/published by Calvo see Barberi 1952, 57–98. 7 Ludwig Volkmann, in an appendix on “Hieroglyphen und Embleme in den Drucker- und Verleger­ zeichen”, lists five printers in France alone who used versions of Aldo’s mark: Jehan de Channey of Lyons and Avignon, 1510–1536; Ambrois Brillard of Bourges, around 1580; Robert Coulombel of Paris, 1578–1627, with even the retention of Aldo’s name; Bernard Turrisan of Paris; Antoine Tardif of Lyons, around 1580 (Volkmann 1923, 118–124). For reproductions of these printer’s marks see Volkmann’s source, Silvestre 1853 & 1867 (available through Internet Archive). The printer’s mark of the English publisher William Pickering

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 Bernhard F. Scholz

Figure 2

Figure 3 from as late as 1828 is a telling example of the enduring role of Aldo as an exemplary printer. It consists of a replica of Aldus Manutius’ Anchor and Dolphin, with the inscriptio “Aldi discip. Angl.” [“Aldo’s English Dis­ ciple”], indicating Pickering’s admiring stance towards Aldus (fig. 2). See Roberts 1893, 132. For a detailed discussion of the role of Aldo’s printer’s mark as an archetype of the Early Modern humanist printer’s marks see Wolkenhauer 2002, 165–185. – That following in the footsteps of Aldus Manutius did not always take place bona fide is bemoaned by Erasmus in his Festina Lente – adagium where he speaks of “some filthy printers” [“sordidi quidam typographi”] who make use of Aldo’s name for their own inferior products (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Adagiorum Chiliades (Adagia Selecta) ed. Welzig 1972, 490–491).



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In the case of these two printer’s marks Alciato apparently only needed to mention the names of their owners to Calvo, together with a single salient feature of the overall pictorial composition of each printer’s mark – Aldo’s Anchor, but not the Dolphin wound round its stem, and Froben’s Dove, but not the Caducaeus it was poised on – to make him understand what he was talking about, and why those marks and the epigrams of his “Emblemata”, could be subsumed under the joint heading of “describere aliquid, quod ex historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus aliquid elegans significet”. No need, it seems, to go into further detail about the complex two-level mode of signification involved in that manner of description. No need either to explicitly mention any of the relevant attributes of the Anchor, the Dolphin, the Dove or the Caducaeus depicted in those marks, which in this case formed the “material” basis ex historia (Anchor, Caduceus), vel ex rebus naturalibus (Dove, Dolphin) for the signifying of “aliquid elegans”, which Alciato had in mind for the objects described in his epigrams.8 Calvo, we may take it, was expected to know how printer’s marks functioned in general, and Aldo’s and Froben’s marks in particular. All the more striking, then, that in the case of “Calvi Elephas”, supposedly Francesco Calvo’s own insigne, Alciato did not leave it at just identifying the mark by mentioning its owner, Calvo, together with the “Elephant” as the salient feature of the mark, as he had done in the case of “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”. If Alciato had only meant to further clarify his use of the expression “emblema” with yet another example he could surely have chosen as his third example an insigne that was as real, perhaps also as familiar as “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”. Instead, in addition to identifying the mark attributed to Calvo as “Calvi Elephas”, he now also names the relevant attributes of the Elephant supposedly depicted in Calvo’s mark: “diu parturiens, nihil pariens” [“pregnant for long, (yet) not giving birth to anything”]. Would Calvo, one wonders, not have been only too familiar with that attribute of his own Elephant insigne, even more so than with the relevant attributes of Aldo’s Anchor and Froben’s Dove, which Alciato tacitly expected him to be familiar with? With “Calvi Elephas”, after all, Alciato was referring to the insigne, which Calvo himself would have had to have chosen to be printed on the title pages of the books that already had come off his press or were currently being printed. And what to make of Alciato’s apparent insinuation that this piece of knowledge about the relevant attribute of Calvo’s Elephant was one that he shared with Calvo? For why did he not simply refer to the relevant attribute of “Calvi Elephas” as “diu parturiens, nihil pariens”, but as “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”? “Calvi Elephas”, Alciato seems to be suggesting, was not just preg­ nant “for a long time”, but “for such a long time”. Calvo was apparently supposed to know just how long “tam diu” was. So it looks as if Alciato’s interest in Calvo’s insigne was not just “generic” as it had been in the case with Aldo’s and Froben’s

8 For a detailed analysis of this form of signification on the basis of attributes or qualities see Meier 1974, 385–435.

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printer’s marks, when those marks served him as examples for a claim he wished to make about the mode of signification of the epigrams of his own Emblemata. Refer­ ring to “Calvi Elephas” besides “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”, one gets the impression, Alciato was not just interested in a third example of how insignia were assumed to signify. The message he apparently wished to communicate was a specific one tied up with the attribute “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” ascribed to Calvi Elephas. But Calvo would undoubtedly have realized straight away that “Calvi Elephas” could not possibly have been referring to either of his own two printer’s marks, both of which displayed images of the allegorical figure of Roma, together with one or the other additional attribute frequently associated with that figure (Figures 4 and  5).

Figure 4

Figure 5

Both of them would therefore have satisfied Alciato’s “describo, quod ex historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus aliquid elegans significet”, and he could then have identified either of them, certainly to Calvo himself, as “Calvi Roma”. But the only image of an animal to be found among Calvo’s printer’s marks was that of the Capitoline Wolf sucking Romulus and Remus, not, however, that of an Elephant.9 With so many unknowns about “Calvi Elephas” on our hands –“known un­knowns”, they would famously have been called a few years ago – we may wish take up an old suggestion put forward, apparently independently of each other, by Karl Giehlow (1863–1913) and by Ludwig Volkmann (1870–1947) a century ago, and consider the possibility that with his reference to “Calvi Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” Alciato wished to tease Calvo for his habit of falling behind with his printing schedule. According to Giehlow, Alciato’s description of Calvo’s Elephant was meant as a “joke” [“Witz”] by Alciato about the often mocked slowness of his

9 For an overview of Early Modern Italian printer’s marks see Vaccaro 1893. On Calvo’s printer’s marks see 119 & 180; Zappella 1986. On printer’s marks depicting an Elephant see 156–158.



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friend in business matters”,10 according to Volkmann as a “poke [‘Stichelei’]” at Calvo’s measured slowness [...], which eventually led to Alciato’s choice of differ­ent printers”.11 Unfortunately neither Giehlow nor Volkmann tell us on what grounds they thought that Alciato’s description of “Calvi Elephas” was to be read as a “Witz” and a “Stichelei”. Did they believe that “Calvi Elephas” referred to an actual printer’s mark owned by Calvo, just as “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii” referred to printer’s marks owned by Aldo and Froben respectively? In that case the attribution of that printer’s mark to Calvo would have had to involve a somewhat malicious rendering of the properties of the Elephant depicted in Calvo’s insigne as “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”. Or did they realize that there never was such a printer’s mark as “Calvi Elephas”, and that Alciato had made it up himself in order to tease Calvo? In that case, too, the question to be answered would be: How exactly was Alciato’s “Witz” resp. “Stichelei” supposed to have worked if it “only” involved an imaginary insigne suppos­edly depicting an Elephant described in terms of its presumed attributes? In contrast to Giehlow and Volkmann who had viewed all three insignia mentioned by Alciato as printer’s marks, albeit with the true nature of Calvo’s left uncertain, Anja Wolkenhauer more recently suggested that the reference to “Calvi Elephas” did not refer to a printer’s mark at all, but “clearly to Calvo’s ‘personal’ device, which was never put to use as a mark in connection with printing, and about the pictorial realization of which, if it was ever undertaken, nothing is known.”12 But with devices, according to contemporary views, adopted by their bearers for the express purpose of displaying their noble minds and intentions,13 with devices thus typically exhibiting a first-per­ son point of view of their bearers concerning themselves, one can’t help wondering whether any self-respecting person, whether he was a prince, a courtier or a human­ ist printer, would have chosen for himself a personal device with as self-deprecating a sensus literalis as the one attributed by Alciato to Calvo’s presumed “Elephant”: “elephas tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”, an elephant that has been pregnant for so

10 “[...] während der Elefant des Calvi ein Witz des Alciat über die immer wieder bespöttelte geschäft­ liche Langsamkeit seines Freundes ist.” (Giehlow 1915, fasc. 1, 141). 11 “eine in den Briefen mehrfach vorkommende Stichelei auf dessen bedächtige Langsamkeit, die den Alciati schließlich anderen Verlegern zuführte”. (Volkmann 1923, 41). 12 “Bei Calvos Elefanten handelte es sich offensichtlich um eine ‘private’ Devise, die niemals als Werkmarke im Buchdruck eingesetzt wurde und deren bildliche Umsetzung, wenn es sie gab, unbe­ kannt ist.” (Wolkenhauer 2002, 55, note 141). 13 Paolo Giovio in 1551, in the introductory section of his Dialogo dell’Imprese Militari e Amorose (Rome 1555, p. 3) speaks of the imprese that the “nobilissimi Caualieri à nostri tempi sogliono portare nella nella sopra ueste, barde, & bandiere; per significare parte de lor’ generosi pensieri.” [“the impre­ sas which in our own time the most noble cavaliers wear on their coats, their arms and their banners in order to something of their generous thoughts”]; Claude Paradin in 1551, discussing what devises are about, speaks of “le grans Rois, Princes, Potentaz; lesquelz ayans de tout temps, en leurs sublimes esprits, les Ombres ouu Idees de Vertu.” (Claude Paradin, Devises heroiques. Lyon 1551, p. 3).

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long without giving birth to anything. For what he would then have been saying about himself, the sensus moralis of his insigne, would have been something like “I take so much time with what I do; and yet I produce nothing in the end”.14 So, was Alciato, rather than referring to Calvo’s actual personal device, perhaps mischievously suggesting to Calvo that in view of his failure to deliver on time, “Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” would be a suitable personal device for him? But if so, wouldn’t he then have subsumed “Calvi Elephas” under the “genus [...] quae scuta appellamus, et petasis figimus”, i. e. under that of the device, rather than under that of the insignia exemplified by “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”? With “Calvi Elephas” de facto subsumed under scuta used as printer’s marks, rather than under scuta attached to caps, it would seem more likely that with “Calvi Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” Alciato was suggesting to Calvo a s­ uitable printer’s mark, one that would highlight his shortcomings as a printer, just as “Anchora Aldi” with the motto “Festina lente” was a suitable printer’s mark for Aldo, highlighting, as it did, the latter’s renown as a printer. Since, for all we know, there never was a printer’s mark owned by Francesco Calvo that could properly be referred to as “Calvi Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”, and since there does not appear to have existed another sixteenth century Italian printer by the name of “Calvo” besides Alciato’s friend and correspondent Francesco Calvo; since, furthermore, it is most unlikely that Calvo himself would have adopted “Calvi Elephas” as referred to by Alciato either as his personal device or as his printer’s mark; and since, finally, Alciato placed “Calvi Elephas” among the printer’s marks, rather than among the badges he mentioned in his letter to Calvo, the most plausible reading of Alciato’s reference to “Calvi Elephas” would appear to be that it was indeed the name of an imaginary printer’s mark thought up by Alciato himself for a reason other than that of illustrating by means of yet another example the characteristic manner in which the descriptions offered by his Emblemata were to be read. If that is indeed a plausible train of reasoning, which might prompt us to accept Karl Giehlow’s and Ludwig Volkmann’s claims about Alciato’s Witz or Stichelei against Calvo, the question that still needs to be answered is – given the character­istic manner in which devices and printer’s marks make their point about their bearers and owners – how an imaginary rather than a real printer’s mark like “Calvi Elephas” would have made its point about Calvo. Was “Calvi Elephas” just a clever metaphor modeled on “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”, with its additional rhetorical

14 The relatively few Italian printer’s marks from the sexteenth century with images of an Elephant that have come down to us all have mottos that suggest a positive sensus literalis attached to the depic­ ted Elephant, thus allowing for an equally positive sensus moralis: “Principis Amor, Civium Felicitas” [“Love of the Prince, Happiness of the Citizens”], “Tarde Sed Tuto” [“Late, but surely”], “Non Sine Spe” [“Not without Hope”]. (See Tuzzi 2009, 120–121).



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thrust deriving from the opposition, familiar perhaps from everyday experience, of “tam diu” and the “nihil”? Or did that opposition rely for its thrust on something like a generally accepted cultural fact that was capable of giving it considerably more weight than a fact from everyday experience would have been able to? Trying to answer such questions, all we have to go by is Alciato’s brief epistolary reference to the object supposedly depicted in that insigne, and to its salient attrib­ ute: “Calvi Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”. In contrast to “Anchora Aldi”, where the pictorial representation of the object mentioned can be encountered on the printed page, and where the pertinent motto “Festina Lente”, though not visually present on the page, would have been immediately familiar to an educated reader,15 in contrast also to “Columba Frobenii”,16 where the pertinent mottoes in Hebrew, Greek and Latin are indeed visually present as an integral part of the design of the printer’s mark, there is in the case of “Calvi Elephas” neither a pictorial representation availa­ ble nor a motto. In terms of Aristotelian hylomorphism, which Paolo Giovio was to put to use three decades later, when he applied the body-soul distinction to the impresa, and ruled on the conditions an impresa had to meet if it was to be considered per­ fect,17 “Calvi Elephas”, as described by Alciato, lacks both the obligatory pictorial real­ ization of the “body” and the equally obligatory textual realization of the “soul” of a proper scutum.18 And yet, Alciato could apparently take it for granted that what little he had to say to Calvo about the fictive “Calvi Elephas” would suffice to drive home the point he wished to make about the latter’s quality as a printer. In the absence of a motto accompanying “Calvi Elephas”, and of an image depicting it, all we have to go by in the attempt to understand how Alciato made his point is the attribute ascribed to the Elephant by Alciato. Can we contextualize Alciato’s reference to that attribute in such a way that those of its material implications will become apparent, which would have allowed Calvo to understand how “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” was meant to relate to his dubious qualities as a printer?

15 For a detailed discussion of Aldo’s Anchor in relation to the motto Festina lente’ see Wolkenhauer 2002, 35–43. 16 For a detailed discussion of Froben’s Dove and its trilingual motto see Wolkenhauer 2002, 199–215. 17 On Paolo Giovio’s use of the body-soul distinction in his analysis of the five conditioni an impresa had to satisfy if it was to be considered perfect, and the subsequent interpretation of that paired met­ aphor in terms of Aristotelian hylomorphism see Scholz 2007. 18 See Giovio’s first conditione according to which an impresa must have “giusta proportione d’anima & di corpo” [“a just proportion of soul and body”], and the concluding observation of that “la sopra­ detta anima & corpo s’intende per il motto, ò per il soggetto” [“that by the abovementioned soul and body are to be understood the motto or the subject of the image”], and that “si stima che mancando ò il soggetto all’ anima, ò l’anima lo soggetto, l’impresa non riesca perfetta,” [“that if either the soul is lacking a pictorial subject, or the pictorial subject a soul, the impresa is not to be judged perfect”]. (Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell’ imprese militari et amorose. Rome 1555, p. 9).

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The “Truth” of a Device For printer’s devices like “Anchora Aldi”, “Columba Frobenii” or “Calvi Elephas” to make their point about their respective owners, just as for imprese and devices to make theirs about their noble bearers,– and, in their wake, for emblems to substantiate their claims about the ways of the world – it was necessary that the pictorially real­ ized assertions could be accepted as true that were put forward, explicitly or implicitly, about the attributes of the objects depicted and described.19 Only if there was demonstrable truth to what was being claimed about the anchor and the dolphin of Aldo’s mark, or about the serpent and the dove of Froben’s, could the accompanying mottos stand as practicable maxims of action.20 Only then would the superimposed and additional “significare aliquid elegans”, which Alciato viewed as a generic char­ acteristic of both kinds of scuta, and as a specific characteristic of the epigrams of his Emblemata, have a foundation in rebus, and hence amount to more than just a fanciful figurative use of words and images. However, with “demonstrable truth” regarding the attributes of an object depict­ ­ed or described, (still) predominantly a matter of (inter)textual rather than e­ mpirical evidence during the first half of the sixteenth century, i. e. a matter of evidence gar­ nered from authoritative texts rather than from observation and experiment, objects “ex ­historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus” like the ones depicted in a printer’s mark, would have to be ultimately traceable to certain authoritative enabling texts, both for the proof

19 On the truth claims put forward by emblems and devices see ch. III,1, 247–269 (“Ontologie oder Semantik. Zur Bestimmung des ‘Verhältnisses zur Wirklichkeit’ in der neueren Emblemtheorie.”) of my Emblem und Emblempoetik. Berlin 2002 (Scholz 2002). On the relation of truth claims put forward and moral norms proposed see ch. III,3, 303–333 (“Didaktische Funktion und Textkonstitution im Emblem.”). 20 That, it will be recognized, is a semantic reformulation of Albrechts Schöne’s attempt (Schöne 1964, 25–29) to account for the “relation to reality” [“Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit”] of the emblem ontologically, and in terms of what he called the “potential facticity of the content of the image” obligatory [“potentielle Faktizität des Bildinhalts”]. The pictura of the emblem, together with any other “depic­ tive” [“abbildend”] elements of the text, Schöne suggested, “denotes [“...”] what factually or at least possibly exists, what one perhaps does not necessarily have before one’s eyes always or as yet, but what could possibly at any time enter one’s field of vision and experience.” But apart from the fact that it is hard to see how the class of objects thus circumscribed might differ from Hegel’s famous night in which all cows are black, i. e. apart from the fact that Schöne’s class of objects possessing “potential facticity” thus circumscribed does not appear to leave room for any objects not possibly possessing it, it is the textual rather than empirical orientation of Early modern culture, which suggests that in order to find out the truth about objects like “Anchora Aldi”, “Columba Frobenii” or “Calvi Elephas, diu parturiens, nihil pariens” we must look for texts in which that truth is expressly put forward, rather than ask whether those animals possess “potential facticity”. If we decide to stick with the ontological approach we should at least adopt an historical approach to ontology and ask when and for whom an object possessed such “potential facticity” – only to find ourselves once again confronted with the need for textual rather than empirical evidence.



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that they did indeed exist, and that they did indeed possess the attributes claimed for them. Adapting for our purposes the suggestion that different kinds of images require differently habituated ways of seeing on the part of their viewers, ­different “epistemic virtues”, if they are to be “read” properly, which Lorraine Daston and Peter Galiston recently put forward in their ground-breaking study of the emergence of the notion of objectivity in the sciences, we might describe the epistemic virtue that was commensurate with Mid-Sixteenth-Century depictions (and ­descriptions) of objects “ex ­historia, vel ex rebus naturalibus” capable of signifying “aliquid elegans” as characterized by the fact that it was predominantly geared towards truth-­from-­ traditional authority rather than truth-from-observable fact.21 The eye practiced to properly “read” devices, printer’s marks and emblems, i.  e., the eye in possession of the a ­ ppropriate epistemic virtue, when encountering “Anchora Aldi”, “Columba Frobenii” or “Calvi Elephas” would habitually approach those printer’s marks with the tacit understanding that, if needed, the veracity of these descriptions and/or depictions could be established not through recourse to empirical fact, but through recourse to an authoritative ­enabling text.22 As for “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii”, the requisite enabling texts would have been close enough at hand for a printer of books by Humanist authors like Fran­ cesco Calvo.23 He could in fact have turned to the very text from which Alciato himself had in all likelihood obtained his information about those two insignia, namely Erasmus’ Adagia.24 Erasmus had devoted the longest of his Adagia to the proverb “Festina lente”, (1001– II,1,1), telling there of a coin in Aldo’s possession which the latter himself had once shown to him: What was represented on that coin was this: on the face it has the portrait of Titus Vespasianus and an inscription; on the reverse there is depicted an anchor around the middle-part of which, its stem, so to speak, a dolphin winds itself. As can be gathered from the extant remains of

21 Daston and Galison 2007, 17–53. 22 See Descartes’ explicit rejection of the use of authoritative texts in Regula III of his Regulae ad directionem ingenii, and his decision to search for knowledge in “le grand livre du monde” instead. (Discours de la Méthode, § 14). 23 Leaving aside Erasmus’ commentaries in the Adagia, the earliest modern analyses of Aldus Manu­ tius’ and Johannes Froben’s printer’s marks would appear to be those offered by Ludwig Volkmann’s Bilderschriften der Renaissance (Volkmann 1923, 71–74). Very likely the final word on both printer’s marks is to be found in the analyses of Anja Wolkenhauer’s magisterial Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Wolkenhauer 2002) 165–185 (Aldus Manutius) and 199–215 (Johannes Froben). For a perceptive discussion of the importance of Erasmus’ Adagia as a source for sixteenth century devices, emblems, and printer’s marks see also Wesseling 2008, 87–133, esp. 88–99. 24 For the influence of Erasmus’ Adagia on Alciato see Callahan 1973, 133–141; Callahan 1995, 241–254 does not discuss the use Alciatomade of printer’s marks mentioned in Erasmus’ Adagia when he at­ tempted to clarify his use of the expression “emblema”.

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hieroglyphics, this symbol has exactly the same meaning as Caesar Augustus’s motto: “Make haste slowly”.25

And if Alciato and Calvo had the Venice 1508 edition of the Adagia published by Aldus Manutius before them they would in addition have found there both on the title page and on the last page an imprint of the very insigne “Anchora Aldi”. Erasmus’ adagium on “Festina lente” thus could be understood as a tracing of the pedigree of both the verbal motto/device and its pictorial counterpart from its original owner, Caesar Augustus, via Titus Vespasianus’s coin, to a prominent contemporary owner of a spec­imen of that coin who also not only happened to be the present user of the motto for his insigne but also the current publisher of the Adagia, namely Aldus Manutius. Erasmus’s authority thus would have furnished the guarantee for the correctness of that pedigree through the text of his adagium. In the case of Froben’s Dove, too, Alciato could have obtained the relevant infor­ mation from Erasmus’ Adagia, and Calvo could have turned there for clarification. If they had access to a copy of one of the several editions that Froben officially pub­ lished at Basle from 1515 onwards,26 they would have found there, now together with Froben’s rather than Aldo’s insigne on the title page, a lengthy reference to Froben’s insigne newly inserted into the original text, which contained learned ramblings on Aldo’s “Festina lente”, explaining its meaning, and relating it to Aldo’s insigne: If the Northern princes were to favor good learning as honestly as the Italians, the serpents of Froben would not be so far from the riches of Aldus’ dolphins. Aldus, making haste slowly, gained both riches and fame, and deserved both; Froben, holding his staff erect, looking to nothing but usefulness to the public, not losing the simplicity of the dove while he expresses the wisdom of the serpent (better, it is true, in his trade-mark than in his actions) – Froben has amassed less money than fame.27

25 Nomismatis character erat huiusmodi: altera ex parte faciem Titi Vespasiani cum inscriptione prae­ fert, ex altera ancoram, cuius medium ceu temonem delphin obvolutus complectitur. Id autem ­symboli nihil aliud sibi velle quam illud Augusti Caesaris dictum “speude bradeos” indicio sunt monimenta ­literarum hieroglyphicarum. (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Adagiorum Chiliades (Adagia Selecta), ed. Welzig 1972, 464–512, quotation on 473–475). 26 In 1513 Froben had come out with a pirated version of Aldo’s 1508 Venice edition, which was meant to, and did indeed succeed in convincing Erasmus of his qualities as a printer, and in making his decide to transfer the publication of the Adagia to Basle. On Erasmus’ printers for subsequent editions of the Adagia see Mann Philips 1964. 27 Quod si pari candore principes Cisalpini prosequerentur honesta studia cum Italis, Frobeniani serpentes non tantum abessent ab opibus Delphinis Aldini. Ille lente festinans non minus auri sibi peperit quam nominis, utroque dignus; Frobenius, dum baculum semper erectum gerit, non alio spectans quam ad publicam utilitatem, dum a columbina simplicitate non recedit, dum serpentum prudentiam magis exprimit insigniis suis quam factis, fama potius dives est quam re. Erasmus, Adagium 1001, transl. Mar­ garet Mann Phillips, in: Mann Philips 1964, 187.



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Equating doves with simplicity and snakes with prudence, and reading Froben’s prin­ ter’s mark in accordance with that equation, Erasmus was simply repeating the gen­ erally accepted interpretation, which had as its ultimate source a passage from the New Testament: “Estote prudentes sicut serpentes et simplices sicut columbae” [“Be ye there­ fore wise as serpents and harmless as doves”] (Matthew 10:16).28 This reading involved fore-grounding two elements of the overall pictorial composition consisting of staff, snakes and dove, caduceus, and identifying the relevant attribute of each of those two elements, namely “prudens” [“wise”] for the serpent, and “simplex” [“harmless”] for the dove. It thereby secured the “facticity”, and at the same time supplied the textual basis for the motto derived from Martial, “Prudens simplicitas amorque recti” [“Prudent simplicity, and love of what is right”], which, in contrast to Aldo’s “Festina lente”, however, did regularly accompany the pictorial rendering of “Columba Frobenii”.29 With textual rather than empirical support thus a precondition for the proper functioning of an insigne, an authoritative text confirming that “diu parturiens, nihil pariens” was indeed one of the salient attributes of the Elephant would therefore have to be readily available to secure for “Calvi Elephas” the same kind of textually based epistemic footing that “Anchora Aldi” and “Columba Frobenii” did indeed possess. Only if that condition was met would “Calvi Elephas” fall in line with the other two insignia mentioned by Alciato. And only then would Alciato have been right in point­ ing out that mark as the third example of a specific mode of signification that relied on the truth of its descriptions and depictions in order to be able to make its practical point figuratively. As Ludwig Volkmann was the first student of printer’s marks to show, “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”, the attribute of “Calvi Elephas” mentioned by Alciato can indeed be traced to one of Erasmus’ adages.30 But among the numerous adages that mention the Elephant either in the title and the body of the text, or in the body only,31 there is only one that might possibly have supplied Alciato with material for his inven­ tion of “Calvi Elephas”, and then only with material for the first part of the attribute ascribed to Calvo’s Elephant: “Celerius elephanti pariunt” [“(Even) Elephants give birth faster”] (811. I,ix,11) There is no mention of one or more of these long pregnant elephants never giving birth:

28 See Engle 1929, 204–208, esp. 204. 29 Froben’s motto is thought to be a combination of a line each from two of Martial’s Epigrammata, Bk. X: “prudens simplicitas” (xlvii,7) and “amorque recti” (lxxviii,2). On Froben’s insigne see also Bie­ tenholz et al. 1985, 60–63; Wolkenhauer 2002, 199–215. 30 Volkmann 1923, 41. 31 Mentioned in the title: 811.I,ix,11; 869.I,ix,69; 870.I,ix,70; 966.I,x,66; 1456.II,v,56; 1890.II,ix,90; 2027.III,i,27; 3562.IV,vi,62; mentioned in the body of the text: 564.I,vi,64; 844.I,ix,44; 878.I,ix,78; 1800. II,viii,100; 1882.II,ix,82;2215.III,iii,15; 2601.III,vii,1; 3001.IV,i,1; 3509.IV,vi,9; 3676.IV,vii,76.

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Some people think that one should also include among adages a phrase used by the elder Pliny [quod scriptum est apud Plinium Secundum] in the preface to his History of the World: ‚As for scholars’, he says, I have always expected to find them in travail with a reply to my publications in the field of scholarship, and for ten years now there has been a miscarriage from time to time, though even an elephant would take less time to produce its young. “Such are Pliny’s words, and they authorize us to use this phrase of his to express undue delay and the excessive time some people take to get under way. Besides which, on the gestation of elephants we have Plautus in the Stichus: ‚Oft have I heard it said, an elephant / For ten long years with young will pregnant be.” With this Pliny, book 8, concurs: ‚That they carry their young in the womb for ten years is widely believed, though Aristotle thinks they take two years to produce their offspring, never more than once and one at a birth. Theophrastus records a tree in India that does not bear for its first hundred years. Latin uses parturire, to be in travail, of those who make preparations and are always planning to produce something. And so we can always put the adage in this form: “And when, may I ask, do you finally expect to produce what you have been in travail with for so many years now, that no elephant could take longer?”32

With these detailed remarks on “Celerius elephanti pariunt” Erasmus, it should be noted, departs from his usual practice of offering a learned commentary on an already existing proverb. For “Celerius elephanti pariunt” is, properly speaking, not a proverb yet. It is, as Erasmus himself puts is, “a phrase used by the elder Pliny” of which some people, himself included, think that it should become a proverb. His remarks on “Celerius elephanti pariunt” therefore are not meant to trace the origins of an established usage; they only suggest, one might put it, what textual sources “Celerius elephanti pariunt” might draw on if it were used as a proverb, and if it were commented on as a proverb in the fashion of the Adagia. Erasmus’ point of departure for his suggestion for a new adage with the wording “Celerius elephanti pariunt”, was a passage from Pliny’s preface to his Natural History, which, in turn, was Pliny’s own applicatio to his personal situation of a passage on the Elephant from the body of the text of his Natural History (Book 8, ch. 10). That applicatio focuses on just one the many attributes of the Elephant listed in Pliny’s chapter on the Elephant, namely on the Elephant’s remarkably long period of gestation. With no established context of use for the adage-to-be as yet available, Erasmus proposes

32 Celerius elephanti pariunt. Sunt quibus hoc quoque inter adagia videtur adnumerandum, quod scriptum est apud Plinium Secundum in praefatione Historiae mundi. Nam de grammaticis, inquit, semper expectavi parturiri adversus libellos meos, quos de grammatica edidi et subinde abortus fecere jam decem annis, cum celerius etiam elephanti pariant. Hactenus Plinius. Itaque cunctationem immodicam et quorundam nimis lenta molimina his verbis licebit significare. Porro de elephantorum partu Plautus in Sticho: “Audivi saepe hoc vulgo dicier /Solere elephantum gravidam perpetuo decem/ Esse annos.” Huic astipulatur Plinius libro octavo: Decem annis gestare in utero vulgus existimat. Etiamsi Aristoteles biennio parere putat nec saepius quam semel singulos gignere. Theophrastus refert arborem quandam Indicam non ferre ante centum annos. Latinis parturire dicuntur, qui moliuntur animoque destinant aliquid. Proinde licebit adagium etiam in hanc vertere formam Quando tandem paries, obsecro, quod tot jam annos parturis, ut nec elephanti diutius? (Collected Works of Erasmus. Adages I vi 1 to I x 100, transl. and annot. by R.A.B. Mynors. Toronto/ Buffalo/ London 1989, 183–184. [0811 – I.9.11]).



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one that amounts to a generalization of Pliny’s personal applicatio. As authorized by Pliny, Erasmus suggests, the phrase “Celerius elephanti pariunt” could be used “to express undue delay and the excessive time some people take to get under way.” And, as if wishing to secure that new context of use, Erasmus even suggests a little stretch of dialogue in which the phrase from Pliny’s preface might be put to use as an adage: “When, may I ask, do you finally expect to produce what you have been in travail with for so many years now, that no elephant could take longer?” Alciato must have been familiar with Erasmus’ suggestion for a new adage based on Pliny when he thought up the insigne “Calvi Elephas” for the purpose of reproach­ ing Francesco Calvo for his failure to live up to his publishing commitments. For he had used Erasmus’ actual wording “Celerius elephanti pariunt” in an earlier letter to Calvo dated 19 December 1520, again with the intent of criticizing the Calvo, and this time adding for good measure the name of a runner, “Callipides” from Classi­ cal Antiquity, which, according to another of Erasmus’ Adagia, could be used pro­ verbially [“proverbio”] for someone who despite great effort doesn’t get much done. He had something to be published by him, Alciato lets Calvo know, “if you could only be expected to publish. Elephants give birth faster than you, clearly a [another] Callipides.”33 The manner in which Alciato could thus make use of allusions to the Elephant’s period of gestation, and to the name of “Callipides” next to each other in his letter, without, apparently seeing any need to clarify what he meant by them, gives us yet another glimpse of the cultural stock in trade he must have shared with his correspondent. But “Celerius elephanti pariunt”, as it had been commented on as an adage-to-be by Erasmus, and as it had subsequently been used by Alciato in an earlier letter, could clearly only account for the first part of Alciato’s description of Calvi Elephas, “tam diu parturiens”, not, however, for the second part, “nihil pariens”, without which his Stichelei would miss much of its bite. Did Alciato spontaneously add “nihil pariens” to what he found in Erasmus, perhaps because the contrast of “diu parturi­ ens” and “nihil pariens” spontaneously struck him as a felicitous expression of the insight that something that was a long time in the making did not necessarily have to yield something satisfactory in the end? Or was there some textual support for “nihil pariens” also that might have lent it the kind of learned appeal that “diu parturiens” would undoubtedly have possessed for Alciato and for Calvo due to its connection with Erasmus’ “Celerius elephanti pariunt”, authenticated by Pliny the Elder and the other auctores mentioned by Erasmus?

33 [...] alios libros edas, si modo editurus es. Celerius pariunt elephanti, quam tu, plane Callipides. Letter of December 10, 1520, in Barni 1953, 10–16, quotation on 12.

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Natural History and Its Truth Claims Alciato, it can be shown, could not possibly have obtained a suitable attribute of the Elephant supporting the “nihil pariens”-part of his description of “Calvi Elephas” by quoting a passage from Erasmus or from Erasmus’ source, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, or from any other Classical writer on Natural History. The reason for this is that the very logical form of statements discussing the salient attributes of the Elephant – or of any other animal, for that matter – in the relevant texts on Natural History, while allowing for statements that would allow supporting the claim con­ cerning “diu parturiens”, did not allow for statements from which “nihil pariens” could be derived. To see that, one has to remember that what all of those texts – from Aristotle’s On the Generation of Animals, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, the Greek and the Latin Physiologus, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum Naturale, Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Tresor, Thomas Cantimpraten­ sis’s Liber de natura rerum, Bartholomaeus Anglicus’s De Proprietatibus rerum, and many others like them, right up to Conrad Gesner’s Mid-Sixteenth Century ­Historiae animalium – have in common is that they constitute their various objects of observa­ tion and description as so many species rather than as individuals. They do this by using expressions like “the Lion”, “the Elephant” or “the Partridge” for the purpose of naming species rather than individuals, i.  e. they use them as generic species-­ names. That, trivially enough, will result in general statements that are taken to be implicitly true of all the individuals that can be subsumed under the name of the species under consideration. But it will not yield any singular statements about those individuals qua individuals.34 As a glance at any of the texts on natural history just mentioned will reveal, that generalizing tendency characteristically mani­ fests itself in the use of chapter headings containing formulations like “de proprie­ tatibus [...]”, “de natura [...]”, “les propriétés du [...]”, “la nature du [...]”. The claims then put forward concern the “essential” attributes only of the objects under con­ sideration, i.  e. the attributes that are thought to account for their very “nature”. All statements actually contained in those texts, one might tentatively wish to put it in modern terminology, involve predications implicitly prefixed by a universal quantifier.35 ­Statements about accidental and about individual properties, that is,

34 That this also true of the objects depicted and described in devices, and, in their wake, emblems was stressed by William Drummond of Hawthornden in an undated letter published under the title “A Short Discourse on Impresa’s and Anagrams.” Speaking of the several stars depicted in a device Drummond tells his correspondent noble correspondent that he should see those stars “in genere” or “in specie”, but not “in individuo”. (See my “The Brevity of Pictures. Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cen­ tury Views on Counting the Figures in Impresas and Emblems.” In: Plett 1994, 315–337). 35 In the rare case of a text discussing the “essential” attributes of a unique mythological animal like “the Phoenix”, i. e. of an animal of which only one exemplar is thought to exist, that same gener­ alizing tendency manifests itself in statements about what that animal does forever, and at certain



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statements about the properties of one or the other individual of a species – like this particular eagle’s suffering from vertigo, or that particular lion singing the world into existence (about whom C. S. Lewis has written so memorably36) – would there­ fore not be admissible. But assuming the implicit presence of a universal quanti­ fier in statements such as these would lead to an interpretation of the characteristic form of generalizing discourse one encounters in the theoretical texts on Natural History, but also in the Aesopian Animal Fable, or in the Physiologus, which focuses too much on the opposition of universal and singular statements. An interpreta­ tion not forcing the issue of that opposition, and thus one more in keeping with the manner in which the form of generalizing discourse under consideration actually functioned in the context of Natural History, would have to reconstruct it as offering “generic” generalizations about the objects described, rather than universal ones, i. e. as generalizations along the lines of “cats catch mice”, “ducks lay eggs” or “rats are intelligent”. Such generalizations do indeed involve statements about what are considered generically normal or stereotypical cases.37 But, in contrast to universal generalizations, they do allow for exceptions – a mouse-weary cat, a duck averse to laying eggs, a stupid rat, a long-pregnant elephant never giving birth – while at the same time highlighting the fact that such exceptions, if they were to be found, would be abnormal cases indeed due to the fact that they would be out of line with their own “nature”.38 In view of this generalizing form of discourse employed in the texts of Natural History the two attributes of the Elephant mentioned by Alciato in his description of “Calvi Elephas” – “diu parturiens” and “nihil pariens” – if he did indeed obtain them from there, could only have come from three generic generalizations: (1) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time”, (2) “Elephants never give birth” (=“No Elephant ever gives birth”), and, joined together, (3) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time, and never give birth”. All three would clearly have satisfied the generality requirement. But, as evidenced by Erasmus own proof texts for his adage-to-be from Aristotle, Pliny the Elder and Plautus, and by numerous other writers on natural history, only (1) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time” did indeed find its way into the textual

intervals of time: “There is a bird in India, which is called Phoenix; After 500 years it comes to the trees the Lebanon and fills its wings with incense [...] And the bird comes to Heliopolis, filled with in­ cense, and climbs the altar and lights a fire and burns itself. And the following day the priest searches the altar and finds a worm in the ashes. And on the second day it gets feathers and is found out to be a young bird. And on the third day one finds it like before, and its greets the priest and flies off, and returns to its old abode.” (Peters 1898, 66). 36 Lewis 1950. 37 For an interpretation of “generic” generalizations as involving cultural stereotypes see e. g. Geurts 1985, 247–255. 38 For a detailed discussion of generic as opposed to universal generalizations see the lemma “Generic Generalization” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/generics/

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corpus of Natural History. The other two, (2) “Elephants never give birth” (= “No Elephant ever gives birth”), and, joined together, (3) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time, and never give birth”, despite the fact that they both meet the generality requirement, could not have done so since both of then contradicted the generally accepted truth that the Elephant’s manner of procreation involved live births, in con­ trast, for example to the Phoenix’s manner on procreation. A fourth statement from which the two attributes “diu parturiens” and “nihil pariens” might possibly have been derived, would have had to be a variant of (3) in which an existential quantifier had been inserted: (4) “There is an Elephant that is pregnant for a long time, and (but) does not give birth.” But, needless to add, as prefixed with the existential quan­ tifier, that statement would not have been suited for inclusion in the generalizing texts of Natural History. Classical, Medieval and Early Modern Natural history did indeed have an interest in the singular mythological Phoenix rising from the ashes at regular intervals; but, for all we know, it was not interested in a singular Elephant with a reproduction problem. But although there was thus no room in the texts of Natural History for either a general or a singular statement from which Alciato could have taken his “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” directly and integrally, there was indeed room for a con­ junction of two general statements that could have served him as a contrastive foil for the single statement implied by his description of “Calvi Elephas”. It was a ­conjunction of a general statement about the duration of the Elephant’s period of gestation – “Elephants are pregnant for a long time, namely two years” – and one about the Elephant’s number of offspring – “elephants have only one offspring at a time” – both of which had their origin in Aristotle’s and Pliny’s chapters on the Elephant: (5) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time, and then give birth to one calf only.” Through being quoted and attributed to Aristotle and/or Pliny over and over again that statement became so recurrent in the texts of Medieval and Early Modern Natural History that mentioning one of the two claims to someone with only a passing acquaintance of contemporary animal lore would very likely have led to a recall of the other claim also. To that two-part statement a third one mentioned by Pliny but not by Aristotle was occasionally added about the Elephant’s total number of pregnan­ cies during a lifetime – “elephants only give birth once during their lifetime” – thus yielding a three-part variant (5’) “Elephants are pregnant for a long time, give birth only once during their lifetime, and then to one calf only.” As a recent article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society suggests, the claim about the Elephant’s lengthy duration of gestation in conjunction with the claim about single births, but with the third claim that the Elephant gives birth once only omitted, is still capable of sup­ plying ­twenty-first century research in zoology with an issue worth investigating.39

39 Lueders et. al. 2012, 3687–3696. As with Aristotle the problem, the following section from the ab­ stract suggests, is still how to explain the singleity of the offspring in relation to the long period of



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The “Truth” of the Printer’s Mark “Calvo’s Elephant” Since Erasmus meant his “Celerius elephanti pariunt” to serve as an adage to be used figuratively for censuring an activity that went on much longer than it should, he understandably only “needed” the first of the two usually paired attributes of the Elephant’s long period of gestation and single offspring when he assembled his com­ mentary. So mentioning also the second of the paired attributes was not necessary since the applicatio he associated with “Celerius elephanti pariunt” did not require accounting in any way for the eventual “outcome” of the undue delay. In this Erasmus had followed Pliny who, likewise, had only referred to the Elephant’s long period of gestation in the Preface of his Natural History when he wished to ward off the protract­ ­ed criticism by some “carping critics” of an earlier book of his on grammar: I, indeed, freely admit, that much may be added to my works; not only to this, but to all which I have published. By this admission I hope to escape from the carping critics, and I have the more reason to say this, because I hear that there are certain Stoics and Logicians, and also Epicureans (from the Grammarians I expected as much), who are big with something against the little work I published on Grammar; and that they have been carrying these abortions for ten years together – a longer pregnancy this than the elephant’s.40

But in the chapter on the Elephant in the body of Natural History, we have seen, both attributes, plus several others, are mentioned explicitly.

gestation: “Despite being a monovular species, 2–12 corpora lutea (CLs) were found on the elephant ovaries during their long pregnancy lasting on average 640 days. However, the function and the for­ mation of the additional CLs and their meaning remain unexplained. Here, we show from the example of the elephant, the close relationship between the maternally determined luteal phase length, the formation of multiple luteal structures and their progestagen secretion, the timespan of early embry­ onic development until implantation and maternal recognition. Through three-dimensional and Co­ lour Flow ultrasonography of the ovaries and the uterus, we conclude that pregnant elephants main­ tain active CL throughout gestation that appear as main source of progestagens. Two LH peaks during the follicular phase ensure the development of a set of 5.4 ± 2.7 CLs. Accessory CLs (acCLs) form prior to ovulation after the first luteinizing hormone (LH) peak, while the ovulatory CL (ovCL) forms after the second LH peak. After five to six weeks (the normal luteal phase lifespan), all existing CLs begin to regress. However, they resume growing as soon as an embryo becomes ultrasonographically apparent on day 49 ± 2. After this time, all pregnancy CLs grow significantly larger than in a non-conceptive luteal phase and are maintained until after parturition. The long luteal phase is congruent with a slow early embryonic development and luteal rescue only starts ‚last minute’, with presumed implantati­ on of the embryo.” www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22719030 , www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3415912/ 40 Plinius, Naturalis historia, praef. 28: Ego plane meis adici posse multa confiteor, nec his solis, sed et omnibus quos edidi, ut obiter caveam istos Homeromastigas (ita enim verius dixerim), quoniam audio et Stoicos et dialecticos Epicureosque – nam de  grammaticis semper expectavi – parturire adversus libellos, quos de grammatica edidi, et subinde abortus facere iam decem annis, cum celerius etiam elephanti pariant.

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The vulgar notion is, that the elephant goes with young ten years; but, according to Aristotle, it is two years only. He says also that the female only bears once, and then a single young one; that they live two hundred years, and some of them as much as three hundred. The adult age of the elephant begins at the sixtieth year.41

Pliny here explicitly appeals to the authority of Aristotle who in De Generatione Animalium had discussed the Elephant’s single birth in Bk. IV, 4, the size of its fetus in Bk. IV, 5, and its two-year period of gestation in Bk. IX, 10. But there is a significant dif­ ference between Pliny’s and Aristotle’s accounts of the Elephant’s attributes, which may have had some influence on the manner in which those attributes would have been remembered. Aristotle, in keeping with his belief that to know something was to know it by means of its causes,42 had attempted to link the various attributes of the Elephant causally: it was – in the last resort – a consequence of the Elephant’s large size that its calf was so large, that the period of gestation lasted very long, and that only one offspring was born at a time.43 Pliny, though allegedly reporting the facts “accor­ ding to Aristotle”, only offers a listing of the attributes mentioned by his source: “[...] according to Aristotle [...]”, “Aristotle says also that [...], and that [...], and that [...]”, while leaving out all of the causal links that had been of such central impor­tance to Aristotle. When it came to remembering and recalling those attributes, the differ­ ence between Pliny’s purely descriptive and enumerative account, and Aris­totle’s causally explanatory one, would undoubtedly have played a role of some import­ ance. Remembering and recalling those attributes on the basis of Pliny’s account, the nexus between the Elephant’s long pregnancy and single offspring would have been a rather weak one since the only linkage between them would have been the fact that that both had been mentioned by Pliny as attributes of the Elephant. Remembering and recalling them on the basis of Aristotle’s account, by contrast, the causal links claimed to exist between the various attributes would have made for a much stron­ ger, and, hence, much more memorable nexus. And being thus linked, one attribute would have materially implied the other: since attribute “a”, therefore necessarily also attribute “b”, and therefore necessarily also attribute “c”. So if Alciato did indeed mean to produce with his description of “Calvi Elephas” as “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”, a “Stichelei” of the sort diagnosed by Volkmann, a recollection on Calvo’s part of a link between the two attributes along Aristotle’s lines would undoubtedly have allowed the “nihil pariens” to acquire its polemical force more easily than one along Pliny’s merely additive listing.

41 Plinius, Naturalis historia 8, 10, 28: Decem annis gestare in utero vulgus existimat, Aristoteles biennio nec amplius quam semel gignere pluresque quam singulos. vivere ducenis annis et quosdam CCC. iuventa eorum a sexagesimo incipit. 42 Aristotle, Posterior Analytic, Anal. Post. 94 a 20. 43 Aristotle, Generation of Animals, Bk. IV, chs. 4 & 5 & 10 (771a20–771b14; 773b6–773b8; 777b1– 777b17).



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There is a good chance that Andrea Alciato, the Humanist iurisconsultus, and Francesco Calvo, the learned printer and publisher of works of Classical and Human­ ist literature,44 would have been familiar with either or both of Aristotle’s or Pliny’s version of the Elephant’s attributes, even without having been alerted to them through Erasmus’ commentary on “Celerius elephanti pariunt”. But in the absence of addi­ tional reception documents we cannot rule out the possibility that they derived their knowledge of the Elephant’s characteristic attributes from an altogether ­different later source, perhaps not even from a particular textual source at all, but from the anonymous “cultural text” of Early Modern common knowledge about animals in general, and about the Elephant in particular. That we may postulate the existence of such an anonymous “text” is suggested by the fact that the two attributes of the Elephant, either causally linked as with Aristotle, or simply listed additively, as with Pliny, were a ubiquitous feature of Medieval and Early modern animal lore. Thus, to give just a few examples, we encounter them, in the company of several other attributes, in some versions of the Physiologus: “They are pregnant for two years, and they do not produce young more than once, and then not several but only one”,45 in Isidore of Seville’s (ca. 560–636) Etymologiae: “But they carry their young for two years, and they give birth no more often than once only, and not several times; and they live for three hundred years”46 – in Medieval B ­ estiaries 47 like Hugh of St. Victor’s (ca. 1096–1141) Liber de Bestiis or Vincent of Beauvais’s (1190–1264?) Speculum Naturale, appealing to Isidore’s authority: “But they are pregnant for two years, and they do not give birth more often than once, and not to several

44 In a letter to Martin Luther dated 14 February 1519 Calvo’s fellow printer Johannes Froben calls him a vir erudissimus et Musis sacer, bonam libellorum partem in Italiam deportavit per omnes civitates sparsus. [“a most learned man, consecrated to the Muses, who brought many [of Luther’s] books to Italy and scattered them over all the communities”] (In: Daniel Gerdes, Specimen Italiae reformatae. Leiden, 1765, p. 5; quoted in Max Rubensohn, Griechische Epigramme und andere kleine Dichtungen in deutschen Übersetzungen des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Weimar, 1897, p. xlviii, note 1). For titles published by Calvo see Barberi 1952, 57–98. 45 British Library MS. Harley. 3244, v.29 (http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3244). Theobaldus’s version of the Physiologus is similar: Aversi coeunt, cum sibi conveniunt. Atque semel pariunt, quamvis tot tempora vivunt, (Hoc est tercentum) nec faciunt geminum. Ast unum generans et per duo tempora gestans, Cum parit, in magna, ne cadat, extat aqua. [“[...] when they meet with each other they mate in seclusion; and they bear offspring only once, although they live so many years (three hundred in fact), and they do not produce twins. But conceiving one offspring, and carrying it for two years, it stands [i. e. the female elephant] up in deep water when it gives birth so as not to fall.”] (Theobald, Theobaldi , ed. Eden 1972, 66–67. (http://www.staff.uni-giessen. de/gloning/tx/theobald.htm). 46 Isid. orig. 12,2,16, ed. Lindsay 1911 [biennio autem portant fetus, nec amplius quam semel gignunt, nec plures, sed tantum unum; vivunt [autem] annos trecentos [...].]. 47 Hugh of St. Victor, De Bestiis et aliis rebus libri quartuor, vol. II, ch. 26: Biennio portant fetus, nec amplius quam semel gignunt, nec plures, sed unum tantum. Vivunt autem trecentos annos. (Hugh of St. Victor, Opera Omnia, ed. Migne, 1841–1865, 75).

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(young), but only to one.”48 Similar passages can be found in Guillaume le Clerc’s ­(thirteenthcentury) Bestiaire Divin,49 in Brunetto Latini’s (1220–1294) Li Livres dou Tresor,50 and many other similar encyclopedic works, with Aristotle, Pliny and Isidore of Seville f­ requently conjured up for auctorial support. That the Elephant’s attributes, first identified by Aristotle and Pliny, still possessed much of the hermeneutic poten­ tial ascribed to them by the Physiologus and the Bestiary tradition by the middle of the seventeenth century, despite the fact that by then there had been doubts that the Elephant really did possess all those attributes, can be gathered from the chapter on the Elephant in Filippo Picinelli’s Mundus Symbolicus of 1637. There the section dealing with the generation of the Elephant is prefaced by a doubtful “Even if it should not be true that the Elephant give birth to but one single offspring,” but that attribute, tradi­ tionally ascribed to the Elephant, is still capable of supporting the emblematic motto associated by Picinelli with the Elephant: “Semel, et unum” [“Once and One”].51 The combination of a lengthy period of gestation and a single birth must have appeared remarkable enough in comparison to what was known about other animals to deserve special stressing. Chapters on the Elephant in texts from Classical, Medie­ val and Early Modern treatises on Natural History and in Bestiaries frequently organ­ ize their listing of its essential attributes in a manner that invites reading them as foregrounding a contrast between the long period of gestation of the Elephant, and the fact that the female Elephant bears once only, and gives birth to one calf only.52

48 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, Bk. 19, ch. 44 (“De coitu elephantorum & generatione”): Biennio autem fetus portant: nec amplius que semel gignunt: nec plures: sed unum tantum. 49 “La femele [...] / Porte deus ans, quant ele est preinz./ Idonques foone e nent einz,/ Ne jamais nule, [...]/ N’enfantera que une feiz./Ne donc n’avra que un foon.” [“The female carries for two years when she is pregnant. Then she gives birth to only one calf, never none. She gives birth only once. So she will have only one calf.”] (Le Bestiaire. Das Thierbuch des Normannischen Dichters Guillaume le Clerc, ed. Reinsch 1890, p. 362, lines 3190–3195). 50 Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou tresor, ed. Chabaille 1863, livre I, part. V, ch. 189, p. 244: “[...] et en­ gendrent 1 fil sanz plus, et ce n’est que une foiz solement en toute lor vie, et si vivent bien 200 ans.” [“[...] and they produce only one son, and that happens only once during their lives, and they live for 200 years.”]. 51 Etsi verum non sit, Elephantem unâ solum vice parturiere; unicamque tantum eniti prolem; certe enim Elephantum species hâc ratione jam sub ipsum mundi coepisset interire; Mariae tamen Virgini illud naturae prodigium, parturienti Elephanti a quibusdam attributum, verissime & ex omnium sententia competit; quippe cujus proles ex primogenita, & unigenita, sine ulla parissimae Matris labe, in lucem est edita. Emblemati subscribes; SEMEL, ET UNUM. (Filippo Picinelli, Mundus Symbolicus. Vol.  1. ­Cologne 1687, lib. 5, cap. 19, par. 282, p. 375). 52 That contrast, however, is not always present. Occasionally, e. g. in Thomas of Cantimpré [Tho­ mas Cantimpratensis 1201–1272] Liber de natura rerum (T.C., Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de Natura Rerum. Editio princeps secumdum codices manuscriptos. Pt. I: Text, ed. H. Boese. Berlin & New York, 1973, Bk. IV, 33: De elephante, 126–131), Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ De Proprietatibus Rerum, and in Jean Corbichon’s French version of Bartholomaeus’ treatise of 1372, of which a new edition had come out only in 1495, just a little over twenty years before Alciato’s letter to Calvo, the attribute of



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Assuming that Francesco Calvo was familiar with what was then accepted as factually true about the Elephant’s period of gestation and number of offspring either through his familiarity with Erasmus’ Adagia, or with Aristotle’s and Pliny’s chapters on the Elephant, or with Medieval and Early Modern animal lore, he could hardly have avoided realizing that Alciato’s “Calvi Elephas, tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” was pointing a finger at him as a deviation from the rule expressed by that conjunction of statements. For what Alciato was implicitly claiming about that par­ ticular Elephant when he used the formulation “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens” was not meant to be in line with the established general truths about the Elephant as a species, nor could it have come, we have seen, straightforwardly from any of the texts mentioned, ­authored or anonymous. Rather, it was put forward by Alciato as true only – and a fortiori – of Calvo’s own particular Elephant, i. e. of Calvo himself under the description of an Elephant: “The Elephant, as you well know, is pregnant for a long time; but then, at least, gives birth to one offspring. Your own Elephant has been pregnant for so long also, but without giving birth to anything”: “tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens”.

Conclusion Our attempt at substantiating Giehlow’s and Volkmann’s suggestions that Alciato’s remarks about “Calvi Elephas” was meant as a Witz or a Stichelei by confronting that fictitious printer’s mark with Alciato’s claim that it was describing, just like “Aldo’s Anchor” and “Froben’s Dove”, “something either from history or from nature, which may signify something tasteful/refined” has brought to light two conditions that prin­ ter’s marks like the ones Alciato had in mind, Humanist ones that is, apparently had to meet. Only if they did meet them, we have seen, could they reach their communica­ tive goal of saying something ethically relevant about their respective owners.53 First, the describing of objects from history or from nature – with depicting here under­ stood as a kind of describing – needed to involve “generic” general statements about the objects described, rather than singular statements. Both “Aldo’s Anchor” and “Froben’s Dove” could be seen to involve “generic” general statements supported by texts from the Natura rerum literature. With “Calvo’s Elephant” that was not the case since the statement underlying it did not agree with any generic statement about the Elephant of the kind to be encountered in such texts. “Calvo’s Elephant” therefore was, as it were, out of line with the “nature” of Elephants, with the implication that

the single offspring is not mentioned. What is invariably mentioned, however, is the Elephant’s long period of gestation, with the implicit understanding, undoubtedly, that it would certainly result in to an offspring in the end. 53 See Maggi 1998.

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the presumed owner of the printer’s mark “Calvi Elephas”, Calvo himself, was likewise out of line with the “nature” of printers. Second, those “generic” descriptive state­ ments had be “true” in the sense that the truth claims put forward by making them – pictorially or verbally – could be supported, if challenged, by testing them against one or more of the canonical texts of Natural History that made the same claim. Only if the descriptions offered could be seen to be “intertextually” true in this sense would the “signifying something tasteful/refined” about the owner of the printer’s mark in question for the sake of which the literal description had been offered in the first place, have a fundamentum in re, and so carry weight. “Aldo’s Anchor” and “Froben’s Dove” did meet that condition, while “Calvo’s Elephant” did not. But it was “true” of Calvo nevertheless, by denying him possession of a quality implied to be “natural” in printers. Nature, mediated by the authoritative texts of Natural History, thus not only supplied the imagery of a humanist printer’s mark for “signifying something tasteful/ refined”. It also supplied the warrant, again mediated by the authoritative texts of Natural History, for the truth of the claims put forward pictorially about the owner of a humanist printer’s mark. A person contemplating a particular humanist printer’s mark therefore not only had to be able to see that there was a plausible “symbolic” relation between the description pictorially realized by the printer’s mark and the secondary meaning attached to it, i.  e. that the description offered could plausibly “carry” that meaning. He also had to be in possession of the epistemic virtue required for seeing the truth of what was being claimed by the pictorially realized “generic” state­ment. Our current tendency to sidestep epistemic issues in our study of ­humanist printer’s marks, and to be satisfied with semantic ones, is likely to blind us to realizing that the adoption of a printer’s mark by a sixteenth century printer was not just a figuratively formulated statement of personal identity, but also, and perhaps more importantly so, a conscious attempt at finding a place for that ­identity in the natural order of things.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Dolphin wound around an anchor: printer’s mark of Aldus Manutius, Venice 1502. Source: Wolkenhauer 2002, 35. Figure 2: Caduceus surrounded by two snakes & dove: printer’s mark of Johann Froben, Basle 1515. Source: Wendland 1984, 98. Figure 3: Dolphin wound around an anchor. Aldi Discip[ulus] Angl[ic]us: printer’s mark of William Pickering, London 1823. Source: Creative Commons license, issued by Wyoming_Jackrabbit. Figure 4: Female warrior with standard. ROMA: printer’s mark of Francesco Calvo, Rome, not before 1521–1533. Source: CERL Thesaurus. Figure 5: Female warrior with globe. ROMA: printer’s mark of Francesco Calvo, Milan 1539–1541. Source: CERL Thesaurus Source.



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Lewis, C. S., The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London: Geoffrey Biles, 1950. Lipincott, Kirsten, “The Genesis and Signifiance of the Italian Impresa.” In: Anglo, S., ed., Chivalry in the Renaissance., Woodbridge, UK & Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 1990, 49–76. Lueders, Imke et. al., “Gestating for 22 Months: Luteal Development and Pregnancy Maintenance in Elephants.” Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences 279 (2012): 3687–3696. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22719030 , www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3415912/ . Maggi, Armando, Identità e impresa rinascimentale, Ravenna: Longo, 1998. Mann Philips, Margaret, The Adages of Erasmus. A Study with Translations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. Meier, Christel, “Das Problem der Quatitätenallegorese.” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 8 (1974): 385–435. Paradin, Claude, Devises heroiques. Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1551. Peters, Emil, Der griechische Physiologus und seine orientalischen Übersetzungen. Berlin: Calvary, 1898. Picinelli, Filippo, Mundus Symbolicus in Emblematum Universitate formatus, explicatus et [...] illustratus. Cologne: Hermann Diemen, 1687. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History of Pliny. Transl. John Bostock & H. T. Riley, Vol. I. London & New York: G. Bell, 1890. Physiologus, In: British Library Manuscript Harley 3244, v.29. (http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/ FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3244). Roberts, William, Printers’ Marks. A Chapter in the History of Typography. London & New York: George Bell & Sons, 1893. Rubensohn, Max, Griechische Epigramme und andere kleine Dichtungen in deutschen Übersetzungen des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Weimar: Emil Felber, 1897. Schöne, Albrecht, Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock. München: C.H. Beck, 1964 (3rd ed. with annotations, 1993). Scholz, Bernhard F., “ ‘Libellum composui epigrammaton, cui titulus feci Emblemata’: Alciatus’s Use of the Expression ‘Emblema’ Once Again.” Emblematica 1 (1986): 213–226. Scholz, Bernhard F., “The Brevity of Pictures. Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Views on Counting the Figures in Impresas and Emblems.” In: Plett, Heinrich F., ed., Renaissance-Poetik / Renaissance Poetics. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994, 315–337. Scholz, Bernhard F., “Ontologie oder Semantik. Zur Bestimmung des ‘Verhältnisses zur Wirklichkeit’ in der neueren Emblemtheorie.” In: Scholz, Bernhard F., eds., Emblem und Emblempoetik. Historische und systematische Studien. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002. Ch. III,1, 247–269. Scholz, Bernhard F., “Didaktische Funktion und Textkonstitution im Emblem.” In: Scholz, Bernhard F., ed., Emblem und Emblempoetik. Historische und systematische Studien. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002. Ch. III,3, 303–333. Scholz, Bernhard F., “Paolo Giovio als symbolorum pater: Zur Erfassung einer neuen Gattung durch die topische Poetik der Frühmoderne.” In: Frank, Thomas, Ursula Kocher & Ulrike Tarnow, eds., Topik und Tradition. Prozesse der Neuordnung von Wissensüberlieferungen des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 2007, 67–101. Sidney, Sir Philipp, An Apology for Poetry or The Defence of Poesy (1595). Ed. G. Shepherd. Manchester: Manchester University Press 1973. Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques Typographiques, 2 vols., Paris: Renou et Maulde, 1853 & 1867. Theobald, Theobaldi . Ed. with introduction, critical apparatus & commentary by P.T. Eden. (Mittelalterliche Studien und Texte, vol. VI). Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1972. Latin text: (http:// www.staff.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/theobald.htm).



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Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de Natura Rerum. Editio princeps secumdum codices manuscriptos. Ed. H. Boese. Berlin & New York, 1973. Tuzzi, Hans, Bestiario bibliofilio. Imprese di animali nelle marche tipografiche dal XV al XVII secolo. Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2009. Vaccaro, Emerenziana, Le marche dei tipografi ed editori italiani del secolo XVI nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma. Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1983. Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, Duaci (Douai) Baltasar Billerus, 1629. Volkmann, Ludwig, Bilderschriften der Renaissance. Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1923 (Reprint Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1969). Wesseling, Ari, “Devices, Proverbs, Emblems. Hadrianus Junius’ Emblemata in the Light of Erasmus’ Adagia.” In: Bolzoni, Lina & Silvia Volterani, eds., Con parola brieve e con figura. Emblemi e imprese fra antico e moderno. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2008, 87–133. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike im humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002. Zappella, Giuseppina, Le marche dei tipografi e degli editori italiani del Cinquecento: repertorio di figure, simboli e soggetti e dei relativi motti. Milan: Ed. Bibliografica, 1986.

Valérie Hayaert

The Legal Significance and Humanist Ethos of Printers’ Insignia Since Alciato’s letter to the Roman bookseller Francesco Calvo dated 9th January 1523,1 the invention of emblems is closely linked to printers’ devices: Aldus’ anchor, Froben’s dove and Calvo’s elephant are a species of emblemata, which can be used as trade­ marks (pro insignibus gestamus). Denis L. Drysdall has convincingly studied a chapter of Alciato’s Parergon Iuris2 where the lawyer gives a brief account of Roman insignia: they began, he claims, as military symbols, such as the eagle carried on a pole in front of various legions and they moved to use by cities and by private individuals. The chapter then discusses the personal insignia of emperors and the legal questions sur­ rounding the right to use individual devices. This interest in the legal function and significance of insignia follows directly the concerns of Bartolo, expressed fully in his legal treatise De Insigniis et Armis (1335). At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the use of the term insignia reveals a certain semantic looseness: often translated by device in its broadest sense, it can include the meaning of trademark or impresa. Before 1531, emblemata could mean insignia, i. e. personal or occasional devices.

Insignia, Trademarks and Printers’ Devices  In common law, the chief reference for an in depth discussion on trademarks and merchant marks was Bartolo’s treatise De Insigniis et Armis.3 In the first part of the tract (the treatise was left uncompleted by the author), Bartolo treats equally arms and artisan signs: it is a distinct feature of the De insigniis. The discussion on trade­ marks and printing devices is associated with the status of names and coats of arms: this similarity is central to Bartolo. Even though Bartolo’s discussion predates the appearance of individualized trademarks by a century, his discussion is central to the definition of the legal evolution of such a principle. Are printers’ devices to be considered as new forms of what already existed as individualized trademarks during

1 “These past Saturnalia, in order to gratify the noble Ambrogio Visconti, I put together a little book of epigrams to which I gave the title ‘Emblems’, for in each epigram I describe something which is taken from history or from nature and can mean something refined (elegans), and from which artists, goldsmiths, metal-workers, can fashion the kind of objects which we call badges and which we attach to our hats or use as trade-marks, like Aldus’ anchor, Froben’s dove or Calvo’s elephant which is in labour so long and gives birth to nothing”, translation Denis L. Drysdall, quoted from Drysdall 2008a, 79–97. 2 Alciato, Parergon Iuris V. 13, ed. Drysdall 2008b, 253–269. 3 Bartolo, De Insigniis et Armis, ed. Cavallar et al. 1994. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-013

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the age of Bartolo? According to him, the function of these signs is to protect consum­ ers from deception as well as to enhance the sale of quality products (melius venduntur et avidius emuntur4). In his Devises Héroïques et Emblèmes,5 Claude Paradin recalls that Aldus Manutius’ device combining the motto festina lente with a dolphin and an anchor had been copied by a Parisian printer who added a second anchor to Aldus’ mark. He alludes to the Parisian printer Nicolas Le Riche (Nicolaus Dives), active between 1540 and 1548,6 who wore sub insigni geminæ Anchoræ or ad insigne Aldi with the motto Non satis una tenet ceratas anchora puppes [“A single anchor is not capable of sufficiently holding the tarred ships in place”] taken from Ovid Remedia Amoris.7 Le Riche copied Aldus’ famous italic and linked letters. In his preface to his 1547 edition of the Psalms, Le Riche acknowledges his debt to the Venitian printer and explains that he has adapted the elegance of aldine typography to French presses.8 His imita­ tion of Aldus’ prestigious mark was a deliberate strategy to enhance the reputation of his own printing house, as the Aldine press was then the example of utmost quality in typography. Several other printers copied, and used Aldus’ mark fraudulently, namely Jean Oporin9 and the Giunti10. Angela Nuovo stresses that “the value of the device of the Anchor and Dolphin was quantifiable, given that in 1568 Paolo Manuzio conceded its use to Domenico Basa for a monthly fee of twenty gold scudi”.11 The organization of Bartolo’s treatise falls into three categories: the entire realm of insignia can be divided as follows: a) those pertaining to an office, such as the insig­ nia of bishops; b) those granted by a princeps; and c) those that individuals assumed of their own initiative. Later printers’ devices would fall into the third category: their marks increasingly served as powerful visual aids proclaiming the honor and dignity of their profession. In a world where coats of arms were conspicuous on ­ceremonial and festive occasions, such as entries, civic processions or funerals, ­printers’ devices

4 Bartolo, De Insigniis et Armis 7, 12, ed. Cavallar et al. 1994, 70. 5 Paradin 1614, 143: “Alde Raunce (sic) docte & celebre Imprimeur Romain l’a mise pour marque au devant de ses livres trescorrectz, & s’est trouvé un sien imitateur à Paris qui au lieu d’une Ancre en a voulu peindre deux pour estre mieux asseuré és mers de Levant qui est la raugue Gregeoise & du Ponent qui est la Romaine & autres ses filles.” 6 Renouard 1971 [1843], 345. 7 Ov. rem. 447. ­ alliis re­ 8 Illi autem uni acceptum ferre debes quod aut mortui, aut diu in Italia latitantes Aldini typi in G vixerint. Nam hosce typos proxime Aldinos referentes impensis suis sculptos per me in publicum s­ tudiosorum gratia exire voluit, amplamque bonorum tibi librorum supellectilem tum parturit, tum a viris excerptos doctissimis, tibi parat his nostris typis prope diem excudendos [...], quoted by Renouard 1803b, 67. 9 Anja Wolkenhauer kindly notes that Renouard himself corrected this suggestion in the third ­edition, and exculpated Oporius. The latest position in this matter appears to be represented by the digital ­catalogue entry of the Staatsbibliothek of Berlin regarding the Strozzi-carmina: VD 16 S 9738; ­Renouard 1803a, 319, no. 12. According to Renouard the fonts used resemble the ones which ­Westheimer used in Basle for other books that came out around 1537. 10 Renouard 1803a, 64–65. 11 Nuovo 2013, chapter five “Marks and branches”, quoting Manuzio, Lettere, letters XX, XXI, XXIII- XXV, at p. 150.



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would have been used in much the same way, as decorative symbols, designed to adorn every conceivable object, from books to clothes or architectural settings. ­Printers’ devices belonged to the semiotic sphere of the social, political and corporate universe. Similar to coats of arms, they could be transmitted by inheritance just like ancestral tombs or patrimonial objects. One of the most compelling sections of Bartolo’s treatise deals with the disposition and devolution of signs of a partnership (signum societatis).12 Partnerships were very common in the business of printers. Printers’ devices were often modified or given away when the partnership was dissolved. Bartolo’s treatise has never been complet­ ­ed, but it is likely that if he had had the chance, he would probably have touched upon the transmission of trademarks by inheritance, a common practice of the time.

Emblemata Typographorum as Armorials of Letters Many Early Modern sources show that printers increasingly regarded their trade­ marks as complete counterparts to coats of arms. They wished to create a legacy by depicting their devices not only on their products in the form of printers’ marks, but also on houses, windows or gravestones, as one would do with one’s coat of arms. Jean I de Tournes is a perfect example of this mindset: in 1555–1556 he had his own house built at 7–9 rue Raisin (Lyon) and his device carved into the keystone above the main door (Figure 1). The lower right section of the stone has been damaged, but the head of one of the viper’s offspring remains visible. The printer’s mark used by Jean I de Tournes (1504–1564) from 1548 onwards13 (Figure 2), consists of two vipers

Figure 1

Figure 2

12 Bartolo, De Insigniis et Armis ch.12, ed. Cavallar et al. 1994. 13 Cartier 1937, 33–40. The vipers mark used by Jean I de Tournes has been declined in not less than seven versions. Figure 2 reproduces the second mark listed by Cartier.

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entwined in ­intercourse, within the shape of a double circle: the female bites the male to death at its head, while the young bite their way out of the female along with the biblical motto: Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris14 [“What you do not wish done to you, you shall not do unto others”]. The motto underlines that what is done to the male by the female viper is in turn done to her by her offspring. The death of the male is to be understood as revenge inflicted on the female, as she receives in due course condign punishment through the act of matricide performed by her sib­ lings. The emblem reminds us that the evildoer is never left to impunity. This biblical motto is often termed by lawyers as the “golden rule”, a juridical maxim showing the basis of reciprocity as a principle of natural law. A contemporary comment on Jean de Tournes’ device can be found in the second part of Les Erreurs populaires et propos vulgaires, touchant la médecine et le régime de santé15 by the celebrated Montpellier physician Laurent Joubert: About the viper. It is a very ancient opinion that the female viper joins with the male by receiving the head of the male in its mouth for lack of genital parts elsewhere, and that the female, because of the ­pleasure she takes in it, closes her jaws so tightly that she cuts off the head of her husband, there­upon becoming pregnant. Then, when the moment for delivery comes, the little ones, having no other exit so as to avenge the death of their father, devour the belly and the flanks of their mother, causing her death. And this is why it is said of the posthumous child whose mother dies in giving birth, “He is like the viper, who never sees its mother or its father”. And there is an emblem that the printer Jean de Tournes (among the best in France) has as a motto with the following inscription: Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. All of this is false and improperly stated because of a misunderstanding of what Aristotle said. What happens is that the viper conceives eggs that hatch in its belly and become little baby vipers. They come out already formed, having rid themselves of the membrane or case that had surrounded them in the womb. This is their afterbirth. But the last ones to come out, driven by impatience, eat through this membrane in order to come out more quickly, for the mother carries more than twenty of them and only has one of them a day. This makes the last ones impatient and forces them to eat their way through their tunic or membrane but not through the sides or the belly of her mother. There might have been a mistake over the origin and etymology of the word, as in the case of calling the viper quasi vipariens. But the word comes from viuum pariens. For no other snake but he viper brings its young into the world alive. The other lay eggs that, once outside the belly of the mother, hatch and make snakes.16

The reference to the emblem reads as follows in French: “Et il y a un Embleme, que Jean de Tournes, Imprimeur (des meilleurs de la France) a pour enseigne avec cette devise: Quid tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.”17 The relationship between the emblem and the printer’s mark is straightforward: Jean de Tournes uses an emblematic form

14 Matthew 7:12; Tobias 4:15; Luke 6:31. 15 Joubert 1579. 16 Joubert 1995, 196–197. 17 Joubert 1601, 177.



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to make his own printer’s mark, adding a biblical motto to an image from nature, which may appear scientifically grounded but derives, in fact, from a misconcep­ tion of Aristotle’s description of the viper. Therefore, the important matter was not to follow the latest discoveries by natural scientists, but to offer an ingenious inven­ tion based on the “fabulous stories” transmitted by ancient natural history. Joachim Camerarius18 devotes an emblem (IV, 91) to the same subject: Suo premitur exemplo [“she is grieved like he has grieved”]. Later on, Daniel de la Feuille adds the same motto to an emblem depicting a female viper whose belly is pierced by her little ones: “Une Vipère à laquelle ses petits percent le ventre”.19 Jean I de Tournes chose an animal which had already been used by Ambrogio Visconti in an emblem assigned to the duchy of Milan. Alciato’s commentary in his De singulari certamine liber is worth quoting here: In the Annals there is the well-known encounter of Otho Visconti with a certain Saracen in Asia. Having defeated him and struck him down, he took the ornament from his helmet and added it to his own family insignia, that is, a viper vomiting out of its mouth a newly born infant still covered in blood- in fact the emblem taken by Alexander the Great. Indeed you can see the same image on ancient coins of his, to show how that ruler claimed enigmatically that he was born of Jupiter. For Jupiter was worshipped in many places in Greece in the form of a serpent, and there are in Asia types of serpents, which men say give birth through the mouth.20

The viper was included in an ornament displayed in jousts. Alciato dedicated his emblem to Visconti as early as in 1522 and the first emblem published in 1531 is de­­ scribed in its title as the insignia of the Duchy of Milan and in the verses as the “arms” of the Visconti: “An infant springing from the jaws of a sinuous snake/Constitutes the noble arms of your clan”.21 The viper’s symbolic valence was regularly chosen by authors of emblems and devices because of its ambivalence and abnormality. Pliny,22 Herodotus23 and Horapollo24 were the main sources of this fertile myth, meant to leave a lasting impression in their memory. In Pliny’s version, the female viper bites off the male’s head during the rapture of sexual pleasure and the young burst through their mother’s side in impatience at her habit of giving birth to only one young per day. Horapollo adds that the Egyptians considered the viper as a symbol of a woman who hates her husband. Both insignia recall the paradoxical mystery of giving birth, which is both lustful and deadly: it suggests a sordid vision of reproduction. The

18 See Stopp 1974, 147, and esp. n° 70 “Daniel Nöttel, Haud impune feret. She does not bear (offspring) with impunity.” 19 De la Feuille 1691, 45 /n° 8. 20 Alciato1544, ch. 43, 81, quoted from Drysdall 2008a, 7–8. 21 Alciato 1531, A2 v: Exiliens infans sinuosi e faucibus anguis/ Est gentilitiis nobile stemma tuis. 22 Plinius, Naturalis historia 10,82,2. 23 Herodot, Historiae 3,109. 24 Horapollon 2,59,60, ed. Boas 1950.

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pseudo-scientific story of the abnormal birth of vipers, which were believed to bite their way through the womb of their mothers, thus revenging their fathers who has been cruelly murdered by their wives is first and foremost a pun. Hans Nachod notes that “this story was nowhere supported in Aristotle’s genuine works but was readily accepted by the Latin-speaking West, since a queer etymology helped to interpret the word ‘viper’ as ‘giving birth in violence’ (vipera-vi pariens)”.25 The case of Ambrogio Visconti’s insignia shares this oddity and this taste for an Isidorian pun with Jean de Tournes’s I device. In both cases, the abnormality of the fable is quite remarkable: both insignia are built on impudent inventions. The example of Macé Bonhomme’s mark is also very telling: it shows a victo­ rious Perseus, holding the decapitated head of Medusa (Figure 3). This military

Figure 3

trophy could as well serve as an awe-inspiring coat of arms; instead the humanist printer uses it as an emblem for the conquest of Belles-Lettres, made possible thanks to the prosperity of printing. Bonhomme’s mark becomes the source of an epigram of 18 verses composed by his friend Barthélemy Aneau,26 ending with the motto du

25 See Cassirer et al. 1948, 58–59, note 24. 26 Aneau 1552, 12–13: MARQUE & DIVISE de L’IMPRIMEUR DE TRAVAIL HONNEUR “PERSE ­vinqueur du dangier perilleux,/Porte le chef Meduse merueilleux,/Qui transmuoit les regardans en pierre./­ Estant armé (pour faire aux monstres guerre)/De la cuyrace à Pallas bien duysant:/Et son escu



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labeur la gloire [“from labour fame”]. Aneau writes two emblems on the same pattern: the first one is dedicated to the printer “marque et divise de l’imprimeur de travail honneur” and the second one, following thereafter, is devoted to the author: “marque et divise de l’auteur pardurable, peu durable”.27 Aneau makes it clear that his mark is not a sign of nobility: rather, it is a coat of arms composed on his own initiative. The process of Aneau’s inventio is significant here: starting with a simple mark, elevated to an enigmatic device, the printer’s sign becomes a full emblem and its meaning is lengthily developed into an ekphrastic poem. The epigram follows quite closely the depiction of Perseus freeing Andromeda by Ovid.28 The theme was popular among painters, especially because of the fantastic treatment of the theme by Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521).29 The painting, held today in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, shows several episodes of the story: at the top right corner, Perseus is flying through the air, with the winged sandals received from Hermes and described by Ovid (the talaria), as well as the mirror-like shield given by Athena; Aneau alludes to this detail when he writes “son escu cristallin tresluisant” [“his very shiny crystal-like shield”]. Ovid describes Perseus’ weapon as an “harpè” (a Cyllenian scimitar, i. e. a sword that resembles the lunar sickle): it is a suitable instrument to defeat the Gorgon’s forces. The Florentine panel by Piero di Cosimo embodied the figure of the Medicean heroic virtù triumphing over dangerous odds in order to protect the commonwealth of the city. Piero di Cosi­ mo’s version is a time-lapse sequence where the hero is first shown flying across the air, then landing on the back of the sea monster and striking the beast with a sword. Pierre Eskrich, the presumed author of the emblem engraving, invents a shield that folds all the scenes into one and fits it in a compact space. Piero di Cosimo’s invention may have been the model for Eskrich’s composition. Eskrich’s Perseus is shown grasping Medusa’s snake-hair, his sword high in the air as he’s about to behead her. The Florentine painter shows Perseus’ downward swoop, which is a creation of his own: according to Dennis Geronimus, this is the only detail that is not strictly part of the Ovidian narrative.30 Eskrich’s engraving shows a levita­ tion: the hero, descending almost supernaturally from the skies, seems to glide with

c­ristallin tresluisant,/Ayant en main le trenchant Bracquemard/Du Dieu Mercure & son ­double ­plumard,/En teste, & piedz, auquel son vol hazarde/A monter hault: et dessoubz soy regarde/Les hommes bas, par merueille estonnez:/Si fort, qu’en pierre estre semblent tournez./QV’EST cela donc? c’est que quand Sapience Prouuée à clair par ague eloquence/A mis à l’air quelque parfaict ­ouvrage:/L’ors son a ­ uteur leue en si hault parage:/Que tout humain est ravy à le croire/Acquise ainsi vient DV LABEVR LA GLOIRE.” 27 Aneau 1552, 14. 28 Ovid, Metamorphoses 4, 663–786. 29 Piero di Cosimo, Liberation of Andromeda, circa 1510–1513, oil on panel, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. 30 Geronimus 2006, 110: “With the sole exception of Perseus’ downward swoop, Piero adheres even in the smallest details to Ovid’s description of the hero’s deliverance of the Ethiopian princess”.

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the help of an invisible machinery: but the impression of lightness is counterbalanced by the gruesome depiction of the gorgon’s head, with her wound gushing with blood. The engraver hasn’t omitted any detail: the winged sandals received from the nymphs, the magic casket and Pluto’s helmet, which turned whoever wore it invisible. According to Baudrier,31 Macé Bonhomme used eight different printers’ marks during his lifetime. His first four marks (the first appeared in 1541, when he was established in Vienne) were drawn by Georges Reverdy and bear the motto “du labeur la vie” (ἐκ πόνου ὁ βίος). The first version of his mark is also framed by two verses already con­ taining the overall meaning developed later on  in his emblem: Sic ars chalcographi saxea monstra domat: Sic labor alatum te super astra feret. [“Just as the art of engraving tames the stone monsters, your work takes you, winged, to the stars”]. The myth of Perseus serves here as a heroic tale on the achievements of printing: Aneau’s epigram underlines that this glory is due to the joint action of wisdom and sharp eloquence (“sapience” and “ague eloquence”). The second motto used by Macé Bonhomme is “Du labeur la gloire” (ἐκ πόνου ὁ κλέος). His goal is to transform πόνος [“heavy burden”] into κλέος [“military glory”]. It might be derived from a fragment attributed to Aeschylus32 where a speaker claims: “The gods owe κλέος, the child of πόνος, to the one who toils” as it is crucial to any heroic action to cope with a heavy burden (πόνος). It is a reworking of Hesiod’s allegory in Works and Days (287–292) where the poet recalls that great glory falls at last from battle toil, but it is attained only by a trek of painful πόνος. The motto also brings together elements of the narrative of the virtuous Heracles in Prodicus’s fable, where Virtue claims that the gods give nothing without hard work (πόνος): thus someone who wishes to win κλέος ­[“immortal glory”] must strive very hard. If Hesiod’s πόνος is related to rustic and agricultural life, Macé Bonhomme links his with the poetic usage of the word, and his κλέος with literary reputation among the world of printers. This device relates to the greek ideology of work, namely to the curious idea, especially coined by Hesiod,33 that when working hard, men become dearer to gods.34 The insistence on the πόνος of printers is a power­ ful and widely shared ideal: Christopher Plantin chose the famous labore et constantia; Jean Bignon used his coat of arms with the chiastic motto repos sans fin, sans fin repos and Jean Charron the elder had the following: Laborate in patientia & spe, & labores manuum tuarum qui manducabis.35 Emblems invented by printers were often designed as armorials of letters: they embody the very ideal of their arduous enterprise. They were active agents, onto which thought and action were based.

31 Baudrier 1964–1965, 185–187. 32 Aeschylus, fr. 315. 33 Hesiod, Erga 308–309. 34 Descat 1986. 35 Psalm 127:2. Silvestre 1966, Nr. 330 has “quia” in place of “qui”.



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The Humanist Ethos of Printers’ Devices Let us now consider more generally the nature of the mutual influence between printer’s marks, emblems and devices. Printers’ insignia, though highly malleable forms, always emerge from a firm line of conduct, as Macé Bonhomme’s praise of πόνος has demonstrated. The image of the victorious Perseus signals an achievement he wishes to proclaim: it says “this is what I am” but also “this is what I believe in”. The symbolic function of these marks has to do with the philosophy of the knight: they are similar to fifteenth century imprese36 as they embody a purpose, an undertaking or an ideal. Just as the impresa symbolized a commitment to a knightly virtue, printer’s insignia compete with a concurrent chilvaric ethos: their impetus is the advancement of Humanist printing and renovation of letters. Another example of the family ethos of humanist printers  is represented by Sébastien Gryphe and his son and heir, Antoine Gryphe. When his father died in 1557 Antoine succeeded him and followed up his work. The first book printed by Antoine in 158137 contains a prefatory epistle by the printer, in which he expresses his grateful­ ness to his father on selecting good books to publish, and declares his will to imitate such a good example. The introductory latin verses added to the paratext pay com­ pliments to both father and son. One of them, composed by Guillaume Paradin,38 is entitled: Insignia Nobilium Typographorum ad Antonium Gryphium et Joannem Tornæsium [“Devices/Emblems of the famous printers until Antoine Gryphe and Jean de Tournes”]. It praises a full genealogy of printers. Jean II de Tournes was the son of Jean I de Tournes, who had learned to practice his art with Sébastien Gryphe, between 1530 and 1532. Jean II had inherited the two vipers mark of his father. The poem is addressed to a long lineage of printers, ending with both “sons” of Sébastien Gryphe: his biological son, Antoine and the son of his own apprentice, Jean II de Tournes. Though Paradin’s epigram is left without any illustrations, one can assume that these verses, provided they are linked with the mental images of these famous printers’ devices, function as ecphrastic inventions: Obruerant tristes jam prorsum oblivia musas  Nec cœtus vitae spes erat ulla sacri; Anchora cum jacta est mediis Aldina procellis  Cyrhæumque labans pondere sistit onus. Sustulit hinc dextra geminos Frobenius angues  Cui recti et prudens simplicitatis amor. Virtutem inde levi sortis comitante volatus,  Semifer annexam Gryphus ad alta vehit.

36 See Lippincott 2000, 76–77. 37 Paradin 1581. 38 Paradin 1581, 50.

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Viperæ et involvens geminæ Tornæsius orbem  Nil aliis fieri quam cupit ipse sibi, Vestra opera ipsa cohors jam pene extincta revixit  Atque inter proceres sustulit illa caput. [“A profound oblivion had already stifled the sad Muses and their sacred troop had no hope to live, when Aldus’ anchor was thrown in the middle of a terrible storm and its weight stopped the Apollonian vessel going adrift. Then Froben raised the two serpents with his right hand, Froben who wisely loves righteousness and simplicity. Later, the monstrous Griffon takes up to the skies virtue, accompanied by the light flight of fortune. Tournes rolls up a double viper around the globe: he asks that one shall not do unto others what one do not wish done to oneself. Thanks to your labor, the cohort of the Muses, almost extinguished, has returned to life, and proudly once again raise their heads among the most noble.”]

The epigram praises the rebirth of the Muses’ cohort thanks to the glorious achieve­ ments of elite printers, starting with Aldus’s anchor and dolphin once again, and the first mark to appear in this illustrious genealogy. His motto is such a well-known one that the poet probably thinks it’s not worth mentioning it here. Then comes Froben’s one-handed caduceus topped by a dove, used by the Basle printer from 1516 onwards. Guillaume Paradin alludes only to the fourth part of his motto, which is in Latin: prudens simplicitas amorque recti. Froben had chosen a fourfold motto, starting with Matthew 10:16 “be prudent as serpents and guileless as doves” in Greek, followed by a fragment of Psalm 125 [124 LXX] in Hebrew: “Do good unto those that are good, and to them that are upright in their hearts”. Heinrich Grimm39 has claimed that Froben chose the caduceus and serpent emblem by following a suggestion made by Erasmus, commenting on this motive in his adagium 1474 Cassioticus nodus. Alexandre Vana­ utgaerden40 noted than in 1517/1518, in the third re-edition of his Chiliades by Froben, Erasmus added a few lines to his adage in which he states that it’s probably on antique coins that Froben found this motive (E quibus [in nomismatibus antiquis], opinor, symbolum suum mutuatus est Ioannes Frobenius).41 Erasmus continues with a praise of Froben, to him he’s the most meticulous printer of the time, and those who study sacred texts owe him a lot (typographorum huius ætatis diligentissimus et cui ­plurimum debent sacrarum litterarum candidati).42 In 1526, Erasmus added an apology of Froben in his adage Festina lente, which was first and foremost a laudatio of Aldus ­Manutius43: Froben was paragoned to Aldus and praised as his worthy heir.44

39 Grimm 1965, 119. 40 Vanautgaerden 2012, 313. 41 Erasm. adag. 1434. 42 Erasm. adag. 1434. 43 Quoted by Vanautgaerden 2012, 313: Erasm. adag. 1001: Quod Aldus moliebatur apud Italos [...], hoc Joannes Frobenius molitur apud Cisalpinos non minore studio quam Aldus nec prorsus infeliciter. 44 For additions and textual support, see Wolkenhauer 2002, 199–215. According to her, Grimm’s ob­ servations often need revising since they were not yet based on a reliable state of research. C ­ onsidering his reticent interpretation Erasmus’ share in developing the signet is unlikely.



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In his verses on the printers he considers most excellent and honorable printers, Paradin recurs to a similar parallel: after Venice and Basle comes Lyon. The dynas­ ties of Gryphe and De Tournes have taken up the torch, and humanism is not dead. Paradin explicitly links the Humanist concept of the rebirth of letters to Gryphe’s motto Virtute duce, comite fortuna  (or Virtutis fortuna comes). Human reason can overcome fortune, and the terrible storm that almost overturned Aldus’ anchor has now been defeated. Paradin even had this former motto carved on a stone in 1573 he kept in Beaujeu, where it is still visible today. Lastly, Jean I de Tournes’ device is given high ground ambitions: the two vipers are meant to roll up around the whole globe. This is Paradin’s own interpretation of Jean de Tournes’ device as the globe is not present in his icon. The names of Gryphe and De Tournes become the figures of national pride and sense of duty. Competing with the norms of chilvaric ethos, the printing profession produces a wide array of devices aimed to glorify the status and dignity of their companions. Loyalty, constancy, and hard work are at the core of their own reputation: these values are meant to show that Humanism is itself a battle that need to be fought.

The Emblematic Grammar of Printers’ Insignia In 1730, Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (1687–1736) compiled a learned treatise on ­printer’s and booksellers’ insignia, along with the historical account provided by his c­ olleague Johann Konrad Spörl, under the title Thesaurus symbolorum ac ­emblematum i.  e. insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum,45 where he analyses many aspects of their composition and invention: among them their emblematic nature, their origins and motifs, and their increasing complexity. In his introduc­ tion,46 he claims that the printers first used simple initials; then many of them started to reveal the hidden meanings they could derive from their own names: Jean Granjon (“grands joncs” meaning “tall rushes”); Galliot du Pré (“gallion” meaning “ship”); ­Christophorus Froschoverus (“frog”, via the German name of the animal); ­Sébastien Gryphe (a  “griffon”) etc. Animalia or herbaria are commonly used, but objects and books are also often depicted in these sorts of cratylian puns. ­Roth-Scholtz moves then to a second category: those who use aca­demic insignia, or marks of offices such as ­diocesean or civic ensigns, to show their allegiance to a group or an ­institution. Many of them used royal symbols, under special authorization of the King. The author continues his list of motives and explains that insignia can recall the name of the owner of the workshop, or the

45 Roth-Scholtz 1730. 46 Roth-Scholtz 1730, Chapter In notitiam insignum typographorum, especially 21–23.

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trade of printing itself (Josse Bade). It can celebrate by means of a myth the birth of printing; lemmata may be written in Greek, Hebrew or Latin. Soon the fashion of choosing ænigmata spread fast among printers and a variety of hieroglyphica appeared in the repository of printer’s signs: Œdip­uses, caduceuses, sphinges, Minervas, three-headed ­Mercuries etc. The author notes that printers gradually abandon the celebration of their art to adopt signs symbolizing silence and secret. Among them, Aldus’ mark is referred to as a hieroglyphic ­creation, borrowed from Pietro Bembo, and derived from a silver coin of Titus ­Vespasian. Most of these new inventions are fortunate enough to be ­accompanied by lemmata: such inventions, says Roth-Scholtz, can properly be called emblemata. His definition of what is an emblem focuses on its enigmatic content, and seems independent from structural considerations. One function of these marks is to protect printers against frauds or counterfeits: that is why, says Roth-Scholtz, the arma and scuta gentilitia are convenient: these well-established armorials are meant to deter invaders from stealing or using them fraudulently. A witty and erudite printer’s mark serves primarily as a token of quality. The enigmatic emblem needs to be deciphered and as such, it functions as a hallmark, highly visible on the title page. Roth-Scholtz questions the practice of claiming intel­ lectual high ground in printer’s mark,47 by quoting a fragment of Johann Arnold’s48 1540 poem “On printer’s marks” (De typographorum insigniis) where the ambitions of printer’s marks are bluntly criticized: Vendicat ac præsens ætas insignia libris  Et prima facie conspicienda locat. Sphingis & adhærent variis ænigmata linguis  solvere quæ solers Delius ipse nequit. [“The present age sells/praises reputations/symbols on books, and puts them for all to see right on the title page/ they use enigmatic riddles that even Delphian Apollo could not resolve.”]49

It is therefore welcome, says Roth-Scholtz, that most erudite printers add lemmata to their emblems, in order to help readers to decipher them. More importantly, these emblematic marks add value to the books they advertised as readers expect the prin­ ters to live up the intellectual promises of their marks. The commentator also points out that most emblematic printer’s marks are left without any interpretation. When humanist printers choose a symbol, they rarely explain or comment their choice. Aldus’ device is an exception: it has received many explanations and it has even been developed by Alciato in his emblems: he gave his

47 On Roth-Scholtz see Wolkenhauer 2015. 48 Johann Arnold of Marketbergel (fl. 1515–1547). 49 Translation by Gehl 2008, ch. 7.08: “Trademarks Good or Bad?”, see: www.humanismforsale.org/ text/archives/377; edition and commentary also in Wolkenhauer 2002, 87–88.



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personal motives in a letter to Alberto Pio. Later on, Joachim Camerarius rehearsed the theme of the dolphin and anchor (IV, 9). It is worth noting that the printer Agath­ ander50 (a Greek version for the name “Bonhomme”, meaning “good man“)is enlisted without any reference to Macé Bonhomme: this name is used by Barthélemy Aneau in his Latin version of the emblem on his printer’s mark: Typographi Agathandri Symbolum ἘΚ ΤΟΥ ΠΌΝΟΥ Ὁ ΚΛΈΟΣ [“The device of the printer Aganthander ‘From labour fame’”51]. Aganthander might not have been recognized by the author. The volume ends with 50 plates containing not less than 508 printer’s marks from all over Europe. A second volume was planned but never published. This volume describes some of the main fea­ tures of the emblems used by humanist printers: often based on a hieroglyphic source, or on an onomastic pun, they usually put forward an ethics of good printing.

The Legal Significance or Printers’ Devices One of the issues raised by Roth-Scholtz’s treatise concerns the exact function of prin­ ters’ and publishers’ devices. Do they possess any precise legal significance? In 1640, Bernard von Mallinkrot links the practice of inserting emblemata typographorum with the ancient formula: Suis consignando scutis. This phrase was used among early prin­ ters with twin-shields and a colophon as an indication of recognition of their crafts­ manship. Comparing the ancient art of printing with the contemporary habits, Mal­ linkrot explains that the Plantinian circinus (circle),52 Froben’s caduceus, ­Gymmicus’ unicorn, Wechel’s pegasus, Episcopius’ crane, Giunti’s lily, etc. are printer’s hall­ marks.53 In 1472, Schoeffer concluded his colophon to the Decretum Gratiani cum glossis with the phrase suis consignando scutis feliciter consummavit [“has happily completed this work by sealing it with his mark”]. A.W. Pollard54 has dealt with the orig­ inal function of printers’ devices and their relations to colophons. According to him, this phrase was a clear indication that a printer was proud of his craftmanship, and wished it to be recognized as his. He had brought his work to happy completion. But

50 Roth-Scholtz, Georg Andrea Vinhold, section Programma de quibusdam notis et insignibus bibliopolarum et typographorum, in Roth-Scholtz 1730, 42. 51 See the full emblem on the french emblems at Glasgow website: www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/ french/emblem.php?id=FANa004. 52 For edition, commentary and translation of the text see Wolkenhauer 2002, 94–95. 53 Mallinkrodt and Kinckius 1640, 104: [...] ut signum suum, seu, ut vocant scutum, quisque appingi rudi satis Minerva faceret, ut in quamplurimis libris, quos huius artis infantia progenuit videre est, unde in plerisque eius temporis impressorum Codicum clausulis illud passim occurrit: Suis consignando scutis. Hæc magna ex parte hodie intermittuntur, in quorum locum certa Emblemata & Imagines apud aliquos successerunt cuius generis sunt Circinus Plantinianorum, Frobenii Caduceus, Gymnici Monoceros, Wechelianorum Pegasus, Grus Episcopij, Iuntarum Lilium [...].  54 See Pollard 1902, 262–264.

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it is worth noting that printers’ devices did not involve any legally binding principles, nor was there a definite legal right to use a device. Frank I. Schechter underlines this line of argument very clearly: No inference can properly be drawn therefrom that the original employment of printers’ devices was “merely an attempt to prevent the inevitable pirate from reaping where he has not sown”, that is to say, in some way or other, to protect the copyright of the books in which they ap­­peared. Bibliographical researches into the history of printers’ devices have established that at any rate in their origin and primary raison d’être they bear no resemblance to the industrial marks which we have described above, but that, on the contrary, (1) their use was optional, – never com­ pulsory; (2) that they were variable or replaceable at the will of the user; (3) that there was no limitation upon the number of devices used; (4) that their use was that of a symbol of self-ex­ pression – a mark of personality; and that their functional development was decorative rather than regulatory.55

The variety and malleability of printers’ device demonstrates that their function, rather than containing any firm legal principle, had to do with self-promotion and self-presentation. Printers often used several devices at the same time or in succes­ sion: this adaptability is in keeping with the hazards of life and the versatility of their ambitions. For Italy, Angela Nuovo has shown that contention over marks and legal disputes resulting from disagreements on their uses were quite frequent. It was, she says, a legal reality, even if no trace remains in Venice of any legal disposition regu lating marks and signs.56 In France, though, devices appear to have been consid­ ered fairly soon as intellectual property worthy of some protection: In 1539, François I issued an ordinance requiring every printer and bookseller to have his own mark so that the purchasers of books might easily know where the books were printed and sold. This statute, which was re-enacted in identical form for the printers of Lyon in 1541, may have been intended to aid in the suppression of heresy as well as of trade piracy.57

As printers frequently borrowed each other’s devices, in practice the making of devices was a field of imitatio and aemulatio: the need for more iconic complexity explains the gradual recourse to emblems and hieroglyphs. Mallinkrot associates each printer with a single animal (e.  g. unicorn) or a single object (circinus) but in doing so, he simplifies their symbolic grammar: these insignia are often built on antitheses and paradoxical associations. Reducing them to a list of univocal lexical items is certainly problematic. Emblematic devices are far more lively, and inventive as their relation­ ship to meaning is never fixed; concepts can be signified by several associations alike: the meaning of hasting slowly (maturare/festina lente) can for instance be illustrated by a dolphin and an anchor, or by a crab and a butterfly. Paradoxical conjunctions

55 Schlechter 2008 [1925], 64. 56 Nuovo 2013, 150–152. 57 Schlechter 1925, 68.



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are at the core of the emblematic process. Symbolic polyvalence can trigger several associations and connections. One particularly interesting rehearsal of festina lente is the emblem Jean-Jacques Boissard dedicated to the printer Jean Aubry (Johannes Aubrius),58 one of the heirs of the Frankfort printer André Wechel. It is placed right after the emblem he devoted to another printer, Abraham Fabert. The 1588 Latin edition in Metz of his Emblematum liber is due to both publishers. Moreover Jean Aubry’s daughter, Marie, married Boissard in 1587. The two emblems dedicated to Abraham Faber and Jean Aubry are composed on a similar pattern: the friendly advice of a member of kin. The emblem devoted to Aubry, Nec temere Nec Segniter [“neither rashly nor sluggishly”] (Figure 4)

Figure 4

shows the aldine device combining a dolphin and an anchor between a woman, who offers advice in one direction, and an old man, who points another way. The woman says haste swiftly with what you have begun, as she is impatient to avoid delay (verse 3) whereas the old man’s advice is haste slowly: one is too rushed, the other is slower than an anchor (verse 4). As such, the emblem quotes a seminal device and plays on the emblematic character of the aldine formula. It is thus quite different from Aneau’s emblem dedicated to Macé Bonhomme. Aneau’s celebration of his friend was placed at the very beginning of his emblem book, before the emblem dedicated to the author’s device: it belonged to the paratext situated at the threshold of the volume: as an introductory piece, the printer’s device gained a special importance in the book’s economy. It was meant to enhance the reputation of the printer by evidencing his high ground ambitions. The case of Boissard’s emblem dedicated to his father-in-law is rather different: it shows that printers’ devices had by then become common refer­ ences to the conceits developed in a wider emblematic repertoire.

58 Boissard 1588. www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/emblem.php?id=FBOa027.

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The legacy of humanist printers’ marks is particularly enduring. Copied and counterfeited many times, these emblematic devices are tools for self-presentation that proved to be particularly efficient. The comments upon them clearly reveal the strong personalization of their nature. In the second dedicatory preface to the Scriptores ­astronomici veteres (1499) addressed to his honorable friend Alberto Pio, Aldus writes: “I am my own witness that I always keep company, as one should do, it is said, with the dolphin and the anchor. For we have produced much without undue haste and we are producing assiduously”.59 The device’s creation history often alludes to a gift, token of a humanistic friendship. The choice of an animal (dolphin, griffon, viper) has sometimes a totemic power, inasmuch as, like heraldic devices, they es­­tablish a person’s connection with a particular lineage. As Erasmus’ commentaries in the Adagia demonstrated, Aldus had set a matrix by using the anchor and dolphin mark: the other printers followed, copied or parodied this practice throughout the sixteenth century. The ways in which printers’ marks developed into symbolic images show the importance of the references to a chivalrous ethos: these devices were not chosen randomly, they often encapsulatds heroic myths and powerful ideals. Emblem­atic creations bring to the fore the liveliness of aemulatio and inventio in Humanist circles. Renaissance printers created much more than lexica of trademarks: their refined use of an emblematic grammar provides a vivid picture of the learned friendship between men of letters, printers, publishers and authors of the sixteenth century. As far as their legal significance is concerned, printers’ marks gradually became legally enforceable means of enhancing commerce and protecting from counterfei­ ting practices. This evolution has not been steady nor was it achieved at the same pace everywhere. Public protection started earlier in Italy and in France than in Great Britain,60 and the devices of famous publishers have contributed to a great extent to the founding of a legal frame for the protection of all kinds of trademarks. A century prior to the invention of printing, Bartolo had already laid the basis of a wide discussion about individualized trademarks. Printers’ devices are indeed quite different in their function and purpose, but their legal significance remains at the core of their essence. Printers who created or adopted devices were aware of their versatile nature and, to a large extent, their usefulness to fight counterfeit piracy.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Archstone of the two vipers, printer’s mark of Jean de Tournes (1504–1564). Original setting: Jean I de Tournes’ house, once at rue Raisin 9, today rue Jean de Tournes, Lyons, Musée Gadagne, Lyon, inv. 39.282. Photograph by the author.

59 Translation Goldschmidt 1966, 81. Aldus’ texts referring to his signet are printed, translated and discussed in Wolkenhauer 2002, 35–36; this text also on 170–171. 60 Schechter 1925, 68–69.



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Figure 2: Device and motto of the printing house of Jean de Tournes, from M. Vitruvii Pollionis De architectura libri decem, ad Caes. Augustum, omnibus omnium editionibus longè emendatiores, collatis veteribus exemplis (1586), reprint of the 1552 edition (last leaf, unnumbered). Private collection. Figure 3: Barthélemy Aneau, Imagination Poétique, Lyon, Macé Bonhomme 1552, 12: “Marque et divisie de l’imprimeur de travail honneur”, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections. Figure 4: “Ad Ioannem Aubrium Trecensem. Nec temere nec segniter”, Jean-Jacques Boissard, Emblèmes latins avec l’interprétation Françoise, Metz, Jean Aubry and Abraham Faber 1588, 63, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Bibliography Alciato, Andrea, Emblematum liber. S.l.: s.n., 1531. Alciato, Andrea, De singulari certamine liber. Eiusdem consilium in materia duelli, exceptum ex libro quinto responsorum. Lyon: Jacopo Giunta, 1544. Aneau, Barthélemy, Imagination poétique. Lyon: Macé Bonhomme, 1552. Bartolo da Sassoferrato see Cavallar (ed.) Baudrier, Henri, Bibliographie Lyonnaise: Recherche sur les imprimeurs, libraires, relieurs et fondeurs de lettres de Lyon au XVIème siècle. Paris: F. de Nobèle, 101964–1965. Boas, George, ed., The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo. (Bollingen Series 23) New York: Pantheon Books, 1950. Boissard, Jean-Jacques, Emblèmes latins avec l’interprétation Françoise. Metz: Jean Aubry and Abraham Faber, 1588. [www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/emblem.php?id=FBOa027]. Camerarius, Joachim, Symbolorum et emblematum centuriae quatuor. Nuremberg: Vögelin, 1590–1605. Cartier, Alfred, Bibliographie des éditions des De Tournes, imprimeurs Lyonnais. Paris: Editions des bibliothèques nationales de France, 1937. Cassirer, Ernst, Paul O. Kristeller & John H. Randall Jr., eds., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Selections in translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. Cavallar, Osvaldo, Susanne Degenring & Julius Kirshner, eds., A Grammar of Signs: Bartolo da Sassoferrato’s Tract on Insignia and Coat of Arms. Berkeley, CA: Robbins Collection, University of California at Berkeley, 1994. De la Feuille, Daniel, Devises et Emblèmes anciennes et modernes. Amsterdam: Daniel de la Feuille, 1691. Descat, Raymond, L’acte et l’effort. Une idéologie du travail en Grèce ancienne (du 8è au 5è siècle avant J.C.). (Centre de Recherches d’Histoire Ancienne 73) Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1986. Drysdall, Denis L., “Andrea Alciato, Pater et Princeps.” In: Daly, Peter M., ed., Companion to Emblem Studies. New York: AMS Press, 2008a, 79–97. Drysdall, Denis L., “Devices as ‘Emblems’ before 1531.” Emblematica 16 (2008b): 253–269. Gehl, Paul F., Humanism for Sale. Making and Marketing Schoolbooks in Italy, 1450–1650. Chicago: Newberry Library, 2008. [www.humanismforsale.org/text/archives/377]. Geronimus, Dennis, Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006. Goldschmidt, Ernst Ph., The Printed Book of the Renaissance. Three Lectures on Type, Illustration, Ornament. Amsterdam: Van Heusden, 1966. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965.

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Horapollon see Boas (ed.) Joubert, Laurent, Erreurs populaires et propos vulgaires, touchant la medecine et le regime de santé. Paris: L’Angelier, 1579. Joubert, Laurent, La première et seconde partie des erreurs populaires, touchant la médecine et le régime de santé. Rouen: Pierre Calles, 1601. Joubert, Laurent, The Second Part of the Popular Errors. Translated and annotated by Gregory David de Rocher. Tuscaloosa, Ala. & London: University of Alabama Press, 1995. Lippincott, Kristin, “‘Un Gran Pelago’. The Impresa and the Medal Reverse in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” In: Scher, Stephen K., ed., Perspectives on the Renaissance Medal: Portraits Medal of the Renaissance. New York & London: Garland Publishing; New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2000. Mallinckrodt, Bernhard von, & Johann Kinckius, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicæ dissertatio historica. In qua præter alia pleraque ad calcographices negocium spectantia de auctoribus et loco inuentionis præcipuè inquiritur. Proque moguntinis contra harlemenses concluditur. Cologne: Apud Ioannem Kinchium, Sub Monocerote veteri, 1640. Nuovo, Angela, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance. Brill: Leiden-Boston, 2013. Paradin, Claude, Devises Héroïques et Emblèmes. Paris: Jean Millot, 1614. Paradin, Guillaume, Gulielmi Paradini Anchemani Epigrammata. Lyon: Antoine Gryphe, 1581. Pollard, Andreas W., “Printers’ Marks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” The Connoisseur 2 (1902), 262–267. Renouard, Antoine-Augustin, Annales de l’imprimerie des Alde, ou Histoire des trois Manuce et de leurs Éditions. Paris: Antoine-Augustin Renouard, 1803a. Renouard, Antoine-Augustin, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages des trois Manuce. Paris: AntoineAugustin Renouard, 1803b. Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs parisiens, libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin du XVIè siècle. Paris: A. Claudin, 1898. (Reprint: Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Roth-Scholtz, Friedrich, Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum i. e. insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum. Nuremberg & Altorf: heirs of Joh. Dan. Tauber, 1730. Schechter, Frank I., The Historical Foundations of the Law Relating to Trade-marks. New York: Columbia University Press, 1925. (Reprint: Union, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2005). Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques; ou Recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rébus et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie, en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des libraires et imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1966. Stopp, Frederick J., The Emblems of the Altdorf Academy: Medals and Medal Orations, 1577–1626. London: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1974. Vanautgaerden, Alexandre, Érasme typographe, humanisme et imprimerie au début du XVIè siècle. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2012. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Printers’ Marks in Scholarly Research – Overview and Questions.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Researching and recording printers’ devices. Papers presented on 17–18 March 2015 at the CERL Workshop, hosted by the National Library of Austria, Vienna. London: CERL Studies, 2016, 7–25.

Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba

The Transition of the Printer’s Device from a Sign of Identification to a Symbol of Aspirations and Beliefs Gutenberg and early printers produced their publications for a readership living in an “environment of great visual and significatory complexity”,1 where signs, images and symbols formed an important part of everyday communication. Coats of arms, personal blasons, badges and devices proliferated, as did merchants’ marks (Hausmarken) commonly used by tradesmen and craftsmen. Merchants’ marks  – usually simple combinations of lines forming e.  g. crosses or the figure four and including the owners’ initials or flanked by them – were similar to other contempo­ rary symbols of recognition in that they could serve as signs of identification (e. g. when stamped or drawn on documents) or possession (e. g. when carved on buildings or painted on barrels of goods). They were also signs of authorisation or workman­ ship, since they commonly marked finished products as ready to reach the hands of buyers.2 Tradesmen and craftsmen who were to become publishers and printers often used merchants’ marks before starting their book businesses. It was only natural that Hausmarken became a basic component of early printers’ and publishers’ devices.3 For their contemporaries, who were well familiar with heraldic conventions, those devices that developed out of the pictorial vocabulary of medieval non-noble heral­ dry must have been intelligible signs, providing information about the publications’ origin. They identified books’ producers and spoke about the printers’ and ­publishers’ social status and places of activity. Soon, however, early heraldic devices started to be influenced by what Michael Pastoureau termed “pulsions emblématiques”.4 These emblematic waves reflected the same cultural tendencies that promoted the contem­

1  Watts 2003, 258. 2  Follprecht 2003, 46–62; Kuczyński 1986, 55–62; Farquhar 1980, 371–384; Mauss 1997, 107–110; Ko­ czerska 1991, 191–206. 3  In my text I am using the term “printer’s device”, since all the signs I am writing about belonged to people who were both typographers and publishers – traders in books. Only in the first of the cases I mention (that of Jan Haller) it is unclear if he was also the printer himself, who could sign his hand­ work, or just a publisher. For doubts concerning the terminology see e. g. Goldschmidt 1950, 78–80. Interestingly the oldest device found in a book printed in Poland is that of the publisher – the Bernar­ dines in Cracow, who supported the work of Kasper Straube, a journeyman printer. Appearing in Fran­ ciscus de Platea’s Opus restitutionum, usurarum et excommunicarum of 1475, the composition showed symbols (monograms) of nomina sacra. Its design was modelled on the shields of Fust and Schöffer. 4  Pastoureau 1981, 133. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-014

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porary popularity of the emblem and its forebear, the impresa – “a symbolical repre­ sentation of a purpose, a wish, a line of conduct [...] by means of a motto and a picture which reciprocally interpret each other”.5 In my text I will explore the story of the transition of the printer’s device from a simple sign towards a symbolic composition. As my source material I will use a group of sixteenth-century Polish printers’ devices, showing how the designs organ­ ised around the merchants’ marks, which initially chiefly identified the p ­ roducers of particular publications, developed to become erudite compositions intended to reflect the publishing house’s profile and the master-printer’s world view. I will look first at the printers’ devices with origins rooted in the medieval tradition of heraldic recognition, choosing as my example a device whose most important visual compo­ nent – a merchant’s mark – was used as a sign of identification and recognition in products and objects other than the printed books. Next, I will show how the early marks, combining the mercantile with the heraldic, and regarded in the first place as a commercial convenience, developed to become a marketing tool, designed to represent the owner’s beliefs and self-image. I will argue that, contrary to some earlier accounts by book historians, the change was not revolutionary, but evolu­ tionary: printers abandoned modest signs only gradually, combining them with more complicated representations before actually replacing them with symbolic ­compositions. Jan Haller was a Cracow tradesman who first had books for the Polish market printed in Leipzig, Metz, Nuremberg, Venice and Lyon.6 At the beginning of the six­ teenth century Haller started production in Cracow. Initially he had the Bavarian printer Kasper Hochfeder’s press working for him, but in 1505 he took over the Cracow printing office. Both as a publisher who could supply the books, and as a printer Haller identified his products with woodcuts that included his merchant’s mark: a minuscule h combined with a double cross. Haller’s merchant’s mark was presented in those compositions in varied ways. It was proudly exhibited as the main element of the printer’s device (Figure 1).7 But at the same time it could appear as a small character carved on a woodblock initial,8 it could constitute a part of more elaborate designs such as a title border9 or be included in a heraldic programme where muni­ cipal and national coats of arms with supporters played the most prominent role.10

5  Praz 1939, 50. For other definitions and their discussion see Lippincott 1990, 51–54. 6  Kawecka-Gryczowa 1983, 44–62. 7  Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 1; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 106, tabl. IV, no III. 8  On letter K in Missale Vratislaviense printed for Haller by Hochfeder in 1505. Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, II 33; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 105, tabl. IV, no II. On K and P in Missale Cracoviense z 1515/1516. Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, II 36, II 37; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 105, tabl. IV, no II. 9  1516–1524, Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 2; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 108, tabl. IV, no V; the border in Missale Cracoviense, 1515/1516. See Kapełuś 1962, tabl. 130. 10  1507–1513, Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, II 35, Krzak-Weiss 2006, 107, tabl. IV, no IV.



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Figure 1

Haller employed his merchant’s mark as a signifier and an identifier in his devices for almost two decades (1505–1524), never trying to experiment with more inventive compositions. An h combined with a double cross constituted an easily recognisable sign and Haller used it to mark not only printed materials from his officina, but also other goods which he owned or produced. The Hausmarke labelled sheets from the paper mill Haller owned in Prądnik Czerwony near Cracow,11 and – since such was the contemporary usage of merchants’ marks – appeared perhaps on the documents or letters he signed – drawn or stamped from a non-armorial seal.12 At the time of Haller’s activity as a printer-publisher, printers-humanists and those aspiring to be regarded as such were already experimenting with symbolic devices of classical models and, a little later, of emblematic affinity. This phenome­ non revealed the evolution of the printers’ ambitions, and mirrored changes in how members of the new generation understood their social standing and professional position.13 The tendency became particularly visible in 1520s, when, also in Cracow,

11  Found in books printed or bound between 1510 and 1520. See: Siniarska-Czaplicka 1983, 29, water­ marks no 1091–1104, 31, watermarks no 1178–1184; Lewicka-Kamińska 1975, 81–89; Siniarska-Czaplic­ ka 1985, 34–35. 12  A signet ring with the same Hausmarke flanked by the letters I and H was used in 1576, perhaps by the printer-publisher’s grandson. See: Wittyg 1907, 43. The woodblock displaying Haller’s merchant’s mark was still extant in the nineteenth century, see: Friedlein 1847, tabl. III, no 262. For the discussion of the archival evidence see Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2015, 69–78, 93–100. 13  Eisenstein 1981, 6–16; Wolkenhauer 1998, 165–179.

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Figure 2

the Terminus device of Hieronim Wietor started to be in use (from 1523) (Figure 2). However in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania heraldic traditions remained long lived among producers (and buyers) of books. Merchants’ marks remained an important component of local printers’ devices, as did burgher arms assumed by the printers or coat of arms granted to them. It suggests that in Poland-Lithuania mer­ cantile and heraldic forms of medieval origin remained a viable pictorial tool for the producers and buyers of books well into the sixteenth century. They could be identi­ fied more easily and belonged to iconographic traditions that were better known and better understood than classical imagery – rediscovered, recognised, and applied – as well as the emblem genre.14 Simultaneously, however, the printers, first in Cracow, started to employ devices that integrated their merchants’ marks into more sophisti­ cated, symbolic compositions of emblematic kinship. This type of a printer’s device was apparently a functional invention in a traditional environment where medieval traditions did not become outmoded as early as they did in Italy, France or German states, and harmoniously co-existed with new cultural tendencies. The Cracow example of this trend is a woodcut of Florian Ungler, who first opened his printing shop in the capital of the Kingdom of Poland in 1510. Ungler stayed inde­ pendent for a few years, but in 1516 he began to work for Jan Haller, whom he finally left in 1520/21 to start his own business again.15 Ungler signed his publications with seven different devices, most of which included his merchant’s mark, usually in the

14  Mödersheim 2005, 160. 15  See Bułhak 1983, 299–313.



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form of the initials F and V joined together.16 In one of these devices Ungler’s mono­ gram is embedded on a shield supported by a half-figure (Figure 3).17 At first sight this

Figure 3

seems to be a simple continuation of medieval models of heraldic display. Only later, guided by the mottos that surround the woodcut, does the viewer realise that the man in the picture is not just the supporter, but the personification of silence. The figure places a finger onto his lips while raising another hand in a gesture that urges silence to be maintained. The inscriptions in Latin, Greek and Hebrew confirm the meaning of what Ungler’s erudite contemporaries called signum Harpocraticum,18 and they present silence as the choice of a sage.19 Ungler’s device clearly imitated those by Thomas Wolff of Basle. The Cracow com­ position seems to be a fusion of two different designs employed by Wolff. The first one was a title-page border whose decoration included a man’s figure placing his finger onto his lips and holding a shield with Wolff’s Hausmarke, the second was a woodcut of a classical design surrounded by an assembly of multilingual mottos.20 Ungler’s

16  Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 3, 4; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 109–114, tabl. V, no I–V; Bułhak 1964, tabl. 211, no 175; Bułhak 1970, tabl. 338, no 112. 17  Preserved in a unique copy of one edition: Jan Cervus Tucholczyk, Institutiones grammaticae (Kraków: Florian Ungler, 1533), Biblioteka Narodowa in Warsaw, call no in I.O.396. 18  Signum Harpocraticum and its history is presented in Matthey 2011, 541–572. 19  See footnote 22. 20  Heitz 1895, no 15; For a throughout discussion of pictorial and textual sources for Wolff’s device see Wolkenhauer 1998, 170–174; Wolkenhauer 2002, 255–261.

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device is thus a repetition of somebody else’s idea. Nevertheless, it seems to be an interesting example of a union between old traditions and new modes. In Ungler’s device of 1533 what allows the reader to infer the identity of the printer is still the lat­ ter’s merchant’s mark, presented in accord with heraldic traditions – on an escutch­ eon, supported by a human figure. The woodcut’s conservative composition repeats models of heraldic display, and follows a late gothic design of half-figures – a conven­ tional pictorial type altogether common in the late fifteenth-century book illustration. At the same time the medieval tradition functions in a new context that is constituted by a message-bearing image, explained and complemented by a verbal commentary. The allegorical figure is a representation of an abstract idea, and the device presents it surrounded by inscriptions from traditio Hebraica, traditio Christiana, and traditio gentilis.21 It is a symbolic composition with a didactical purpose, and correctly under­ standing its message requires knowledge of the classical tradition (e. g. ancient cults, Roman literature) filtered through the works of humanists (e.  g. Erasmus with his Adagia, Andrea Alciato with Emblemata) and artists (e. g. Hans Holbein’s designs).22 Similarly to the emblems, it draws upon “a representational mode in which the visual world is conceived as a referential system where each figure contains an allusion”23 to an aspect of humanist culture. Such a device identifies the printer, but also presents him as acquainted with new cultural tendencies. Even if Ungler only imitated Wolff’s devices, unaware of their pictorial and literary sources, all the references, and there­ fore the rhetorics these compositions implied, he had consciously chosen to repeat the mottos in the languages of the learned, the humanists, showing his and his work­ shop’s aspirations. It is also highly probable that the Cracow printer (who was also a bookseller, acquainted with new cultural tendencies) knew Erasmus’ Adagia and the early editions of Alciato’s Emblemata. Ungler’s composition of 1533 represents one way of merging heraldic tradition with an emblematic mode in a printer’s device. Another could be that of making the printer’s Hausmarke a part of a design that on the one hand was a rebus signature

21  The mottos quote Juvenal, a sentence that Plutarchus attributed to Simonides, Ecclesiastes (Koh 1, 10) and Saint Paul’s letter (Ef 4, 29). 22  Harpokrates and his gesture was mentioned i.a. by Varro, Plutarchus, Catullus and Ovid. In Erasmus’ Collectanea Adagiorum, 1500 Harpocrates and Juvenal’s warning appeared together: Digito compesce labellum. Harpocratem facere et in eundem sensum alia (Adagium 172). In Adagia (Adagium 3052) Erasmus mentioned the Egyptian god while quoting Catullus. The Early Modern popularity of Harpocrates as a symbol of silence is confirmed by Alciato’s Epigrammata selecta (1529) and repeated in editions of his emblem book (emblem In silentium). The picture of Alciato’s emblem was perhaps modelled on Wolff’s device that in turn is sometimes attributed to Hans Holbein. At the time when the device first appeared in Wolff’s books (1521), the artist was also working on the frescos in Basle’s town hall. These allegorical paintings also included the figure of Harpocrates. See Wolkenhauer 2002, 255–261. 23  Mödersheim 2005, 160.



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of the printer, and on the other – had a symbolic value.24 Of the Cracow examples I want to present here briefly the devices of Maciej Szarfenberg, Maciej Wirzbięta and Mateusz Siebeneicher. The first of the abovementioned printers, Maciej Szarfenberg, belonged to a Sile­ sian family, whose members were active in book production, the book trade, paper making, woodcutting and bookbinding in the sixteenth-century in both Cracow and Wrocław.25 Maciej, working in Cracow, employed a number of printer’s devices, all displaying his merchant’s mark.26 The one among them that deserves special atten­ tion is a composition of 1546. It presents the letters M and S surmounted by a cross, embedded on a cartouche that is set against a landscape of rocky mountains where two goats are butting each other, and a third one is climbing a hill. In some in­­stances the woodcut is surrounded by Latin and Greek mottos taken from the Vulgate and Septuagint, each repeating the same line of Psalm 114 (113A), 4: “the mountains leaped like rams, the hills like lambs” (Figure 4).27

Figure 4

24  For the rebus tradition, also in printer’s devices, see Fraenkel 1993, 35–40; Lippincott 1990, 73–75; Margolin 1981, 65–80; Simoni 1980, 445–466. 25  Kawecka-Gryczowa and Mańkowska 1983, 238–252. The family members active in Cracow used both German and Polish version of their name: Scharffenberg and Ostrogórski. 26  Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, III 67, I 19, I 20; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 121–123, tabl. IX, no I–IV. 27  After Maciej’s death the woodcut was used by his son, Hieronim, who replaced his father’s merchant’s mark with his own initials. See Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 21, Krzak-Weiss 2006, 124, tabl. X, no I.

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The design is an application of punning devices, as the woodcut refers to the meaning of the name Szarfenberg, which could be translated as “of the rocky mountain”. The rebus signature of the Cracow printer was readily understood by anyone who spoke German and had sufficient wit. But most probably it was also conceived as a symbolic composition, as both the Greco-Roman and the Christian tradition often perceived mountains as the place nearest to heavens, where the divine reveals itself to man. “Rocky mountains” in Szarfenberg’s device are not only a pun on the printer’s name, but also the realms of transcendence, as the mottos accompanying the woodcut seem to suggest.28 The goats depicted in Szarfenberg’s printer’s device29 echo perhaps a symbolical tradition most famously recorded in Physiologus, but also known from other medieval compendia and Renaissance emblem books.30 This tradition per­ceived the goat, or more precisely the she-goat, capra, as a sign of Christ or “good preach­ers” who “being nurtured by divine law and savouring good deeds, proceed from virtue to virtue”.31 The basis for the comparison was a conviction that goats choose the best food, which grows high up and which is difficult to reach. The capra of the bestia­ ries also functioned as a symbol of moral progress, striving upwards.32 A device like the one of Szarfenberg followed the heraldic tradition in identifying the printer and providing demarcations of class and status. At the same time it was a witty invention and, more importantly, it could also be understood as an expression of some inner ambition or hope. In the second half of the sixteenth century Maciej Wirzbięta and Mateusz Sieben­ eicher, active in Cracow from 1555 and 1557 respectively, started to employ printers’ devices that combined models of heraldic display and the tradition of rebus signatures as well as printers’ marks that constituted puns on the owners’ names while referring to the symbolic language of the period. The composition of Wirzbięta’s and Sieben­ eicher’s devices is strikingly similar: a shield with a merchant’s mark hanging on a tree is presented in the centre of a monumental cartouche. In the earliest printers’ devices escutcheons with coats of arms or non-armorial compositions were already displayed hanging from a tree branch.33 Wirzbięta and Siebeneicher followed this fifteenth-

28  Eliade 1993, 66–70; Lurker 1989, 62–63. 29  The goat must have been an important animal for the Szarfenberg family, since its other Cracow branch, after being granted nobility in 1554, used a coat of arms containing charges of an issuant beast. 30  Kobielus 2002, 153. 31  Kobielus 2002, 26. It was important to differentiate between the billy goat and the she-goat as the first animal represented first and foremost dissipation or even Satan (Rowland 1973, 80–85). 32  Goats butting each other were the figure of the two comings of Christ – in the human body and at the end of times. See Kobielus 2002, 156–157. 33  On heraldic printer’s devices and trees in the devices see Moran 1978, 5–47; Davidson 1996, 41–56; Schlüter and Vinken 1997. The model for the depiction on a shield in Wirzbięta’s device could be one of the signs by Andreas Gessner and Rudolf Wissenbach (see e. g. Erasmus of Rotterdam,



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century tradition, but chose as the supporters trees referring to their surnames. A willow-tree, Polish “wierzba”, for Wirzbięta, and an oak, German “die Eiche”, for Sie­ beneicher. The result in each case was a readily understood rebus, but also a design that conveyed intrinsic meaning associated with certain moral, and social values. Wirzbięta employed three willow-tree devices.34 Two of them, both already used in 1557, displayed his merchant’s mark (Figure 5). The third woodcut, first used as a device in 1563, represented a willow-tree nibbled at by a goat, with no Hausmarke

Figure 5

included. It is, however, this woodcut with no heraldic elements that helps us under­ stand the reasons behind the device union between the sign identifying Wirzbięta and the willow, that was often regarded as a barren and barrenness causing plant, a tree of sadness and lament.35 We learn what aspects of the tree symbolism could persuade the printer to adopt devices that stressed the connection between the plant and himself thanks to the fact that the woodcut showing a willow nibbled at by a goat served as the pictura of an emblem in Mikołaj Rej’s Źwierzyniec (Bestiary or Zodiac), a cycle published by Wirzbięta in 1562 (Figure 6). Mikołaj Rej was an important Polish

Novi Testamenti aeditio postrema, Zürich 1553), while the overall design of Wirzbięta’s devices from 1557 was copied from books printed in Zürich by Andreas Gessner (see e.  g. Claudius Aelianus, Opera quae extant omnia, Zürich: Andreas Gessner, Hans Jakob Gessner, 1556) and “apud Gesneros fratres” (see e.  g. Conrad Gessner, Enchiridion rei medicae, Zürich: Andreas Gessner, Hans Jakob Gessner, 1555). 34  Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 24, III 72, 72; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 138–140, tabl. XV, no I–III. About Wirzbięta’s printing career see Kawecka-Gryczowa 1983, 358–370. For Wirzbięta’s devices see Winger 1975, 419–420 as well as Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010a, 33–51. 35  De Cleene & Lejeune 2003, 726–740.

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Figure 6

poet who adopted numerous emblems from Alciato, created his own emblematic compositions and who helped Wirzbięta in establishing his publishing house. Like Wirzbięta, Rej was a Calvinist and the first book Wirzbięta’s press published was Mikołaj Rej’s Postylla (Postill) – the poet’s “Christ-centred reformation manifesto”36 that heralded the workshop’s Evangelical profile, which Wirzbięta consistently fol­ lowed in subsequent years. The emblem in question consisted of a pictura showing a tree being nibbled at by a goat, an inscriptio Wirzba na stałość [The willow-tree as a symbol of constancy], and a subscriptio presenting the willow as a symbol of patience, perseverance and hope – a universal model of ethical conduct. The epigram’s last line revealed that the ideal was already being followed by “our people”, that is by the Calvinists, Rej’s and Wirz­ bięta’s co-believers. The poem presented Calvinists as calmly tolerating persecution, and in a consistently developed parallel compared them to the patient, mutilated wil­ low-tree. Thus the emblem referred to a tradition that saw the fragile tree as a sign of endurance and strength, a tradition that understood a willow with young branches as a symbol of a Church that continues to grow despite oppression. Wirzba na stałość – the emblem by a contemporary poet, who helped to start Maciej’s workshop in Cracow, and remained one of the printer’s regular authors – explains the “silent speech” of Wirzbięta’s willow-tree devices. The willow was chosen to reappear in the printer’s books not only because it constituted a pun on his name, but also because it could be read as a symbol of the virtues of the Calvinists. Presented usually in union with the printer’s personal sign (the initials M and W)

36  Maciuszko 2005, 288. On the Reformation in Poland see e. g. Evans 1985, 167–196; Knoll 1996, 283–288; Kawecka-Gryczowa and Tazbir 1998, 410–431.



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the inconspicuous tree denoted the religious affiliations of Wirzbięta, and helped the device become a vehicle of self-propagandisation since it suggested the printers’ per­ severance in his faith. This function of the printer’s device was perhaps most visible in the earliest of the woodcuts Wirzbięta used, where Maciej’s initials are not only embedded on a shield hanging from a willow-tree, but also placed under represen­ tations of Caritas and Fides in the upper corners of the device’s cartouche. Since the virtues’ vernacular names in Polish – Miłość/ Miłosierdzie and Wiara – begin with the same letters as the printer’s name and surname, the device’s conceptual character becomes particularly manifest here. Its composition is organized around a printer’s merchant’s mark and a representation that is both a pun on his name and a symbol of ethical conduct and religious affiliations. At the same time personifications marked with the printer’s initials suggest a close link between Wirzbięta (and his books) and the divine gifts that should stimulate the life of a Christian as, for Evangelical theol­ ogy, trust in “faith alone” and “grace alone” constituted an essential rule.37 Interestingly, Wirzbięta’s merchant’s mark paired with the willow-tree is also known from the printer’s signet ring. The entwined M and W together with a sym­ bolic willow identified not only the books Maciej printed, but also corroborated the documents he signed, also as the member of Cracow city council and the elder of the Calvinist Church in Małopolska region (Lesser Poland) (Figure 7).

Figure 7

One of Maciej Wirzbięta’s competitors in the Cracow book world was Mateusz Sie­ beneicher,38 whose device made use of both heraldic models and the rebus signa­ ture tradition in a very similar way as Wirzbięta’s mark. It was first employed in 1564 and represented the escutcheon with Siebeneicher’s Hausmarke hanging on an oak

37  Leszczyński 2006, 14, 24; Maciuszko 2005, 295–296. 38  Mańkowska 1983, 201–216.

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 Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba

Figure 8

(Figure 8).39 The oak was certainly chosen as support because it constituted a pun on the printer’s name, but also because of its symbolism. Strong and beneficial, it was the mythical tree of life, an eternal and divinatory plant that in the Christian tradition represented perseverance in faith, the power of virtue or even the soul of the faithful that opposes worldly temptations. In the symbolism of the oak, common experience met tradition build up over the centuries, and in Siebeneicher’s time disseminated in emblem books, Alciato’s collection included (the emblem Firmissima convelli non posse).40 Therefore the viewer might have easily established the connection between the tree depicted in the device, the printer himself (as Siebeneicher’s merchant’s mark was represented in the middle of the woodcut) and moral values symbolised by the motif in the picture. Because of the recognisable positive associations raised by the tree depicted in the composition, Siebeneicher’s invention seems to be a good example of how similar devices – uniting heraldic conventions and the emblematic mode – worked, how they communicated to a contemporary audience and what kind of message they conveyed. For example, Siebeneicher’s device of 1564, for many viewers, was just a depiction of a merchant’s mark, a sign of identification and recognition, only one that was displayed in a decorative setting. Those who noticed that a shield with Sie­ beneicher’s Hausmarke was hanging on an oak, who spoke German and who were familiar with rebuses and word plays, would recognise the pun on the printer’s name. Some intuitively understood that the mature tree represented strength, constancy

39  Hałaciński & Piekarski 1926–1929, I 22; Krzak-Weiss 2006, 142, tabl. XVI, no III. 40  De Cleene & Lejeune 2003, 453–462. For a discussion of oak symbolism in the emblematic context see Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2014, 103–116.



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and ­steadfastness. Finally there were viewers for whom the larger context needed to read the device was established through the Bible or the works of the Church fathers, through classical texts, humanist poetry and emblem books. For all, or at least almost all the readers who noticed the device in a printed book, it constituted a message-­ bearing image. Understanding of the information it carried was determined by the viewers’ acquaintance with heraldic convention, iconographic and literary tradition, religious imagery, “symbolic systems, systems of signs and meanings”.41 Perhaps it was deliberately invented and executed in a way that made it a message to be read differently by audiences of varied cultural background. Mateusz Siebeneicher didn’t only employ the device with his merchant’s mark and an oak in his books. From 1558 he used another device – a woodcut that repre­ sented birds and a sceptre standing on a rock accompanied by the motto Concordia res parvae crescunt.42 This design was modelled on the Antwerp device of Joannes Steelsius, but at the same time repeated an idea embodied in Alciato’s emblem Concordia.43 Siebeneicher was thus the owner of both a device employing a pun on his name, where old heraldic conventions united with symbolic modes, and an emblem­ atic device. Rather than identifying Siebeneicher, the latter defined him, and – by openly alluding to humanist erudition and a well-known emblem source – it formed a statement about the printer’s socio-cultural background. The device conventions were “manipulated for allusive rather than indicative purposes”44 and its intelligi­ bility was limited to the audience who could extract the design’s didactical message and – if their cultural memory was capacious enough – establish the relationship between the apparently unconnected motto and the image by recollecting the works of Roman writers or by recalling Alciato’s emblem book. In the second half of the sixteenth century, emblematic devices, ones that perhaps defined not only the printers’ but also their readers, dominated books pro­ duced in Europe. In Cracow and in other provincial workshops of the Common­wealth of Poland-Lithuania Hausmarken were still apparent in some of the devices, also because woodblocks could remain in circulation for decades in a milieu of limited financial resources. But the most influential printers – such as Jan Januszowski in Cracow, who marked his books with an obelisk – employed devices that referred to classical and pre-classical sources, traditio pagana et Christiana, mediaeval imagery and books of emblems.45 These compositions can be even more puzzling to the modern viewer than designs following the tradition of mediaeval non-noble heraldry.

41  Mödersheim 2005, 160. 42  Krzak-Weiss 2006, 141–142, tabl. XVI, no I–II. 43  Buchwald-Pelcowa 1981, 109–112. 44  Lippincott 1990, 62. 45  See Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010b, 112–135. About Januszowski, a printer-intellectual, see Kiliańczyk-Zię­ ba 2007 and Kiliańczyk-Zięba 2010c, 5–37.

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We can explain and interpret them only to the extent the limited iconographic vocab­ ulary we have inherited allows us to. Nevertheless, trying to solve the riddles posed by the emblematic printers’ devices will provide us some insight into the visual and intellectual tradition of the sixteenth century, and allow us to reconstruct the mental­ ity of contemporary printers who wanted to be seen not only as businessmen but also as humanists and intellectuals.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Jan Haller’s device. Source: Jan Łaski, Commune Regni Poloniae privilegium (Cracow: Jan Haller, 1506). Copy in Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow, Cim. 8004, last f. v., page dimensions: 20×29.5 cm. Figure 2: Hieronim Wietor’s device. Source: Erasmus of Rotterdam, Opus de conscribendis epistolis (Cracow: Hieronim Wietor, 1523). Copy in Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow, Cim. 92, last f. v., page dimensions: 10.5×15.3 cm. Figure 3: Florian Ungler’s device. Source: Jan Cervus Tucholczyk, Institutiones grammaticae (Cracow: Florian Ungler, 1533). Copy in Biblioteka Narodowa in Warsaw XVI.O.396, last f. v., page dimensions 10.5×15.2 cm. Figure 4: Maciej Szarfenberg’s device. Source: Johannes Caesarius, Dialectica (Cracow: Maciej Szarfenberg, 1546. Copy in Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow, Cim. 202, last f. v., page dimensions: 10×15.5 cm. Figure 5: Maciej Wirzbięta’s device. Source: Mikołaj Rej, Źwierciadło (Cracow: Maciej Wirzbięta, 1568). Copy in Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow, Cim. 8181, last f. v., woodcut dimensions: 7.3×9.6 cm. Figure 6: “Wirzba na stałość” Source: Mikołaj Rej, Źwierzyniec (Cracow: Maciej Wirzbięta, 1562). Copy in Biblioteka Ossolineum in Wrocław, XVI.Qu.3188, page dimensions: 15.5×20 cm. Figure 7: Maciej Wirzbięta’s signet ring. Source: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, VIII-piecz. 2006. Dimensions: 21×18 mm. Figure 8: Mateusz Siebeneicher’s device. Source: Marcin Bielski, Kronika wszystkiego świata (Cracow: Mateusz Siebeneicher, 1564). Copy in Biblioteka Ossolineum in Wrocław, XVI.F.4111, last f. v., page dimensions: 19×28 cm.

Bibliography Aelianus, Claudius, Opera quae extant omnia, Zurich: Andreas Gessner & Hans J. Gessner, 1556. Bułhak, Henryk, ed., Polonia Typographica. Vol. 5: Druga drukarnia Floriana Unglera 1521–1536. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1964. Bułhak, Henryk, ed., Polonia Typographica. Vol. 7: Druga drukarnia Floriana Unglera, 1521–1536. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1970. Bułhak, Henryk, Art. “Ungler, Florian.” In: Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, ed., Drukarze dawnej Polski od XV do XVIII wieku. Vol. 1: Małopolska. Part 1: Wiek XV–XVI. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1983, 299–313.



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Buchwald-Pelcowa, Paulina, “Emblematyczne koneksje sygnetu Mateusza Siebeneichera.” Biuletyn Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej 31 (1981): 109–112. de Cleene, Marcel & Marie C. Lejeune, Compendium of Symbolic and Ritual Plants in Europe. Vol. 1: Trees and Shrubs. Gent: Stichting Mens & Kultuur, 2003. Davidson, Peter, The Vocal Forest: A Study of the Context of Three Low Countries Printers’ Devices of the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Academic Press, 1996. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., “The Early Printer as a ‘Renaissance Man’.” Printing History 3 (1981): 6–16. Eliade, Mircea, Sacrum, mit, historia. Ed. Marcin Czerwiński, transl. Anna Tatarkiewicz. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1993. Erasmus of Rotterdam, Novi Testamenti aeditio postrema. Zürich, 1553. Evans, Robert J. W., “Calvinism in East Central Europe. Hungary and Her Neighbours.” In: Prestwich, Menna, ed., International Calvinism 1541–1715. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, 167–196. Farquhar, James D., “Identity in an Anonymous Age: Bruges Manuscript Illuminators and Their Signs.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (1980): 371–384. Follprecht, Kamila, “Gmerki mieszczan krakowskich.” Krakowski Rocznik Archiwalny 9 (2003): 46–62. Fraenkel, Béatrice, “La signature et le rébus de nom propre.” In: Heussner, Martin et al., eds., Word and Image Interactions: A Selection of Papers Given at the Second International Conference on Word and Image August 1990. Basle: Wiese Verlag, 1993, 35–40. Friedlein, Daniel E., Drzeworyty w różnych dziełach polskich używane przez drukarzy krakowskich w XVI, XVII i XVIII wieku, a zachowane dotąd w zbiorze prywatnym D. E. F. Cracow, 1847. Gessner, Conrad, Enchiridion rei medicae. Zurich: Andreas Gessner & Hans J. Gessner, 1555. Goldschmidt, Ernst P., The Printed Book of the Renaissance: Three Lectures on Type, Illustration, Ornament. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1950. Hałaciński, Kazimierz & Kazimierz Piekarski, Sygnety polskich drukarzy, księgarzy i nakładców. Cracow: Koło Miłośników Ekslibrisu przy Towarzystwie Miłośników Książki, 1926–1929. Heitz, Paul, Basler Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts. Strassburg: Heitz & Mündel, 1895. Kapełuś, Helena, ed., Polonia Typographica. Vol. 4: Jan Haller 1505–1525. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1962. Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, Art. “Haller, Jan.” In: Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, ed., Drukarze dawnej Polski od XV do XVIII wieku. Vol. 1: Małopolska. Part 1: Wiek XV–XVI. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1983a, 44–62. Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, Art. “Wirzbięta, Maciej.” In: Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, ed., Drukarze dawnej Polski od XV do XVIII wieku. Vol. 1: Małopolska. Part 1: Wiek XV–XVI. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1983b, 358–370. Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia & Anna Mańkowska, Art. “Szarfenberg, Maciej.” In: Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia, ed., Drukarze dawnej Polski od XV do XVIII wieku. Vol. 1: Małopolska. Part 1: Wiek XV– XVI. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1983, 238–252. Kawecka-Gryczowa, Alodia & Janusz Tazbir, “The Book and the Reformation in Poland.” In: Gilmont, Jean-François, ed., The Reformation and the Book. English edited and translated by Karin Maag. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, 410–431. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, Czcionką i piórem. Jan Januszowski w roli pisarza i tłumacza. Cracow: Universitas, 2007. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “A Goat Nibbling at a Willow Tree: The Printer’s Devices of Maciej Wirzbięta and Their Emblematic and Iconographical Context.” Emblematica 18 (2010a): 33–51. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Emblematic Tradition in Renaissance Printer’s Devices in Poland.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem. From Incunabula to the Internet: Selected Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies, 28th July–1st August 2008. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010b, 112–135.

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Judit Vizkelety-Ecsedy

Mottos in Printers’ Devices – Thoughts about the Hungarian Usage In the following I will be dealing with the group of printers’ and publishers’ devices in Hungary which contain a motto, thus making their message more individual. As there is a complete survey at our disposal of devices used in Hungary in the more than 300 years between 1488 and 1800,1 we know that their number is rather restricted, which means that their usage was not general at all. The lack of devices can be explained probably by the relatively small number of printers (who were mostly publishers at the same time) but it may also be due to the circumstance that there was regularly one printer working in a town, and there was no need to use identifying signs for distin­ guishing. In order to outline the scope of my subject, it should be stated that from the above period 160 printers’ and publishers’ devices could be registered of which 42 are accompanied by an inscription. My aim is to characterize and investigate this special type of applied emblematics from several aspects. It will serve the understanding of further conclusions that in the sixteenth century all the printing officies were confessionally committed, whether privately owned or those of a church or a town. There existed only one (although very productive) Catho­ lic printing office , while all the others were Protestant: Calvinist or Lutheran. A very different situation compared to the Austrian hereditory domains, where no Protes­ tant printing shops were allowed. The printers and publishers in Hungary were in the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries, without exception, learned, theologically trained persons, mostly priests, preachers, teachers, authors of confessional works, Bible translators, so no wonder that they lived, so to say, together with the Bible. This situ­ ation changed by the second half of the eighteenth century when a considerable part of printing offices were private enterprises of trained printers.

Recurring Mottos Surveying the above list of mottos in printers’ and publishers’ devices one is struck by the number of recurring mottos: several occur three times, one is repeated five times, and another six times. It is worth analysing this phenomnenon and these mottos. In the sixteenth century of the six devices with mottos three have a Hungarian inscription: Mint a baran meg nemvl a nirv elot Ésa LIII [“As a sheep before her shear­ ers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth,” Isa. 53:7]. The printing office of Debrecen

1  Ecsedy and Simon 2009 and Simon 2012. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-015

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used three different devices with the same motto, which is interesting in itself, and renders a special emphasis to the motto chosen. It is in Hungarian, a unique feature among sixteenth century mottos, and it is chosen from the Old Testament. All the pictures belonging to the motto have as a chief motif a lamb holding a flag with a cross. In the first variant (20) in an oval frame a lamb holding a flag with a cross in its left foreleg represents the resurrected Christ. The motto is running around the oval. As this is at the same time the coat of arms of Debrecen, it expresses the close connection existing between a town and the printing office, although a private enterprise. In the case of the other device from Debrecen, which bears the same motto the recurring central figure of the lamb with the flag is placed into the interieur of a fine renaissance building. From above the figure of a scholar with a book is looking down, and on the squares of the floor in the front the date 1563 can be read (21, Figure 1). The motto encircles the figure of the lamb.

Figure 1: Printer’s mark 21: Mihály Török, Debrecen.

Figure 2: Printer’s mark 22: Rudolph ­Hoffhalter and Pál Lisiai Rheda, Debrecen.

The third device (22, Figure 2) with the same motto and the same lamb-figure is a re-cut variant of the former one, made 20 years later. The difference is not only the date 1583 placed again in the squares of the floor, but there are other minor altera­ tions. Although neither of the latter two woodcut devices bear an artist’s signature, it can be taken for certain that they were Raphael Hoffhalter and his son Rudolf re­spec­ tively, both acting as printer-publishers in Debrecen, both of them skilled engravers. The father, Raphael Hoffhalter, a prominent printer in the 1550–1560s had to leave Vienna because of his Protestant confession, and found refuge in the Hungarian kingdom, in Debrecen. In general we can ascertain that the coat of arms of a town is the most common type of printer’s marks in sixteenth century Hungary: 72% of the devices known today feature such arms. Hungarian printers, similar to their colleagues in Europe, were



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using the coats of arms of their town to identify their printing houses. So, the em­­ ployment of town coats of arms by printers is far from being exceptional in the six­ teenth century, because there are examples known e.  g. from the Low Countries: several devices of the Janssens printer-publisher display the town crest of Brugge.2 The speciality of the devices of Debrecen described above is, that here only the central motif is taken from the town crest, the motto is an addition, exactly alluding to the picture. There is no motto in the crest of the town Debrecen.Town crests offered the first printers the most obvious analogue for what they were trying to express in their devices, namely their personal identity in a visual symbol. The next recurring motto is Pacem te poscimus omnes, (Virgil: Aeneid, 11, 360– 364) which can be found in three devices between 1666 and 1704 in Debrecen, again, but a 100 year later. This motto accompanies two entirely different pictures. Two of them are representing a tree with oblong leaves flanked by a double circle, outside the circle rich foliation making up a square shape. Within the foliage of the tree in a banderole the inscription. In one case under the motto the date 1663 can be read (30) probably the date of the making of the device. The other is a variant of this, the motto is the same but there is no date carved into the device (31). While these two representations, together with the motto, have a close affinity with the device used by Konrad Eyfrid (Hanau 1627),3 the third depicts a pair of doves facing each other (32), holding a double olive branch in their beaks, and between them the inscription Pacem te poscimus omnes can be read. While the picture is a copy of the prototype used by Henricus Amana and Zacharias Taedama (Franeker 1687–1703)4 the motto is an addition by the Debrecen printer. Repeated mottos obviously deliver a deeper meaning than those used only once, but – together with a motto allowing several pictorial representations – we can not answer the question why the very decorative images of the trees were changed to the simple pair of doves. Keeping in mind the preference for tree motifs all over Europe, it seems that trees were the absolute favourites in seventeenth century iconography in Hungary. In the seventeenth century a very special situation can be observed: of the altogether 15 devices with mottos 11 depict trees,5 Two of them with the motto Pacem te poscimus omnes (30, 31) were already dealt with above, another is the mark with the motto Et flore et fructu (9), a very precise copy of the printer’s device of Johannes Janssonius van Waesberghe in Utrecht. A further one is Ne extra oleas (23), again a very precise copy of one of the variants used by the Elzevier office in Amsterdam. One can say that devices with trees are abundant in Hungarian books of this century.

2  Anthonis Janssens, merk 2, Jacob Janssens merk 1, 2. See Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck 1993. 3  Alsted, J.H., Synopsis theologiae. Hanau: impensis Conradi Eyfridi, 1627. 4  van Huisstede & Brandhorst 1999. 5  Davidson 1996.

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What is quite exceptional are the five variants of the Non solus motto. In the timespan 1650–1752 the five different variants of pictures with the same motto (25, Figure 3; 26, 27, 28 and 29) were employed as devices by 11 Hungarian prin­ ters at seven printing places. Even keeping in mind the manifold meaning of the tree symbol, starting with the Tree of Paradise, the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life, variously calling up notions of eternity, immortality, and rebirth, and recalling Classical, especially Plinian and Christian discussion of trees, one can not find a ­satisfactory explanation for the recurrence of this motto and this particular tree-mo­ tif in Hungary.

Figure 3: Printer’s mark 25: Abraham Szenci Kertesz, Várad.

Figure 4: Printer’s mark 40: Franz August Patzko, Pozsony.

While here 11 different printers were using five variants of the device with the Non solus motto, in the eighteenth century a single printer surprises us with six different variants of a motif bearing one and the same motto Spes confisa deo or, in its full form Spes confisa deo nunquam confusa recedit (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5). In three cases the shorter form (36, 37, 38) and in three cases the complete form (39, 40, 41) of the motto. Here the recurring central motif is the rock emerging from the sea with an anchor and a dove, stormy clouds and the rising sun. If the picture was given circular form, the surround­ ing of the rock is not visible and the motto can be read round the circle. If the picture has an oblong form, there is more room for details, and the chief motif is comleted with a ship in the background, further plants and a lighthouse. If the motto is put in its shorter form it appears in a beam of light, in other cases on a banderole (Figure 4). This motto with its six pictorial variants was used exclusively by Franz August Patzko, printer-publisher in Pozsony, in the time span 1774–1789 with references to the Old and New Testament. A single motif allows of a variety of interpretations.6 However, here there are several well-known symbols hinting at hope (anchor, Noah’s dove) and its interpretation is clear: belief set in God helps in difficult situation. This

6  Daly 1979.



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motto was well-known in Hungary in the eighteenth century: it occurs in several legal and historical books printed in Hungary in Latin,7 and in the album amicorum of the scholar Ferenc Pápai Páriz – at the same time documenting his stay in London in 1720.8 It must be the special concept of the printer-publisher Patzko, but we do not know anything about his motivation in chosing this motto or this picture. The way the printer used them is interesting: because of the variety of shapes the device functioned not only as a printer’s mark on the title page but also as a decorative head-piece.

Adaptation or Borrowing When analyzing mottos, one is faced with the question of adaptation. An especially interesting point is, when the originals of the adapted devices with mottos were in current use by the original “owner”. It never occured in the eighteenth century that Hungarian printers would copy a device used 200 years earlier. We do not know about the intentions of the printer when he borrowed a motto and a device from a contemporary foreign printing office. Was it simply to adjust his products to the pre­ vailing style in book decoration? One should differentiate the case when mererly the motto was adapted from another printer’s or publisher’s device and the picture is different, and the other case, when the whole device was borrowed. We have seen several examples of the latter among the tree emblems with mottos. Previously we were dealing with them as the most popular recurring mottos of seventeenth century printers, here we are trying to trace the reasons why they were so predominant in Hungary. Both the Biblical and Classical relevance of the motto was well understood by Hungarian printers. Those who used the motto in Hungary were withouth exception Calvinists as to their confes­ sion, and all learned people with knowledge of Greek and Latin, some of them with a theological training. We can not neglect the fact, that from the middle of the seventeenth century the number of books imported from Protestant Netherlands was constantly increasing, with the result that books with a tree and a motto on their title-pages were common in the hands of Hungarian students, scholars, printers. From many aspects the most interesting example is just this Non solus motto, used in Hungary sometimes by several printers at several places, contemporaneously with the Leiden and Amster­ dam Elzeviers. Although we are aware of the fact that there were also printers in the

7  E. g. Kelemen, I., Institutiones juris Hungarici privati. Pestini: Trattner, 1814, 384. 8  The inscription made by Vásárhelyi Baby Ferenc, Hungarus theologiae studiosus, Londini 1720. 21 August: Symbolum. Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedit.

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Netherlands who, from time to time, copied this device, it can not be compared with the abundance of Non solus devices in Hungary.9 A further possibility is when the picture is borrowed from some other, foreign orig­inal, and a motto was added in Hungarian usage, as in the case of the pair of doves with the motto Pacem te poscimus omnes, discussed above. We have an example of a third possibility of borrowing. It is a device featuring a tree with falling branches and a figure under it, further increasing the number of tree-symbols with motto – if the motto had not been erased from the banderole. We are thinking of the imitation, in fact a mirror image of the device used by Rémy Soubret in Paris in 1657 (a variety of the well-known Estienne device), which was used in Hungary consistently without words, with the banderole left empty. The missing motto would have been Noli altum sapere sed time. As it is taken from the Bible (Rom. 11:20), and would fit in with the spiritual surroundings of Debrecen, where it was used as a device, the reason for neglecting the Biblical text is not clear. Anyway, it was used with this empty banderole for several decades, from 1667 until 1700. The question whether there is any originality in Hungarian mottos used in the eighteenth century can not be easily answered. One conclusion can be certainly drawn, namely that as wise sayings, proverbs, pieces of advice for the conduct of life are taking the place previously taken by Classical and Biblical references, their common feature is that they always carry a positive message.

Providence, Labour, Endeavour Seventeenth–eighteenth centuries mottos in Hungarian printers’ devices have differ­ ent answers to basic questions of life and life conduct, namely: God and providence on one hand, labour and human talent, ingenuity on the other. Some examples for the former: Deo et conatu (printing press), In deo spes est mea (lake with swan), Spes confisa deo nunquam confusa recedit (rock with anchor), Dominus providebit (mono­ gramme of the printer). And for the latter: Altius labore et favore (printing press), Ingenio et labore (heap of books, paper bundles), Ingenio et viribus (a new technical invention: a rack), Ingenio tantum.(Pallas Athena). To illustrate this duality we will take a closer look at the three mottos and three devices depicting printing activity (Figures 5 and 6). Through the graphical concept and the motto the printer reveals his personal involvement with his activity. This is even more clearly the case with devices repre­ senting the work of printing. Although we have early examples from other European

9  Cf. Simon, European printers’ and publishers’ marks in the eighteenth century, this volume, pp. 347–359.



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Figure 5: Printer’s mark 15: Johann Georg Mauss, Pest.

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Figure 6: Printer’s mark 17: Hieronymus Verdussen, Pottendorf and Vienna.

printers, in Hungary there is no precedent from previous centuries for devices or mottos dealing with the activity of printing, it was in the eighteenth century that they appeared for the first time. There are three of them: (1) Altius labore et favore, (5) Crescit eundo and (6) Deo et conatu. Each picture displays some of the specific attrib­ utes of printing and bookselling, whereas in the motto there is no direct reference to these activities. They do not hint at the essence or sense of printing or book-publish­ ing or to its ever growing social significance,or its role in promoting science. Instead, the mottos are rather general, expressing personal endeavour, spirit, for­ wardness with the consent of Providence – in a rather abstract form, characteristic of the age of the enlightenment, and in two cases to the Masonic affiliation of the prin­ ters Hochmeister (1) and Weber (6). These mottos have moved away very far from the early ones hinting at the troublesome work of printers which was well demonstrated by the motto of the sixteenth century Orléans printer Eloy Gibier In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo taken from the Old Testament (Gen. 3:19), and depicting a press and the arm of the printer.10 Another example (which is at the same time a case of adaptation) is the device with the motto Altius – labore et favore used by Martin Hochmeister. One is struck at first sight by its similarity to the motto and picture used by the Vienna printer-pub­ lisher Johann Thomas Trattner. Trattner himself used several similar devices, differ­ ing only in details, e. g. in the number of columns, as in the case of the one copied by Hochmeister displaying four of them. In this very complex device (1) Hochmeis­ ter copied all the details of his prototype, among them the motto, the utensils for

10  Horodisch 1974.

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­ rinting, and the crowns decorating the columns: the imperial, the Austrian, the p Bohemian and Hungarian royal crowns. Certain elements of this device probably go back to an impresa in courtly use, depicting twin pillars with the motto Plus ultra, adopted by Emperor Charles V., and used on the title pages of books printed under imperial protection. The employment of this Vienna motto and device is a unique case. As a borrowed motto and picture, the Vienna andthe Hungarian printer used this device parallelly and contemporaneously. It is true that the products of the Vienna Trattner were con­ tinuously present on the Hungarian book market at a large number, but here it was not the case of simply copying the motto and the picture. Trattners’s motto hints at the privilege (favour) he had been granted by the emperor, but the Hungarian printer Hochmeister must have felt himself almost as favoured. He was granted the privilege to produce all official printings, laws, regulations, instructions referring to Transyl­ vania issued by the Emperor. This privilege made his enterpriese very lucrative. So one may assume that he used this motto with this device with the approval of Johann Thomas Trattner and the Vienna court. Some concluding thoughts about mottos and their usage in Hungary. The chrono­ logical distribution of the mottos shows that in the eighteenth century their number is equal to those of the previous centuries together. As to the source of the mottos: those from antiquity amount to seven, while those from emblem-books only to two. Fifteen of them are wise sayings, principles for the conduct of life or proverbs, mostly characterizing the mottos of eighteenth century devices in Hungary. The most numer­ ous group, 18 mottos are taken from the Bible, mainly from the Old Testament– a phenomenon probably explained by the Calvinist majority of printers using mottos. It should be noted here that from the middle of the eighteenth century the most pro­ ductive printing office was that of the Jesuit Academy in Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia), where a considerable part of their products displays the innumerous varieties of IHS symbol. However, we do not consider them fitting into our survey of mottos, as they were using the common ornament known from all Jesuit presses all over Europe without any personal or local relevance. The distribution among printers and printing places reveals that in the usage of mottos Debrecen had an outstanding place in the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries, a town where printing had a great tra­ dition. As to the language of the mottos, the majority is in Latin, there are only four Hun­ garian mottos. The number of Latin mottos as opposed to mottos in the national lan­ guage is overwhelming, revealing the Latin, humanistic culture of the country. As mentioned before, of the 160 printers’ and publishers’ devices used in Hungary between 1488 and 1800 there are 42 which are accompanied by mottos. In the follow­ ing these 42 mottos are listed in alphabetical order with reference to their source and with the relevant data of their employment together with a short description of the picture. As they are unknown and hardly accessible to international scholarly com­ munity I trust that this survey is not useless.



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Altius labore et favore – 1783–1790 by Martin Hochmeister, sen., printer, publish­ ­er in Szeben (today Sibiu, Romania). Picture: allegoric representation of book printing. A very precise copy of the Vienna printer publisher Johann Thomas Trattner. (2) Anchora salutis Christus – 1580 by Valentinus Mantskovit (Farinola) printer, Detrekő (today Plavecký Hrad, Slovakia). Picture: an anchor entwined by a snake. There is a strong resemblance to the devices used by Eustache Vignon and his heirs in Geneva between 1575–1604. Around it the typeset inscription. (3) Arte et Marte – 1786 by Sámuel Deáki Filep, printer of the Calvinist College in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania) Picture: on a stylized oval targe a female figure in contemporary dress is holding a snake in her right hand and a dove in her left hand. Below the targe on a scroll the motto. (4) Candidior illis – 1767–1782 by Samuel Sárdi and Martin Hochmeister, sen., prin­ ters of the City Press in Szeben (today Sibiu, Romania). Picture: in the middle of the circle there is the Earth, above the Sun, below the Moon and the stars. On the top the illumined eye in a laures wreath elucidating the motto. (5) Crescit eundo – (Lucretius: De rerum natura 6, 341.) 1777 by Johann Joseph Engel, printer in Pécs. Picture: it represents his profession, book-rinting. The angel alluding to the printer’s name, on the edge under the picture the motto. (6) Deo et conatu – 1783 by Simon Peter Weber, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) and in Komárom. Picture: an allegoric representation of printing and book trade. On the pages of the open book the initials of Weber, the letters SPW can be read. (7) Ditata dulcedo – 1767–1782 by Samuel Sárdi and Martin Hochmeister, sen., prin­ ters of the City Press, Szeben (today Sibiu, Romania). Picture: In the centre of the device bees are flying towards a bee hive, above, on a scroll the motto. (8) Dominus providebit – (Gen. 22:8) 1672–1700 by Samuel Brewer and his heirs, printers and publishers in Lőcse (today Levoča, Slovakia). Picture: calligraphic SB monogramme, the initials of Samuel Brewer encircled by a laurel wreath. (9) Et flore et fructu – 1683–1685 by István Töltési and his successors as printers of City Press in Debrecen. Picture: a helmeted female figure (Minerva) with an owl and a lance under a fruit bearing tree, the trunk of which is encircled by the inscribed banderole with the motto. A very precise copy of the printer’s device of Johannes Janssonius van Waesberghe in Utrecht. (10) Ex bello pax Ex pace ubertas – (Holtzwart, M.: Emblematum Tyrocinia LXIII.) 1598 by Gáspár Heltai, jun. printer, publisher in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania). Picture: a female figure (Fortuna) with a cornu copiae in her right hand and a sword entwined by laurel in her left hand, in the circle the motto. Below it the engraver’s initials G.C.T . (11) Ex pace ubertas – (Alciatus, A. Emblemata 1531, CLXXIX, Rollenhagen 1611). 1593 by Gáspár Heltai, jun. printer, publisher in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, (1)

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(12)

(13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

(20)

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Romania). Picture: a hand emerging from the clouds holding an olive-branch in a vase. On a banderole placed at the top the motto. Fama volat – (Virgil: Aeneid, 8, 554.) 1791 by Ferenc Ignác Ambró, printer, pub­ lisher in Vác. Picture: the Roman goddess of rumour, the winged Fama is raising her main attribut the trumpet to her mouth On a sheet of paper held in her hand the mottot can be read. Gloria in excelsis Deo – (Lk. 2:14) 1497–1499 by Paep, Johannes, publisher and book­ seller in Buda and in Venice. Picture: framed rectangle with back background, around the initials IP a double circle with the inscription Gloria in excelsis Deo. Haec mel sugit, at ista venenum – 1763 by István Páldi Székely, printer, engraver, at the Press of the Calvinist College, Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romana). Picture: the copperplate device is a rose in a rectangular frame, with on one side a bee, and on the other a spider. The scroll above features the motto. The artist was presumably the printer himself. In Deo spes est mea – (Psalm 73:28) 1748 by Johann Gerhard Mauss, publisher, bookseller, bookbinder in Pest. Picture: copperplate engraving of a lake with a swan swimming between aquatic plants, in a decorated frame. The eye of God oversees the landscape from above. On a scroll the motto. Ingenio et labore – 1778–1783 by Anton Löwe, publisher and bookseller in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: a richly ornamented shell-like plate with the type-set words of the motto. The plate is set against a heap of books and paper bundles alluding to the book-trade. The same is expressed by the caduceus, the attribute of Mercury. Signed by the engraver “Hafe”. Ingenio et virib[us] – 1666–1668 by Hieronymus Verdussen, printer of Count Ferenc Nádasdy’s press in Pottendorf and by Johann Baptist Hacque in Vienna. Picture: it represents a technical novelty: a rack standing in the middle of the oval emblem, and turned by a hand emerging from the clouds. Above it the motto. Although both printers arrived from Antwerp, the origins of this device cannot be traced in the Low countries. Perhaps it is a free adaptation of the mark of Peter Apianus, Ingolstadt, used ca. 1530–1550. Ingenio tantum – 1764 by Franz Anton Eitzenberger, printer, publisher in Pest. Picture: the copperplate engraving, indicative of a rather unskilled hand, fea­ tures the sitting Pallas Athena wearing a helmet and her aegis. She is holding a book in her left hand and a lance in her right. On the scroll the motto. A Jóságos erköltsnek semmi sem nehéz – (Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, and emblem books of Paolo Giovio or Joachim Camerarius) 1790 by Johann Michael Landerer, printer, publisher, bookseller in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: in an oval frame an ostrich with a horseshoe in its beak. The meaning of the Hungarian motto is: Virtue overcomes difficulties. Mint a Baran meg nemvl a nirv elot Ésa LIII – (Isa. 53:7) 1577–1642 by Rudolph Hoffhalter, János Csáktornyai printers and their successors at the City Press of Debrecen. Picture: the coat of arms of Debrecen (a lamb holding a flag with a



(21)

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(23)

(24)

(25)

(26)

(27)

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cross in its left foreleg, Agnus Dei) in an oval frame surrounded by the Hungar­ ian inscription taken from the Old Testament: “as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isa 53:7). Mint a Baran meg nemvl a nirv elot Ésa LIII – (Isa. 53:7) 1563 by Mihály Török printer at the City Press of Debrecen. The same Hungarian motto as (20) but with a different picture: on the top of a renaissance peristyle a scholar leaning on an open book. In an oval frame the lamb with the flag, i. e. the coat of arms of Debrecen. At the bottom the year 1563 is cut into the device. Mint a Baran meg nemvl a nirv elot Ésa LIII – (Isa. 53:7) 1583–1603 by Rudolph Hoffhalter (Skrzetusky) and Pál Lisiai Rheda printers, publishers in Debre­ cen. The same Hungarian motto as (20) and (21), but a re-cut variant of the latter. Picture: the same motifs, only at the bottom the year 1583 is cut into the device. Ne extra oleas – (Aristophanes: Frogs, 946–947) 1660 by Abraham Szenci Kertész, printer, publisher in the Press of the Calvinist Church in Várad (today Oradea, Romania). Picture: a very precise copy of one of the variants used by the Elzevier office in Amsterdam. A helmeted female figure (Minerva) is stand­ ing under an olive treee holding the inscribed banderole with the motto. Non dormit qui custodit – (Zsolt. 121:4) 1792 by Anton Michael Odedrlitzky, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: a sailing ship with people on the board tossed by the waves in the thunderstorm. The upper part is bordered by a banderole with the motto, the exact wording by the Psalmist: Ecce non dormitabit neque dormiet, qui custodit (121:4). Non solus – (Jn. 16:32) 1650–1752 by Abraham Szenci Kertesz, printer, publisher of the Calvinist Church in Várad (today Oradea, Romania) and his successors. Picture: a copy of the Leiden Elzeviers’ device: one of the five different cuts of the Non Solus device used by Hungarian printers. On the left the motto which can be completed as Non solus pater mecum (Jn. 16:32). Non solus – (Jn. 16:32) 1700–1701 by Samuel Brewer’s heirs, printers, publish­ ers in Lőcse (today Levoča, Slovakia). Picture: a copy of the Leiden Elzeviers’ device, one of the five different cuts of the Non Solus-device used by different Hungarian printers. The same motifs as in device (25). Non solus – (Jn. 16:32) 1658–1669 by János Rosnyai printer, head of the Principal Press Sárospatak. Picture: a copy of the Leiden Elzeviers’ device, one of the five variants of the device used by different Hungarian printers. The same motifs as in (25) and (26). with the same motto on a banderole. This one is a very precise copy of one of the devices currently used by Abraham and Bonaventura Elzevier. Non solus – (Jn. 16:32) 1683–1684 by István Töltési, printer of the City Press in Debrecen. Picture: a re-cut variant of the Leiden Elzevier device: it is nearest in its cut to the one used in Sárospatak (27), only this is the only one bearing the monogramme of the (unknown) artist C. Z. at the bottom of the image. The same motifs as in the other devices with the same motto, like (25), (26) and (27).

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(29) Non solus – (Jn. 16:32) 1718 by István Töltési printer, publisher in Komárom. Picture: a copy of the Leiden Elzeviers’ device, one of the five different cuts of the Non Solus-device used by different Hungarian printers, with the same motifs as in devices (25), (26), (27) and (28). This one is a very precise copy of one of the devices preferred by Abraham and Bonaventura Elzevier. (30) Pacem te poscimus omnes – (Virgil: Aeneid, 11, 362) 1673–1703 by György ­Karancsi printer at the City Press Debrecen and his successors. Picture: a tree with oblong leaves in a double circle, outside the circle rich foliation making up a square shape. Within the foliage of the tree in a banderole the inscription Pacem te poscimus omnes. Under the motto the date 1663, possibly the date of the device’s making. (31) Pacem te poscimus omnes – (Virgil: Aeneid, 11, 362) 1666 by György Karancsi printer at the City Press Debrecen. Picture: a variant of the above device (30) with the same motif, with the only difference that this one has no date cut into the image, and it was used already in 1666, i.  e. earlier than the former one bearing the date 1663. (32) Pacem te poscimus omnes – (Virgil: Aeneid, 11, 362) 1702–1704 by György Vincze printer in the City Press Debrecen. The same motto as the above two devices (30) and (31), but with a different picture: a pair of doves facing each other and holding two olive branches in their beaks, between them the typeset motto. (33) Pro memoria. – 1777–1779 by Josef Franz Kollmann, printer of the Roman Cath­ olic Episcopal Church, later of the Universty in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania). Picture: a copperplate image, with int he middle a floating boat full of barrels with the crowned coat of arms of the Great Principality of Transylva­ nia and a bale (of paper?) with the monogramme IFK of the printer. Below the picture the engraved words Pro Memoria. (34) Provehimur non proemio [lege: praemio], sed patrio amore – 1775–1777 by Anton Löwe, printer, publisher, bookseller in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: a copperplate depicting a three-masted schooner sailing the stormy seas, above on a scroll the motto. Exceptionally, it is signed, its maker is Johann Ernst Mansfeld (1738–1796), engraver in Vienna. (35) Reddo quod accepi – 1697 by Johann Andreas Hörmann, printer of the Jesuit Academy Press in Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia). Picture: in a heartshaped frame embellished with leaves and flowers water is pouring into the sea from a canal emerging from the rocks. Above it the motto. (36) Spes confisa Deo – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1774–1789 by Franz August Patzko, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: a rock is emerging from the sea with an anchor and a dove on it. In the beam of light surrounding the anchor the first words of the printer’s motto can be read. The words of the Psalmist are: Ad te clamaverunt et salvi facti sunt, in te speraverunt et non sunt confusi (Psalms 22:6), with the monogramme of the printer, the com­ bined initials FAP.



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(37) Spes confisa Deo – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1774 by Franz August Patzko, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: the same motifs as in device (36), only because of its larger size there is more space for details. The rock emerging from the sea with the anchor set on it is lit up by a beam of light in which only the first words of the motto are written. With the initials FAP of the printer. (38) Spes confisa Deo – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1775 by Franz August Patzko, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: a meticulously elaborated landscape with the same motifs as in devices (36) and (37). The first words of the motto are are lit up by a beam of light. With the initials FAP of the printer. (39) Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedit – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1778 by Franz August Patzko, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slova­ kia). Picture: a detailed landscape composed in an expanded rectangle with the same motifs as devices (36), (37) and (38). The upper part of the scene is bordered by the ribbon with the full form of the motto. With the initials FAP of the printer. (40) Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedit – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1787 by Franz August Patzko printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: copperplate, the central motifs of the former devices (36), (37), (38), (39), here in a circle surrounded by branches of laurel and olive placed on a platform. In the framing of the medallion the full text of the motto can be read. With the initials FAP of the printer. (41) Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedit – (Psalms 22:6, Rom. 5:5) 1789 by Franz August Patzko, printer, publisher in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Picture: the same motifs as in (36), (37), (38), (39) and (40) 1789. A round emblem in a laurel wreath with ribbons. Here the motto in its full form is encircling the scene. With the initials FAP of the printer. (42) Vitae – 1673–1684 by György Karancsi and later by István Töltési, printers of the City Press of Debrecen. Picture: a tree with the words Vitae at the middle of the tree trunk and the year 1663, hidden among the grass under the tree.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Melius Juhász P: Magyar prédikátiók. Debrecen 1563 =OSZK [=National Széchényi Library] RMK I 53 (21). Figure 2: Deretskei A: Az Szent Pál. Debrecen 1603 =OSZK RMK I 374 (22). Figure 3: Keresszegi H. István: Az keresztéyni hitnek. Várad 1640 =OSZK RMK I 708 (25). Figure 4: Dorrell, Jósef: Istenes jóságra és szerentsés.Posony 1787 =OSZK 74.829 (40). Figure 5: Saavedra, F.: Idea principis christiano politici. Pestini 1748 = OSZK 294.583 (15). Figure 6: Cnosura. Pottendorf 1668 =OSZK RMK III 2441 (17).

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Bibliography Daly, Peter M., Emblem Theory. Recent German Contributions to the Characterization of the Emblem Genre. (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 9) Nendeln/Liechtenstein: KTO Press, 1979. Davidson, Peter, The Vocal Forest. A Study of the Context of Three Low Countries Printers’ Devices of the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Academic Press Leiden, 1996. Ecsedy, Judit V. & Melinda Simon, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1488–1800 [= Hungarian printers’and publishers’ devices between 1488 and 1800]. Budapest: Balassi, 2009. Horodisch, Abraham, “Buch- und Buchdruckpresse im Druckersignet des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts.” Philobiblon 3 (1974): 166–194. Huisstede, Peter van, & Hans Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th–17th Century. A Catatalogue with Cd-rom. 3 Vols.: A–J; K–Z; and Indices. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1999. Simon, Melinda, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1801–1900 [= Hungarian printers’ and publishers’ devices 1801–1900]. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2012. Vandeweghe, Frank & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15e en de 16e eeuw binnen de grenzen van het huidige België = Marques typographiques employées aux XVe et XVIe siècles dans les limites geographiques de la Belgique actuelle. (Nationaal Centrum voor de Archeologie en Geschiedenis van het boek = Centre National de l’Archéologie et de l’Historire du Livre 5) Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1993.

Melinda Simon

European Printers’ and Publishers’ Marks in the Eighteenth Century. The Three C’s: Conformity, Continuity and Change Having researched sourcebooks dealing with printers’ and publishers’ marks, one can come to the conclusion that none of those cover the eighteenth century, but they only process the previous centuries (their closing years are usually 1600 or 1700). The few books that integrate this period present only a negligible number of devices from the eighteenth century. Examining for example the work of Robert Laurent-Vibert and Marius Audin I can confidentially say that it features merely 65 printers’ marks dating from the eighteenth century (i. e. 26%), while 74% of the presented devices date back to the seventeenth century. Similarly, in the case of the Spanish marks gathered by Francisco Vindel this ratio is 19% (160 marks) to 81%. However, we know that the number of printers’ and publishers’ devices used increased substan­ tially during the eighteenth century, so these proportions should show the opposite figures. Indeed, the significant number of marks to be discovered and catalogued may probably be the cause why up until present times nobody seems to have attempted to gather and publish them. There is just one exception to this: a book on Hungarian ­printers’ marks that presents the devices of the eighteenth century as well, which was ­achievable mainly due to the minor size of the Hungarian printing industry at the time. In ­comparison, the number of devices used in the principal European prin­ ting and p ­ ublishing centres was naturally much higher. In my opinion, collections based on different geographical regions or cities would be more feasible to build at the present moment. As for analytical writings, we can establish that research material dealing with the eighteenth century is almost entirely missing. Even the best and the latest works of the European specialised literature treat only the first three centuries of printers’ marks, with the single exception of a study by Marvin J. Heller. Dictionaries and ­encyclopaedias of the field use exclusively classical, well-known, and over-repeated illustrative examples. The unique books of Reinhard Würffel show a professional ­initiative and approach to modern printers’ and publishers’ devices, although he was concentrating mainly on the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, missing out almost totally on the preceding 100 years. In addition, if somebody discusses the marks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they tend to underestimate them. For example, Annemarie Meiner (1922, 61) who stated that they are “meaningless” and “inartistic”, “negligent”, “just copies of antique marks”, “they have lost the character of a mark and they became simple decorations”, they are “either too big and violent or too small and irrelevant”, briefly they are “styleless and tasteless”. DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-016

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In my paper I would like to look at these devices from a somewhat distant point of view and present a fresh approach to certain characteristics of the marks of the eighteenth century. My deductions are based on several hundred printers’ and pub­ lishers’ marks from all over Europe, gathered during years of research in the stacks of the Hungarian National Library and other Hungarian libraries. Therefore this paper serves just as a first attempt to form an overall image of the printers’ and publishers’ marks of the eighteenth century in Europe. I intend to present it as a basis for a dia­ logue on this subject, possibly with additions, rectifications, and of course, a debate.

Canting Devices There are a number of features that show little or no difference at all in comparison to the classical period. The canting devices that were quite frequent since the early use of this graphic genre remain continuously popular. Several printers and p ­ ublishers choose pictorial elements that present an allusion to their names. Examples of the above are: Louis-François Delatour (Paris, 1776) featuring a tower, Georg Bauer (Nuremberg, 1761) using the instruments of farming, Willem Croon (Utrecht, 1726 and 1732) picturing a laurel wreath or a golden crown. These iconographical puns often bear a touch of humour interfering positively with the intention of potential clients.

Heraldic Devices Another important group of marks is the traditional heraldic device (devices ­featuring the arms of the city the printer/publisher is working in), which also remains ­fashionable; yet they undergo a slight alteration with time. In previous times, there were regularly two armour-bearers appearing symmetrically, while in the eighteenth century we often find just a sole figure placed in an asymmetrical position. The shape of the shield is completely changed, and, all in all, it has become less “heraldic”. Instead of the familiar Renaissance coat of arms, we now see frequently just an oval or a Rococo shell, e. g., at Johann Heinrich Cramer (Bremen, 1767) or at Christoph August Reussner (Quedlinburg, 1777). Several times the person to hold the crest is the infant Mercury (appearing in publishers’ devices) or Athena (often representing the print­ ing house); at times these two figures appear together, e. g., in the case of Christoph Friedrich Cotta (Stuttgart, 1774), Friedrich Gotthold Jacobäer (Leipzig, 1790) or Johann Gottlieb Grabbe (Frankfurt a.M., 1784). In the eighteenth century, we can also notice a completely new type (or a descend­ ant) of the heraldic device, which, contrary to the arms of the town (as previously used), features the view of the towns themselves. Examples for this are the devices of Gotthard Poetsch (Erlangen, 1750), Lelio dalla Volpe (Bologna, 1736 and 1744) or



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David Mortier (Amsterdam, 1717). A possible explanation for the above may be the slowly fading knowledge of heraldry as compared to its previous common use. There­ fore, visually, an outline of a specific building or city could be more easily recognised and remembered by the buyer, much more so than the coat of arms of a town.

Shop Signs The first printers’ and publishers’ marks frequently featured the sign of the house in which their businesses were operating. This type of device continues to persist in the eighteenth century, but the iconographical elements of the signs undergo a slight change. Instead of saints, animals or plants, we now have for instance the allegory of Science. See the marks of Nicolas de Ville (Lyon, 1712) or Angelo Pasinelli (Venice, 1750). Otherwise, the allegorical figures that were rather popular in the previous cen­ turies remain unaltered. For instance, we can see female figures of Faith, Hope and Love in the device of Wolfgang Walther (Erlangen, 1780). Among these figures, we can observe the predominance of Fame blowing her two trumpets, and, respectively, of Wisdom with her mirror and a snake, e. g., George Gallet (Antwerp, 1702) or Daniel Bartholomeus (Ulm, 1828 and 1763).

Divinities and Their Attributes Moving on to our next group of marks, the most popular divine person of the devices of the period is undoubtedly the goddess of wisdom, Athena. We can find her in various representations in hundreds of printers’ and publishers’ marks, sometimes pictured as peculiarly as a bust overthrown by two putti (Johann Andreas Lübeck, Bayreuth, 1778). The attributes of the gods are often featured without their bearers, as in the previous centuries. We can find caduceuses, owls, cocks, spears, helmets, shields with the head of the Gorgon, as in the case of Caspar Fritsch (Leipzig, 1760, 1763, 1781 and 1792), the sons of Matthaeus Rieger (Augsburg, 1777, 1787, 1794 and 1795) or Antoine van Dole (The Hague, 1737). Next there is a group of completely new elements from the emblematic tradition which signal the influence of the Enlightenment, e.  g., the allegories of Ratio and Observatio, i. e., Theory and Practice as seen in the device of Johann Christian Hendel (Halle, 1724). The picture of a lit candle with the motto Aliis inserviendo consumor occurs at Johann Wolters (Amsterdam, 1701, 1705 and 1710), Johann Gottfried Conradi (Frankfurt a.d.O., 1726) and Christian Gottfried Marche (Leipzig-Görlitz, 1733). The fountain with the motto Salus aliorum salus mea is a symbol with similar meaning in the device of Christian Heinrich Cuno (Jena, 1746).

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The personification of Printing is also something rarely seen before. See the marks of Johann Christian Langenheim (Leipzig, 1742), Christian Franz Buch (Jena, 1742), François Grasset (Lausanne, 1770) or Jean Catuffe (Amsterdam, 1741), where we can see an indistinct female figure holding one or two tampons as her attributes making her recognizable.

The Image of the Printing House and of the Bookseller’s Shop There are further characteristic iconographic changes appearing at the time, like for example the image of the printing house. The image of a printing press, and that of a type case belong to a long-standing tradition that started with the famous devices of Josse Bade in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, in the eighteenth century, we can frequently find depictions of the copperplate press which in the meantime had gained almost the same importance as the printing press. Examples are the devices of François Varrentrapp (Frankfurt a.M., 1736, 1746 and 1755) where the two machines are featured facing each other, showing that they constitute the two equally impor­ tant branches of the firm. The marks of Johann Thomas Trattner (Vienna, 1756, 1758, 1763, 1765, 1770–1786, 1772, 1779–1790, 1782) feature five sections of his extended busi­ ness: a type case and a printing press, a copperplate press, a furnace for typecasting, a bookbinder’s press and some bales of books representing the bookshop. While the depiction of a printing house had long been common, the interior of a bookseller’s shop was a real novelty in the eighteenth century, as we can see in the device of Johann Nepomuk Fritz (Munich, 1770). The long shelves holding hundreds of books ordered by their subject, the great and luminous hall, and the presence of Athena almost give the impression of a temple of science. However, in most cases, we have firms that combine the printing and the bookselling activity, therefore their devices feature both. See Carl Felsecker (Nuremberg, 1775) where we can see a type case and a printing press on the right, and large packs of books ready to be shipped on the left.

Bales of Books as Symbols The bales are extremely important elements of the eighteenth century printers’ and publishers’ marks since they are the symbols of the book production and bookselling on a mass scale that had evolved during the period. They were rather fashionable and therefore quite often copied, e. g., in the case of Friedrich Esslinger (Frankfurt a.M., 1792) and Franz Joseph Rötzl (Vienna, 1802) (Figures 1 and 2).



Figure 1

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Figure 2

In the device of Georg Konrad Gsellius (Celle, 1757) we can almost sense a religious feeling as putti are carrying bales of books while an angel swings an incense-burner in front of an altar. The bales are continuously drawn bigger, and slowly they become the central elements of the devices, without any need for other allegorical figures. The packs of books become themselves the allegories, e. g., in the publisher’s mark of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Göttingen, 1789) (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Other Symbolic Elements Besides the cultic objects of packages, there are other iconographical elements with slightly altered implications such as the figure of the ever so popular ship, by now representing not only fortune and the will of God, but commerce on a large scale. These occur frequently in the background of the device, pictured behind the bales. Sometimes the initials of the publisher “demount” from the package and become independent actors of the devices themselves. See Daniel Ludwig Wedel (Leipzig-Dan­ zig, 1768), Christian Gottlieb Hilscher (Leipzig, 1773), Caspar Heinrich Fuchs (Leipzig, 1743) or Jacob Preuss (Leipzig-Copenhagen, 1740) (Figure 4).

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Figure 4

Calligraphic Monograms Talking about “newcomers” among the types of devices, we need to mention the calligraphic monograms that had already appeared at the late end of the seven­ teenth century but are typically characteristic in the eighteenth century. In the majority of the cases, the initials of the publisher or printer are featured on the left side and then rotated to the right, the result being an absolutely symmetrical composition, as in the case of Ernst Gottlieb Krug (Halle-Leipzig, 1731). Sometimes the artist indicates even the vertical axis in the middle, e.  g., Christoph Heinrich Berger (Tübingen, 1743). Less often the letters are rotated from the right to the left, as with Johann Felix Bielck (Jena, 1718). There are cases when the two initials are turned over in the opposite directions, e. g., in the case of Gerhard Potuliet (Leiden, 1739). We can even find devices with two different vertical axes, e. g., the two letters J in the publisher’s mark of Johann Adam Jung (Frankfurt a.M., 1713). Some artists create beautiful negative woodcut monograms, as for example that of Anton van Dole (The Hague, 1734) or Johann ­Justinus Gebauer (Halle, 1753). Letters hidden in the foliage also occur, e. g., at François Didot (Paris, 1731) or Giorgio Placho (Roma, 1709). Sometimes the letters seem to fall apart, making it really hard to decipher them, e.  g., in the case of Pierre Humbert (­Amsterdam, 1708) or Johann Justinus Gebauer (Halle, 1749–1777) (Figure 5).

Figure 5



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In his previously mentioned work, Marvin J. Heller draws attention to the fact that Hebrew printers all around Europe were also using this type of mirror-image mono­ grams, since according to their religion it was forbidden to use Hebrew letters for simple ornamental purposes. This is why on the title pages of Jewish religious books we can often see devices composed of Roman letters. In Annemarie Meiner’s earlier cited point of view, late born printers’ and pub­ lishers’ marks were merely decorative elements of some title pages without any sig­ nificance at all. In my opinion, it would be interesting to examine, as opposing Mei­ ner’s judgement, if these intricate compositions could possibly be considered the late descendants of the old rebus devices involving a pun of the owner’s name. Similar to the “hide-and-seek” challenges of the classic devices, these latter monograms of the eighteenth century require serious attention when trying to solve them, as well. It is as if they invited us to a game of investigation to find the hidden initials.

Formal Gardens and Allegories of Arts The predilection for symmetry can also be observed in the depictions of French formal gardens. These images are again a novelty in the world of printers’ marks as in the pre­ vious centuries (accordingly to the emblematic tradition) there was typically one tree, one specific plant or flower, and not a whole garden shown. We can enjoy examples of these harmonious gardens with carefully trimmed shrubs represented in a strict geometrical order, as in the devices of Johann Reinhold Dulssecker (Strasbourg, 1702), Johann Ludwig König (Basle, 1731), Georg Ludwig Förster (Bremen, 1763) or Theodor Haak (Leiden, 1709). There are several instances of images abounding with the allegories of arts, for example some books and a harp, a palette and some brushes, a plan of a castle with Italian bastions, a half circle protractor and a pair of compasses, an opened herbal, a book depicting bugs, a globe, a telescope, and a cubic stone as the Masonic symbol of the cultivated human mind in the device of Ignaz Anton Strohmayer (Pest-­BudaKassa, 1789–1790). The same crowded composition can be observed in the mark of Ernst Christoph Grattenauer (Nuremberg, 1788). There are similar depictions allud­ ing to natural sciences, like the putti playing with retorts, telescopes, mortars, caul­ drons, globes, barometers, armillary spheres and Jacob’s staff in the marks of Jacques Clousier (Paris, 1775) or those of Pierre Mortier (Amsterdam, 1737, 1740 and 1742). The trophaeum (flags, weapons, armour etc. arranged in an artistic composition, showing the victory of an army) with roots in the Antique gains a new significance in the eighteenth century, too. Examples are the devices of Tobias Goebhardt (Bamberg, 1765, 1772–1774 and 1777) or Gerard Block (The Hague, 1743), which clearly subordi­ nate the military glory to the supremacy of erudition.

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Basic Elements of the Classic Period One of the most prevalent iconographical elements of the printers’ and publishers’ marks is the merchant’s four, which remains frequently appearing in the devices used in the German-speaking areas in the eighteenth century. We can find it in the marks of Joseph Wolff (Augsburg, 1775 and 1785), Gabriel de Tournes (Geneva, 1722), Michael Gröll (Warsaw–Lviv–Dresden, 1780), and Tobias Goebhardt (Heidelberg, 1773). The similarly widespread Hausmarke loses ground somewhat, but it remains a recurrent element of German devices, e. g., in those of the Brothers Veith (Augsburg, 1758, 1764–1771, 1775), Sebastian Mössmer (Freysing, 1780) or the widow of Johann Rudolf Cröcker (Jena, 1703, 1753, 1765 and 1780). Contrary to the merchant’s four and the Hausmarke, the orb topped with a cross which had been widely used in Italy (of which the last example I could trace was at Domenico Bellagatta in Milan in 1705), seems to have disappeared around the begin­ ning of the eighteenth century.

Imitation and Counterfeiting The custom of imitation and counterfeiting of devices remains unchanged in the eigh­ teenth century. The trends are the same: a less known firm copies a famous printer’s mark as in the case of Jean-Jacques Lepetit (Paris, 1797) and François-Ambroise Didot (Paris, 1782), and printers on the periphery follow the main central printing houses, as in the case of Martin Hochmeister (Szeben-Kolozsvár, 1791) and Caspar Fritsch (Leipzig, 1788–1792). However, there are some cases of standard iconographical compositions where we should be cautious to consider them as mere copies. These devices were ex­­ tremely popular among printing and publishing houses all around Europe in the eighteenth century who used them at the same time in a quite extensive geographi­ cal area. In the publishers’ marks of Henri Scheurleer (The Hague, 1736) and Johann Christian Koppe (Rostock, 1748) we can see exactly the same ships on sea and the figure of Mercury bringing wealth to the bookseller’s shop – the only d ­ ifference are the ­initials featured on the packets in the foreground. We can find an even more striking example in the case of Moritz Georg Weidmann (Leipzig, 1752), Emanuel Thurneysen (Basle, 1757), Joseph Wolff (Augsburg, 1758) and Joseph Kurzböck ­ (Vienna, 1776) where the design differs again only in regard to the initials of the different owners. Two of the long surviving devices of the Elzevir family need to be mentioned here. The seventeenth century printer’s mark with the motto Non solus was still in use in the eighteenth century in France at Anton Coustellier (Paris, 1743–1744) and at Joseph Barbou (Paris, 1754–1768). The second famous device with the motto Ne extra oleas



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was also used by several printers in the Low Countries, e. g., Theodor ab Ackersdijk (Utrecht, 1668), Leonard Strick (Franeker, 1703), François Halma (Franeker, 1714), Folkert Jansz van der Plaats (Harlingen, 1731), Wibius Bleck (Franeker, 1731), Martin van der Veen (Franeker, 1736) and Jacob Bolt (Groningen, 1755). It seems that the con­ tinuous use of the copies of these devices only died out at the middle of the eighteenth century.

Style and Fashion The printers’ and publishers’ marks always mirror the predominant style of the era, so it is only evident that after the Rococo shells, Neoclassical tables also make their appearance. These elegant, symmetrical stone panels are regularly decorated with rhythmically repeating geometrical ornaments or garlands, as seen in the devices of François Chaignieau (Paris, 1796), the sons of Matthaeus Rieger (Augsburg, 1787) or Johann David Hörling (Vienna, 1785). The same taste for the Greco-Roman Antiquity leads to depictions of antique ruins as sources of the “honey of Knowledge” as in the mark of Matthaeus Rieger (Augsburg, 1765), Albert Anton Patzowsky (Vienna, 1794) or those of Niccolò and Marco Pagliarini (Rome, 1735 and 1745). As for fashion, we can find rare examples of men wearing the characteristic half-hoses and stock­ ings, long coats, triangular hats and wigs of the eighteenth century, e. g., at Antonio Zatta (Venice, 1761 and 1781), August Wilhelm Lerche (Rudolstadt-Leipzig, 1765) or the widow of Eberhard Klett (Augsburg, 1772 and 1775).

Techniques Among the techniques used in the eighteenth century, Annemarie Meiner mentioned only the copperplate engraving and the woodcut. However, surveying the devices of the era, we can find a surprisingly high number of etchings, too. For instance, in the device of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Göttingen, 1787) there are clear traces of the freehand drawing of the artist. In the same publisher’s mark we can also notice an area created by stippling as the different techniques of engraving were often used in com­ bination. It is important to mention that there was no clear “development” from the woodcut to the copperplate engraving. There are numerous examples where the printer or pub­ lisher first used a copperplate device, but when the plate got worn out he ordered a woodcut copy of the original. See the case of Albrecht Friedrich Bartholomäi (Ulm, 1765 and 1767). Since the copperplate engraving bears only a small number of impressions, the plates were often re-cut, enhancing the lines of the same image. This procedure is

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clearly discernible in the printers’ marks of Joseph Kurzböck (Vienna, 1776 and 1792). Sometimes the artist uses the original plate as his model thus the second device ends up as a mirrored reflection, as in the case of Lelio dalla Volpe (Bologna, 1736 and 1744). In extreme cases, this process is repeated again. See the devices of the Weygand bookshop (Leipzig, 1769, 1770 and 1784).

Period of Usage The ephemeral nature of the copperplate engraving presented no issues to their users. In striking contrast with the traditional tendence to retain a well-known symbol of their predecessors, printers and publishers of the eighteenth century were always striving for freshness. These devices promptly follow every minor change of style and fashion, thus the period of usage of a specific plate is extremely short. Their users tried to present the alterations of their company buildings, e. g., while in 1709 in the mark of the Oxford University Press we can only see their seat, the Sheldonian Theatre, whereas the second device made in 1719 already includes the Clarendon building ­finished in the meantime. We can observe the same phenomenon in dozens of devices used by the bookshop of the Orphanage in Halle: first these little images show just the earliest building finished in 1700, but later the angle of the view changes and the other parts of the pedagogical complex appear, too. The owners of private companies were keen on exhibiting their progress in the hierarchy of the society, as we can see in the marks of Johann Thomas Trattner in Vienna. In 1763, his device featured simply the merchant’s four along with his initials, but as in 1764 he was ennobled, a year later he ordered a new printer’s mark to be cut, with his new coat of arms. In my opinion it may be possible that sometimes the exuberance of devices could have served to show off the wealth of their owner. Thus the firm of Heidegger & Comp. in Zurich were using not less than 13 different publishers’ marks on the title pages of the 13 volumes of the Grundlegung zur wahren Religion issued between 1751 and 1758, all works of excellent and therefore well-paid artists.

Artists and Amateurs But who were the creators of these devices? First we have to stress that in the previ­ ous centuries there were a relatively low number of printers’ and publishers’ marks signed by the artist. Their identity can be often revealed or rendered probable because of their close relationship to a famous printing house, or thanks to data found in an archival source, a book, etc. In contrast to the above, in the eighteenth century we can find a large amount of devices signed by their authors, showing their names or their initials. In the majority of cases, the printers and publishers employed easily



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accessible local artists, e. g., Pierre Gosse (The Hague, 1760) who commissioned his device from Gerard Sibelius living in neighbouring Amsterdam. Smaller firms ordered their printers’ marks from reputed artists living in bigger centres. An example of this is Peter Barth (Szeben, 1780) who was using a copperplate engraving created by Johann Ernst Mansfeld in Vienna. As I have previously mentioned, some of the publishing houses proudly appointed the most famous engravers their devices. For instance, Christoph Peter Francken of Halle ordered the same image of a ship from three exceptional artists of the era: Gottfried August Gründler (1756), Johann David Schleuen (1760) and Johanna Dorothea Philippin née Sysangin (1769). Unfortunately, these minor works of art have generally not drawn the attention of scholars and they are not even included in the lists of registered works of the given artists. Sometimes a publisher or a printer did not have the financial means to employ an artist, so he either did the work himself, or had it done by one of his employees. This is how the low quality devices of Jean van den Bergh (The Hague, 1739) or of Johann ­Gottlieb Garbe (Frankfurt a.M., 1784) may perhaps be explained. Besides such images that showcase a couple of primitive lines, one can also find the letter N ­engraved erroneously, as in the case of Heinrich Boom and the widow of Theodor Boom ­(Amsterdam, 1705, in the motto Tandem fit surculus arbor), as well as in the motto Hinc labor et virtus of Jean Herman Schneider (Amsterdam, 1759). These ­mistakes are due to the lack of experience and practice in cutting mirror-image letters.

“Prefabricated” Devices Last but not least, we also have to mention an extremely important methodological issue that characterises the eighteenth century. This is the period when a new type of “prefabricated” device begins to appear. These printers’ and publishers’ marks were made using stereotypes bought from some of the type foundries which then ­flourished. In these cases one always has to question whether these images fea­ tured on title pages could be considered marks or not? There is no doubt that the empty stereo used by the widow of Abraham Vandenhoeck (Göttingen, 1776) is just a decorative element, since she didn’t alter it in any way. On the other hand, the plates used by Johann Conrad Wohler (Frankfurt a.M.- Leipzig, 1774) and by Vincent Dederich (Bamberg, 1780) are their rightful devices since they put their initials in the middle to individualize them. But what about the stereo used by Johann Hein­ rich Kühnlin (Helmstedt, 1781)? I think that using a cast letter K shows the same conscious intent to personalize the electroplate thus transforming it into a printer’s mark, which could differentiate its user from other printing houses. I admit that this is a rather modest method but in my opinion, this can be considered a device, as well (Figures 6–9).

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Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Soden, Julius von, Geist der peinlichen Gesetzgebung Teutschlands. Zweite Auflage (Frankfurt: Friedrich Esslinger, 1792), OSZK [=National Széchényi Library] Crim. 629.v Figure 2: Oesterreichs Handlungs-Aussichten im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Wien: Franz Joseph Rötzl, 1802), OSZK Austr. 1895.c. Figure 3: Pütter, Johann Stephan, Grundriss der Staatsveränderungen des Teutschen Reichs. Sechste Ausgabe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1789), OSZK Germ. 5463. Figure 4: Pontoppidan, Erik, Gesta et vestigia danorum extra Daniam (Leipzig-Kopenhagen: Jacob Preuss, 1740) OSZK H. rel. 1310. Figure 5: Dritter Band der Nachrichten von einer hallischen Bibliothek (Halle: Johann Justinus Gebauer, 1749), OSZK Eph. lit. 590. Figure 6: Pütter, Johann Stephan, Conspectus iuris germanici privati hodierni novo systemate tradendi (Göttingen: Van den Hoeck, 1776), OSZK J. priv. 1473. Figure 7: Moser, Johann Jacob, Rechtliches Bedencken von Aufhebung des Jesuiter-Ordens [sic] (Frankfurt-Leipzig: Johann Conrad Wohler, 1774), OSZK H. eccl. 4267. Figure 8: Schrodt, Joseph Franz Lothar von, Systema iuris publici universalis (Bamberg: Vinzenz Dederich, 1780), OSZK J. publ. E. 954. Figure 9: Henke, Heinrich Philipp Conrad, Historia antiquior dogmatis de unitate ecclesiae (Helmstedt: Johann Heinrich Kühnlin, 1781), OSZK Dogm. 240.

Bibliography Ecsedy, Judit V. & Melinda Simon, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1488–1800 [= Hungarian printers’ and publishers’ devices 1488–1800]. Budapest: Balassi, 2009.



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Heller, Marvin J., “Mirror-Image Monograms as Printers’ Devices on Title Pages of Hebrew Books Printed in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” Printing History 20 (1999/2000): 3–12. Horodisch, Abraham, “Buch und Buchdruckpresse im Druckersignet des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts.” Philobiblon 18 (1974): 166–194. Horodisch, Abraham, The Book and the Printing Press in Printer’s Marks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. (Safaho monographs 7) Amsterdam: Erasmus, 1977. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th–17th Century. A Catatalogue with CD-ROM. 3 vols. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1999. Laurent-Vibert, Robert & Marius Audin, Les marques de libraires et d’imprimeurs en France. Paris: Champion, 1925. Meiner, Annemarie, Das Deutsche Signet. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig: H. Schmidt, 1922. Schlüter, Lucy & Pierre Vinken, The Elsevier ‘Non solus’ imprint. New York: Elsevier Science, 1997. Vindel, Francisco, Escudos y marcas de impresores y libreros en España durante los siglos XV a XIX (1485–1850). Barcelona: Orbis, 1942. Meiner [Voigt-Meiner], Annemarie, “Signete der Frühzeit mit Buchdruckerpressen.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 62 (1925): 105–111. Wendland, Henning, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, 1984. Würffel, Reinhard, Lexikon deutscher Verlage von A–Z. 1071 Verlage und 2800 Verlagssignete vom Anfang der Buchdruckerkunst bis 1945. Berlin: Verlag Grotesk, 2000. Würffel, Reinhard, Würffels Signete-Lexikon deutschsprachiger Verlage. Über 4500 deutschsprachige Verlage, 11000 Signete. Berlin: Verlag Grotesk, 2010. Zappella, Giuseppina, Le marche dei tipografi e degli editori italiani del ‘500. Repertorio di figure, simboli & soggetti e dei relativi motti. Milan: Editrice Bibliografica, 1986.

Bernhard F. Scholz

In Place of an Afterword: Notes on Ordering the Corpus of the Early Modern Printer’s Mark Ingenieux meslange de nature. Si nos faces n’estoient semblables, on ne sçauroit discerner l’homme de la beste; si elles n’estoient dissemblables, on ne sçauroit discerner l’homme de l’homme. Toutes choses se tiennent par quelque similitude, tout exemple cloche, et la relation qui se tire de l’experience est tousjours defaillante et imparfaicte; on joinct toutesfois les com­ parisons par quelque coin.1 Michel de Montaigne, De l’expérience, 1587–1588.

Introductory The preceding studies focus almost exclusively on issues like the meaning, the func­ tion, the imagery or the provenance of the artifacts known as ‹printer’s marks› that are to be found in the colophons and on the title pages of many Early Modern books. They deal with the printer’s mark de re, to use a distinction from Early Modern ter­ minology. Due to limits of space it was not possible to deal with the printer’s mark also de dictu, i. e. to discuss in detail at least some of the historical and the system­ atic aspects of the discourse on printer’s marks. Thus questions concerning the terms used in the course of time to refer to the printer’s mark, and to the concepts of the printer’s mark named by them, to the question of defining the printer’s mark, and, last but not least, the possibility of ordering the corpus of the Early Modern printer’s mark by means of definition and classification had to remain outside the scope of this volume. The following points to a few issues of terminology and definition that might deserve consideration if and when a de dictu-study of the Early Modern printer’s mark is being considered.

1 “As no even and no shape is entirely like another, so none is entirely different from another. An ingenious mixture of nature. If our faces were not similar, we could not distinguish man from beast; if they were not dissimilar, we could not distinguish man from man. All things hold together by some similarity; every example is lame, and the comparison that is drawn from experience is always faulty and imperfect; however, we fasten together our comparisons by some corner” (Montaigne, 1958, 819). DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-002

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An Abundance of Terms and an Abundance of Concepts Even a brief glance at the scholarly literature on Early Modern printer’s marks will reveal an unusually large number of terms for the kinds of woodcuts and/or engrav­ ings that some sixteenth and seventeenth century printers placed first in the colo­ phons and, later, on the title pages of their books in order to identify themselves as the producers of those books: ‹printer’s mark›, ‹printer’s device›, ‹printer’s emblem›, ‹printer’s signet›, ‹printer’s insigne›, together with the equivalents of these terms in the various languages in which research on printer’s marks is currently being under­ taken. To these may be added the terms in use during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, such as ‹symbolum›, ‹insigne›, ‹Zeichen›, ‹Signet›, ‹Schild›, to name but the most common ones.2 And as if that was not enough, here is what the thesaurus func­ tion of the Oxford English Dictionary offers as synonyms for the term ‹mark› in the phrase “books bearing the mark of a well-known bookseller”: “logo, seal, stamp, imprint, symbol, emblem, device, insignia, badge, brand, trademark, token, mono­ gram, hallmark, logotype, watermark, label, tag, flag, motto.”3 Needless to add that, with the only exception of ‹watermark›, placing ‹printer’s› in front of any of these terms is likely to direct one towards a printer’s mark. Do these terms redundantly name the same concept of the printer’s mark?4 Or do they highlight different aspects of one and the same concept? Or do they perhaps even name so many different concepts of the printer’s mark? If they all name the same concept it would certainly be high time to apply the principle of terminological parsi­ mony and settle on a single term. If they name different aspects of the same concept, are the aspects not explicitly named assumed implicitly to be present also? Why, in that case, are particular aspects foregrounded at the expense of others? If they name differ­ ent concepts, how are those concepts related to each other? Should we view the terms used and the concepts named at certain point in time as reflecting different stages in the historical development of the corpus of printer’s marks, or as reflecting differ­ ent stages in the historical development of theoretical reflection on printer’s marks, or both? Or is the plethora of terms and concepts simply the result of spontaneously speaking and writing about printer’s marks in an intellectual environment that, for whatever reason, does not subscribe to the principle of terminological parsimony?

2 Wolkenhauer 2002, 86–100. 3 en.oxforddictionaries.com/thesaurus/mark_(accessed 31 January 2017) 4 In view of the fact that although all of these terms invariably refer to the kinds of woodcuts and engravings placed by Early Modern printers in their books they do so in very different ways it is advis­ able to adopt the familiar distinction between the meaning and the reference of a term. The meaning of the term is then the concept named by it, while its reference consists of the set of objects, namely printer’s marks, “out there”.



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Needless to say, there would be no problem with using so many terms side by side if it could be shown that each term had indeed a different sense and hence a different meaning from the rest, and that each could therefore be used to refer to a particular sub-group of the overall corpus of printer’s marks. In that case the terms in question might even be viewed as the first building-materials of a systematic clas­ sification of the Early Modern printer’s mark. But another glance at the state of the terminological repertoire of discourse on printer’s marks from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century will reveal soon enough that there apparently are no accepted rules for choosing one term over another with an eye to being able to terminologically separate one group of printer’s marks from another, and thus to ordering the corpus of printer’s marks as a whole by means of systematically ordering the corpus of extant terms. Instead, the terms just mentioned tend to be used as synonyms, at times even side by side in the same publication, just as the English Wikipedia-entry on prin­ter’s marks acknowledges it in all terminological innocence: “A printer’s mark, device, emblem or insignia was a symbol used as a trademark by early printers starting in the 15th century.”5 Unfortunately, we cannot draw on prior research into the question as to when and under what circumstances any of these terms were first introduced to refer to the woodcuts and engravings used by Early Modern printers. Historically settling the question which of the possibilities just mentioned reflects the factual situation is thus, for the time being at least, out of the question. We are simply confronted with a plethora of terms, without being able to say much about either context or their purpose of introduction. But since terms are the results of (intentional) actions rather than the outcome of (natural) events we may take it for granted as a general fact of introducing scholarly and scientific terms that this always occurs “reflectively”, even though often obscurely, in the sense that we may assume that a choice between alter­ natives was involved, and that a commentary offering the reasons why a particular choice was being made could therefore always have been given if asked for. In the case of the terms under consideration those reasons are often still recog­ nizable, sometimes as clear, at other times as faint echoes of the circumstances under which they were first introduced. Terms like ‹printer’s device› and ‹printer’s emblem›, it can hardly be missed, carry with them echoes of the terms referring to two word-im­ age genres that were so enormously productive during the sixteenth and the seven­ teenth century that there has been talk of an “emblem rage”.6 By contrast, terms like ‹printer’s signet› and ‹printer’s insignia› may be taken to carry echoes, fainter ones perhaps, of a legal or an institutional sort, reminding one perhaps of the signet ring used by its owner to authenticate a document, or of the insignia used to establish the identity and the rights of the holder of an office. Neither kind of echo appears

5 Wikipedia (engl.) s.v. “Printer’s Mark”, accessed 11 December 2016. 6 See: Bowers & Keeran 2010, 238.

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to be found, at least at first sight, in the term ‹printer’s mark›. But even the seeming absence of such an echo may not be without significance. Was there perhaps a point in time when the printer’s mark placed in the colophon of a book did not yet call up word-image genres like the device or the emblem, and the term referring to such a mark and the concept named by it therefore did not need to reflect an awareness of similarity with the device as a genre transporting notions of personal identity and worth, or of similarity with the emblem as a genre transporting general truths about man and the world? Only think of the earliest printer’s mark on record, that of Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer of Mainz, 14627 (Figure 1), or of printer’s marks so surprisingly similar to Mediaeval (Figure 2) maker’s marks of the kind used by masons, like the one used by Johann Stuchs of Nuremberg, ca. 15138 (Figure 3).

Figure 1

Figure 3 7 See: Wendland 1984, 62. 8 See: Wendland 1984, 23.

Figure 2



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That we may be well-advised not to brush aside too quickly the possibility that there may indeed be significant distinctions between kinds of printer’s marks waiting to be extracted from those echoes, is suggested by the easily overlooked fact that all of these terms, if we take them literally, can be seen to be de facto sorting printer’s marks into sub-groups of larger groups. Each of these different terms for the woodcuts and engravings placed by Early Modern printers in the colophons and/or on the title pages of their books can then be tweaked so as to be seen to constitute its specific referent as a sub-group of a larger well-documented and well-understood genre: the printer’s mark as a sub-group of maker’s marks in general, the printer’s device as a sub-group of devices in general, the printer’s emblem as a sub-group of emblems in general, the printer’s signet as a sub-group of signet in general, and the printer’s insignia as a sub-group of insignia in general. Approached in this manner, each of the terms under consideration might be made highlight certain salient features assumed to be present in some or all printer’s marks: maker’s mark-like features, device-like features, emblem-like ones, signet-like ones, insignia-like ones. Printer’s marks dis­ playing other features than the ones highlighted by the terms mentioned earlier on might be added to this list: coat-of-arms-like printer’s marks, name-initial-like ones, rebus-like ones, portrait-like ones, and probably a few more. Approached under the description of signifying artifacts, various groups of prin­ ter’s marks can therefore be seen to differ substantially from each other in terms of the other kinds of signifying artifacts they call up: images reminiscent of maker’s marks, of devices, of emblems, of signets, of insignia, of coats of arms, of name initials. But they can also be seen to differ substantially from each other in terms of the various modes of signification exhibited by these signifying artifacts: the mode of significa­ tion characteristic of a (Mediaeval) maker’s mark, the mode of signification shared by the device and the emblem, that of the signet, that of the insignia, the heraldic mode of signification as it characterizes coats of arms, and, last but not least, the diagram­ matic mode of signification shared by rebus and initials. To these “pure” modes of signification bound up with one or the other genre, which a particular printer’s mark may be calling to mind, should be added a number of hybrid modes of signification. Such hybrid modes are displayed by printer’s marks that combine e. g. the image of the coat of arms of a city with features characteristic of an emblem or a device, or the image of initials with the image of a coat of arms, or initials with features characteris­ tic of an emblem or a device. To the extent, then, that that printer’s marks call up other signifying artifacts, the printer’s mark may be thought of as a secondary, not to say derivative, genre in the sense that it draws on the prior existence of other word-image genre for visual appearance, its pictorially represented material and/or its modes of signification. In that the printer’s mark resembles other secondary genres that were productive during the same period like the cento or the pasticcio. With the echoes variously carried by the terms that are currently or were previously used to name the concepts of the woodcuts and engravings placed by Early Modern prin­ ters in their books hopefully brought a little closer within ear’s reach, the title of this col­

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lection of articles on Early Modern printer’s marks will have lost some of its apparent eccentricity: ‹Typographorum Emblemata› was indeed one of the many terms for referring to what, looking for a term with as few historical echoes as possible, we may wish to call ‹printer’s marks›. As such it can indeed be read as intended to focus attention to a specific sub-group of printer’s marks. With its historical echo amplified the term ‹Typographorum Emblemata› will call then to mind emblems and devices, thus drawing attention to prin­ ter’s marks displaying the salient features of two closely related Early Modern word-image genres.9 But that choice of a title thus “loaded” should not be understood as having been made so as to exclude specimens from other sub-groups of the printer’s mark from being discussed in this volume. As a closer look at the literature on printer’s marks suggests, and as will also be confirmed by the articles contained in this volume, the terminology of current research into printer’s marks is still in a state of flux, with most of the terms mentioned above used synonymously. Opting for ‹Typographorum Emblemata› as the title of this volume of articles on printer’s marks therefore still in a way follows the custom of synonymous usage. But with its historical echo having been pointed out that title can perhaps serve as a prompt for an interest in an area so far neglected in modern studies in printer’s marks, namely that of the history of terms and concepts used

A Problem with Definitions If we expect of a definition that it will tell us something about the necessary and the sufficient conditions that an object has to meet in order to be subsumed under the term that is being defined, definitions of the printer’s mark like the following ones will all of them be seen to be doing their job admirably: La marque d’imprimeur ou marque typographique est un dessin réalisé en bois gravé que les imprimeurs utilisaient pour authentifier leur production.10 – Marque d’imprimeur ou marque typographique, signe conventionnel, chiffre, monogramme ou vignette gravé utilisé par l’impri­ meur ou le libraire.11 – Het drukkersmerk is een huismerk, monogram of vignet als kenmerk, dat drukkers en uitgevers in een boek afdrukken om aan te geven wie het boek vervaardigd heeft.12 – Als Druckerzeichen oder Signets bezeichnet man die Personalzeichen der Drucker oder Verleger, die diese in ihre Bücher eindrucken ließen.13

9 See: Scholz 1997, 435–438 and Scholz 2000, 135–137. 10 Wikipedia (fr.) s.v. “Marque d’ imprimeur”, accessed 11 December 2016. 11 www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/marque/49583/locution?q=Marque+d+imprimeur#181345 (accessed 31 January 2017). 12 Wikipedia (nl.) s.v. “Drukkersmerk”, accessed 31 January 2017. (The printer’s mark is a trademark, monogram or vignette, which printers and publishers print in a book in order to indicate who made that book.) 13 “The personal signs that printers or publishers had printed into their books are called printer’s marks or signets” (Wolkenhauer 2002, 15).



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All of these definitions are able, it appears, to cope quite well with the rather large and diverse corpus of Early Modern printer’s marks that has come down to us from the 15th, the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. All of them first indicate the genus of the objects in question, namely that they are (pictorial) signs of one sort or another, and all of them then constitute the printer’s mark as a species of that genus by identi­ fying the differentia specifica that will mark off the specimens of this particular sign species from those of other species that can likewise be subsumed under that genus: in contrast to the members of other species of signs, printer’s marks, we are being told by these definitions, are ones that will be found in the colophons or on the title pages of books, having been placed there for the purpose of providing authenticating information about the printer who produced the book in question. Note that general definitions of the printer’s mark like these, which may be considered to be fairly rep­ resentative, do not pick up any of the echoes of the specific contexts of introduction, echoes, which, we have seen, in some cases stemmed from the social function(s) assigned to a printer’s mark besides that of authenticating the printer’s product. Nor they, more importantly still, contain references to any of the “internal” features of the specimens of the genre defined, such as their divergent modes of signification – allegorical or “symbolical” in the case printer’s marks reminiscent of emblems and devices, literal in the case of coats of arms, initials and rebus – or the diverse kinds of objects depicted: natural objects, artifacts, mythological figures, coats of arms, letters of the alphabet. Wishing to make sense of the apparent “meagerness” of these definitions we need to see that to name the conditions which a (pictorial) sign has to satisfy in order to qualify as a ‹printer’s mark› we first have to discover one or more salient similarities shared by the signs gathered together under that term. Assuming that the scholars who have put forward these definitions did not fail in their task of care­ fully scanning the corpus of Early Modern printer’s marks for such definition-rele­ vant similarities, it therefore looks as if the apparent meagerness of the definitions quoted could only be due to the scarceness of such similarities. The one similarity discovered that was shared by all printer’s marks was apparently the sameness of function realized of the members of an otherwise utterly heterogeneous group of (pictorial) signs, namely the function of authenticating the printer of a book, once such a sign had been placed in the colophon or on the title page of a book for the purpose of authentication. Trying to come up with a definition broad enough to apply to all Early Modern printer’s marks, and then finding that one had to base it on only a single shared sim­ ilarity – and that an “external” similarity of function rather than an “internal” one of appearance or of structure – was therefore tantamount to having to pass over the fact that there were indeed all sorts of similarities shared by sub-groups of the corpus of printer’s marks, but not by the whole corpus of printer’s marks. Such similarities, even a brief glance at a number of specimens of that corpus suggests, can be similari­ ties of the kinds of objects represented and/or of the modes of signification variously

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exhibited by, e. g., the first printer’s mark on record, that of Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer of Mainz, 1462 (Figure 1), by the marks of Aldus Manutius of Venice, 150114 or of Johann Froben of Basle, 151515 (Figures 4 and 5), the latter two both ­“Humanist”

Figure 4

Figure 5

printer’s marks, by marks with pictorial motifs from Jewish and/or Christian ico­ nography like those of Marco Antonio Giustiniani of Venice, 154516 or Moritz Goltze of Wittenberg, 154117 (Figures 6 and 7), by diagrammatic marks made up of initials, like those of Michael Furter of Basle, 1505,18 or Johannes Miller of ­Augsburg, 151419 (Figures 8 and 9), by printer’s marks like those of Konrad Kachelofen of Leipzig, 1513,20 or, again, Michael Furter, which prominently display coats of arms like that of the city ­ rinter’s marks in which the printer in question was located (Figures 8 and 10), or by p depicting tools of one craft or another, like those of Theodosius Rihel of Strasbourg,

14 On Aldus Manutius’s printer’s mark see: Wolkenhauer 2002, 34–41. 15 See: Wendland 1984, 98. For what is most likely the definitive account of Froben’s printer’s mark see: Wolkenhauer 2002, 199–215. 16 Wikipedia (it.) s.v. “Marcantonio Giustinian (tipografo)”, accessed 3 February 2017; Berger 2012, 215. 17 See: Wendland 1984, 281. 18 See: Wendland 1984, 29–31. 19 See: Wendland 1984, 82. 20 See: Wendland 1984, 52.



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Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

 369

1569,21 or Peter Apianus of Ingolstadt, 153222 (Figures 11 and 12). Each of the marks just mentioned can be understood to exemplify a specific variant of Early Modern

21 For Rihel’s printer’s mark depicting a set of bridles and a measuring square see: Wendland 1984, 264–265 and Wolkenhauer 2002, 358–366. 22 For Apinanus’ printer’s mark depicting a rack and pinion jack see: Henning Wendland 1984, 164.

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Figure 10

 Bernhard F. Scholz

Figure 11

Figure 12

printer’s mark. Some of these variants, though certainly not all of them, are actually named, significantly enough, by one or the other of the only seemingly synonymous terms currently or formerly in use mentioned earlier on. Not being able to take account also of the similarities and differences of the variants of the Early Modern printer’s mark, will, however, only have to be con­ sidered a shortcoming of definitions like the ones quoted as long as one mistak­ enly expects them to do a kind of double work for which they were not intended. For in trying to settle on the necessary and the sufficient conditions for a thing’s



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being a member of a specific set, they cannot avoid making use of comparisons that are, as Montaigne puts it in the passage from “De l’expérience” serving as our motto, “joinct toutesfois [...] par quelque coin”, fastened together by some corner or another, but, we may add, never by all imaginable corners at once. The choice of a particular corner over another, to stay with Montaigne’s metaphor a moment longer, will always be prompted by a conceptual goal we are hoping to reach, by a cognitive interest we are pursuing. In the case of the definitions quoted above that goal clearly consisted solely in finding a way to distinguish the set of printer’s marks from other sets of conventional pictorial signs like the set of maker’s marks used by potters, by masons or pewterers, or the sets of devices and of emblems. Needless to add that with an eye to being able to distinguish between these groups of signs from each other all that was needed was the insight that all Early Modern printer’s marks, despite their many differences in appearance, modes of significa­ tion and structure, are “held together by the corner” of a shared function, namely that of authenticating the provenance of a particular book from the press of a par­ ticular printer. With the corpus of the Early Modern printer’s mark thus “held together” only by that one function, the question of ordering that corpus thus becomes one of trying to identify the relevant sub-groups, and then accounting for them by means of a series of partial definitions. As has been suggested earlier on we can expect those sub-groups to be held together by shared kinds of objects depicted and/or by shared modes of signification, and/or additional functions. As far as the sub-group of Early Modern printer’s marks foregrounded by the title of this volume is concerned, the printer’s marks once labeled as ‹typographorum emblemata› and currently often referred to as ‹humanist printer’s mark›, a definition might run as follows: “Def. ‹humanist printer’s mark›: a pictorial sign realized by a woodcut or an engraving placed by Early Modern printers in the colophons or on the title pages of their books, both for the purpose, shared with printer’s marks in general, of authenticating the provenance of the book in question from their press, but in addition also of articulating their affinity with the cultural ideals of Humanism through opting for the pictorial material and the allegorical mode of signification also used by Humanist word-image genres like the device, the emblem, the aenigma and the hieroglyph.” The first part of this definition of the humanist printer’s mark thus first names the function of authentication as the necessary and sufficient condition an Early Modern pictorial sign had to meet in order to qualify as a printer’s mark. The second part of the definition names the necessary and sufficient condition that a mark identified by the first part as a printer’s mark had to satisfy in addition in order to qualify as a ‹humanist printer’s mark›. If the suggestion made above about the secondary or derivative character of the Early Modern printer’s mark is correct, all printer’s marks would have to belong to one of the sub-genres characterized by their likeness with one or the other wordimage genre. A printer’s mark belonging to a particular sub-genre of the printer’s

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mark would then have to be defined by specifying two sets of necessary and sufficient conditions it had to satisfy, with the first set satisfied one allowing for subsuming it under the general term ‹printer’s mark›, and the second set subsuming it under the term chosen to name the sub-genre being defined. With the general definition of the Early Modern printer’s mark fixed in the manner suggested above, the Early Modern printer’s mark employing pseudo-heraldic signs like that of Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer (Figure 1), or genuine ones like that of Furter (Figure 8) might thus be defined as: “Def. ‹heraldic printer’s mark›: a printer’s mark displaying one or more images of fictional or recognized arma for the purpose of claiming social status similar to the one normally reserved to nobility (Fust and Schöffer ?) or citizenship of a prominent city (Furter’s Basle). The salient mode of sig­ nification is that characteristic of arma in general, i. e. of indicating membership of a specific social entity”. Similarly, diagrammatic Early Modern printer’s marks employ­ ing maker’s marks and/or initials, like the printer’s mark of Johann Stuchs (Figure 3), might be defined as: “Def. ‹diagrammatic printer’s mark›: a printer’s mark displaying diagrammatic signs like initials and/or› maker’s marks for the purpose foregrounding the (personal) identity of the of the maker of the book in question through a rendering by means of particular fonts and a particular visual realization of recognized letters and/or maker’s marks”. Defining the Early Modern printer’s mark in two stages, first in terms of the necessary and sufficient conditions to be met in order to qualify as a printer’s mark in general, and then in terms of the conditions to be met in order to qualify as a ­specimen of a particular sub-genre of the printer’s mark, will put an end to the ongoing debate about the “true” nature of the Early Modern printer’s epitomized by the following passage from 1984: The printer’s mark was more than just a trademark of the kind that was also used, for example, by mediaeval merchants for the purpose of indicating the ownership and provenance of goods and freight. The fundamental difference (between printer’s marks and) trader’s marks consists in the pictorial nature [Bildhaftigkeit] of the printer’s mark. This pictorial nature, together with the cultural claims [Bildungsanspruch] bound up with it, is owed to the close spiritual links of the printer using the mark in question with the works he has printed, and with his production and his workshop in general.23

What this passage mistakenly does is to treat the necessary condition to be met by a specific sub-genre of the printer’s mark, in this case that of the “symbolic” humanist

23 Wendland 1984, 9. [“Das Druckersignet aber bedeutete mehr als nur eine Handelsmarke, wie sie zum Beispiel auch die Kaufleute des Mittelalters zur Kennzeichnung von Frachtsendungen und Waren als Eigentums- und Herkunftsnachweis führten. Der grundlegende Unterschied zu den Handelsmar­ ken besteht in der Bildhaftigkeit der Druckersignete. Diese Bildhaftigkeit und der ihr innewohnende Bildungsanspruch geht auf eine innige geistige Verbindung des signetführenden Druckers zu seinem Druckwerk im einzelnen wie zu seiner Produktion und Werkstatt im gesamten zurück”].



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printer’s mark with its insistence on Bildhaftigkeit as the necessary condition to be met by printer’s marks in general. That this strategy won’t work is suggested by a glance at Johann Stuchs’ printer’s mark (Figure 3) with its combination of a maker’s mark in the tradition of mediaeval maker’s marks and a rendering of his initials. Stuchs’ mark clearly would not qualify as a printer’s mark as envisaged by the passage just quoted since it does indeed lack the Bildhaftigkeit implicitly claimed as a necessary condition for being a printer’s mark proper. Nor does it display the Bildungsanspruch claimed for printer’s marks proper by the passage quoted. But then, as a printer’s mark belonging to a different sub-genre, it was meant only to communicate authen­ tication through indicating ownership and provenance, with the initials perhaps to be read as an element signifying personal identity added o the maker’s mark usually lacking such personalization.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Two shields hanging from a bough: printer’s mark of Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, Mainz, 1462. Source: Wendland 1984, 62. Figure 2: Medieval stonemason’s maker’s mark. Source: Photograph by the author, Bentheim Castle. Figure 3: Black square with initials and maker’s mark: printer’s mark of Johann (Hans) Stuchs, Nuremberg, ca. 1513. Source: Wendland, 1984, 235. Figure 4: Dolphin wound around an anchor: printer’s mark of Aldus Manutius, Venice 1501. Source: Wolkenhauer 2002, 35. Figure 5: Caduceus surrounded by two snakes & dove: printer’s mark of Johann Froben, Basle, 1515. Source: Wendland 1984, 98. Figure 6: The Dome of the Rock: printer’s mark of Marco Antonio Giustiani, Venice 1545. Source: Berger 2012, 215. Figure 7: Crucifix with a praying woman and a lamb: printer’s mark of Moritz Goltze, Wittenberg, 1541. Source: Wendland 1984, 281. Figure 8: Two basilisks with intertwined tails, holding a shield with the coat of arms of Bâle: printer’s mark of Michael Furter, Basle, 1505. Source: Wendland 1984, 29–31. Figure 9: Black square with the maker’s mark of Miller’s print shop and his initials: printer’s mark of Johannes Miller, Augsburg 1514. Source: Wendland 1984, 82. Figure 10: Kneeling Turk with in his right hand the coat of arms of Leipzig and in his right a shield with the initials C and K and a maker’s mark: printer’s mark of Konrad Kachelofen, Leipzig 1513. Source: Wendland 1984, 53. Figure 11: Nemesis holding in her right hand a pair of bridles, and a measuring square in her left: printer’s mark of Theodosius Rihel, Strasbourg 1569. Source: Wendland 1984, 264–265. Figure 12: Craftsman operating a rack and pinion jack: printer’s mark of Peter Apianus, Ingolstadt 1532. Source: Wendland 1984, 164.

Bibliography Berger, Pamela, The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill N.V., 2012.

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 Bernhard F. Scholz

Bowers, Jennifer & Peggy Keeran, Literary Research and the British Renaissance and Early Modern Period. Lanham, UK: The Scarecrow Press, 2010. Montaigne, Michel de, The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Tr. Donald M. Frame. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958. Scholz, Bernhard F., Lemma ‘Emblem’. In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (RLW). Vol. 1. Ed. Klaus Weimar. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 1997. Scholz, Bernhard F., Lemma ‘Imprese’. In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (RLW). Vol. 2. Ed. Harald Fricke. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 2000. Wendland, Henning, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, 1984. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002.

Part D: Research Bibliography and Index

Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts Bibliographies and Surveys of Research Carleberg, A.G., “Boktryckarmarken från 1500-talets Genève.” Nordisk tidskrift för bok - och biblioteksväsen 76 (1989): 32–53. Lhote, Amédée, Histoire de l’imprimerie à Châlons-sur-Marne: Notices biographiques et ­bibliographiques sur les imprimeurs, libraires, relieurs et lithographes (1488–1894). Avec marques typographiques et illustrations. Châlons-sur-Marne: Martin frères, 1894. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1969). Simon, Melinda. Kiadói és Nyomdászjelvények Hagyomány és korszerüség [= Printers’ and publishers’ marks: Tradition and modernity]. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2014 (comprehensive Bibliography p. 170–211). Veneziani, Paolo, “Le marche tipografiche. Problemi di metodologia.” Bollettino d’informazioni dell’Associazione Italiana Biblioteche 27 (1987): 49–55. Vertu, Aurélie, “Les marques typographiques d’imprimeurs et de libraires (XVe–XIXe siècle).” In: DESS Réseau d’information et document électronique (DESS Ride). Rapport de recherche bibliographique. March 2004. [Http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/ documents/844-les-marques-typographiques-d-imprimeurs-et-de-libraires-xve-xixe-siecle.pdf]. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Rassegna delle fonti per lo studio delle marche tipografiche nei libri antichi (‘400–’600).” Paratesto. Rivista internazionale 3 (2006): 61–69. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Symbola ac emblemata: Perspektiven der Druckerzeichenforschung für die Frühe Neuzeit.” Wolfenbüttler Renaissance Mitteilungen 36 (2015): 25–38. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Printers’ marks in scholarly research – overview and questions.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 7–25.

General Works on the Printer’s Mark, International Collections Adams, Frederick B., Printers’ Marks in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York: The Library, 1968. Allamanche, Jean-Claude, Les marques secrètes des imprimeurs de la Renaissance. Signes visuels d’un ésotérisme de métier. Busloup: Le Moulin de l’Étoile, 2010. Alverda, Charly & Jan Demeulenaere, L’hermétisme des marques d’imprimeurs. Busloup: Le Moulin de l’ Étoile, 2008. Beaudoire, Théophile, Genèse de la cryptographie apostolique et de l’architecture rituelle du premier au seizième siècle: baptistères, basiliques, amulettes, sarcophages, fresques, numismatique, manuscrits, chartes et bulles, vitraux, orfèvrerie religieuse, armoiries, marques typographiques. Paris: s.n., 1902. (Reprint: La Bégude-de-Mazenc: Arma Artis, 2002). Boas, Marcus, “Cato-spreuken als drukkersdeviezen.” Het boek 20 (1931): 324–330. Boerner, C.B., Auktions-Institut, Kunst- und Buchantiquariat, ed., Auktions-Katalog der Sammlungen des in Frankfurt a/M. verstorbenen Herrn Heinrich Eduard Stiebel (Leipzig, 1910) http://digi. ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/boerner1910_11_21/0239 (contains a collection of printers’ marks) DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-018

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Boerner, C.B., Auktions-Institut, Kunst- und Buchantiquariat, ed., Sammlung kostbarer alter Holzschnitte des 15. Bis 19. Jahrhunderts dabei die bekannte Spezialsammlung des 1916 in Wien verstorbenen Herr Josef Wünsch (Leipzig, 1927) (contains a collection of printers’ marks) Bohn, Hans & Hans Schreiber, Marken und Zeichen. Frankfurt a. M.: R. Tj. Hauser & Co., 1923. Bouland, Ludovic, Marques de livre, anciennes et modernes, françaises et étrangères. Paris: L. Giraud-Badin, 1925. Butsch, Albert F., Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance. Eine Auswahl stylvoller Titeleinfassungen, Initialen, Leisten, Vignetten und Druckerzeichen hervorragender italienischer, deutscher und französischer Officinen. Leipzig & München: G. Hirth, 1878–1881. Caxton, William Jr., “Early Printers’ Marks.” American Artist (1963): 58–59. Crous, Ernst, “Die Büchermarken der Wiegendruckzeit.” Der Sammler (1922): 3–5. Davies, Hugh William, Devices of the Early Printers, 1457–1569. Their History and Development. With a Chapter on Portrait Figures of Printers. London: Grafton & Co 1935 (Reprint: Folkestone: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974). Dickman, O. Alfred, Paul A. Bennett; Robert L. Leslie, Forty Devices from (and by) Many Typophiles. New York: Robert L. Leslie, The Composing Room, 1937. Diekamp, Busso, Ars longa, vita brevis. Zeichenkunst im alten Buch. Exlibris, Druckersignete und Wasserzeichen aus den Beständen der Stadtbibliothek Worms. Ausstellung der Stadtbibliothek Worms, 23.10.2008–22.11.2008. Worms: Worms-Verlag, 2008. Diethelm, Walter, Marion Diethelm & Eugenio Carmi, Signet, Signal, Symbol. Handbuch internationaler Zeichen. Zurich: ABC-Verlag, 19704, 1984. Donati, Lamberto, Riflessioni sulle marche tipografiche. (Kleiner Druck der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft 67) Bellinzona: S.A. Grassi, 1959. Dorez, Léon, “Deux jugements rendus au XVIe siècle sur la propriété des marques typographiques.” Revue des bibliothèques 4 (1894): 88–90. Droz, Eugenie, “Quelques marques typographiques du XVe siècle.” Byblis 4 (1925): 123–125. Duhem, Jules, “La légende aéronautique dans les marques anciennes des libraires et des imprimeurs. Nouvelles recherches.” Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire 16 (1937): 386–390. Early Printers’ Marks. Ed. Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1962. Ehmcke, Fritz H., 160 Kennbilder. Eine Sammlung von Warenzeichen, Geschäfts-, Verlags- und Büchersignets. München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1925. Elmqvist Söderlund, Inga, Taking Possession of Astronomy. Frontispieces and Illustrated Title Pages in 17th-Century Books on Astronomy. Stockholm: The Center for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2010. Fisher, P.H., “Printers’ Marks, Emblems and Mottoes.” Notes and Queries 9 (1860): 98–99. Fluri, Adolf, “Übertragene und usurpierte Buchdruckerzeichen.” Gutenbergstube 4 (1918): 35–38. Friedlander, Walter J., The Golden Wand of Medicine. A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine. New York & London: Greenwood Press, 1992. Frisch. Dennis & Susan Barb, Printers’ Devices. Los Angeles, Ca.: Horn Press, UCLA, 1979–1981. Guérin, Denis, Introduction à la lecture des marques typographiques. Paris: Association Limage, 1977. Hadank, Oskar H.W., Fritz H. Ehmcke &, Eine Auswahl von siebzig Zeichen aus sechs Jahrzehnten. Hamburg: J. Trautmann, 1959. Häbler, Konrad, “Die Druckermarken mit dem Y.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 1 (1897/1898): 533–537. Harman, Marian, “Classical Elements in Early Printers’ Marks.” In: Abbot, Kenneth et al., eds., Classical Studies in Honor of William Abbot Oldfather. Urbana, Ill.: Illinois University Press, 1943, 60–72.



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Harman, Marian, Printer’s and Publisher’s Devices in Incunabula in the University of Illinois Library. Urbana, Ill.: s.n., 1983. Heichen, Paul, Die Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen der Gegenwart. Mit Voranstellung einiger wichtigen älteren Drucker-Signete. Berlin: Heichen & Skopnik, 1892. Higman, Francis, “L’emblème et la marque d’imprimeur: une piste à suivre?” In: Gilmont, Jean-François & Alexandre Vanautgaerden, eds.,: La page du titre à la Renaissance: treize études suivies de cinquante-quatre pages de titre. Turnhout: Brepols 2008, 155–159 Hölscher, Eberhard, “Marken und Signete. Zu ihrer Entstehung und Formentwicklung.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 5 (1930): 201–227. Hornung, Clarence P., “Printers’ marks 1457 – 1941.” Print. A Quarterly Iournal of the Graphic Arts 1 (1941): 49–65. Horodisch, Abraham, “Buch und Buchdruckpresse im Druckersignet des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts.” Philobiblon 3 (1974): 166–194. Horodisch, Abraham, The Book and the Printing Press in Printer’s Marks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. (Safaho Monographs 7) Amsterdam: Erasmus, 1977. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans Brandhorst, “Difficilia quae pulchra. Cultuurhistorische bronnen ontsloten per computer.” Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis 4 (1997): 207–226. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans Brandhorst, “‘Weest altoos vigilant en arbeytsaem.’ Drukkersmerken een mentaliteitshistorische bron?” Nieuw letterkundig magazijn 17 (1999): 30–34. Humphreys, Henry N., Masterpieces of the Early Printers and Engravers. A Series of Facsimiles from Rare and Curious Books, Remarkable for Illustrative Devices, Beautiful Borders, Decorative Initials, Printers’ Marks, Elaborate Title-Pages etc. London: H. Sotheran & Co, 1870. Irwin, Frank, Printer’s Marks and Colophons. Tilton, N.H.: Hillside Press, 1976. Jonas, Maurice, “Printers’ marks.” Notes and Queries 26 (1898): 504. [http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/ content/s9-I/26/504.3.full.pdf+html] Kelly, Deborah, Printers’ and Publisher’s Devices. Los Angeles, Cal.: Horn Press, UCLA, 1980. Kirnbauer, Franz, “Der Vogel Strauss mit dem Hufeisen im Schnabel.” Biblos 11 (1962): 115–122. Kozma, Lajos, Das Signetbuch. Mit einer Einleitung von Emerich Kner. Gyoma: Isidor Kner, 1925. Landauer, Bella C. & Douglas C. Mc Murtrie, Pointers’ Mottoes: A Collection of Sentiments Taken from Titlepages and Colophons of Books Issued by Printers and Publishers, Booksellers, Artists and Patrons from the 15th Century to the Present. New York: Private Printing, 1926. Lehner, Ernst, Symbols, Signs & Signets. (Dover Pictorial Archive Series) New York: Dover Publications, 1950. Library Quarterly, ‘Pressmarks’. [Every issue of LQ, starting with the first one in 1931 until January 2013, has a cover design based on a printer’s mark, and an essay about the design and history of that pressmark. Commencing in January 2013, the printer’s mark appears inside the issue.. For informtion about this collection of printer’s marks see: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/ jrichardson/lqcovers.htm; For an index see: Sharpe, John L., “An index to Printers’ Marks in the Library Quarterly.” The Library Quarterly 48 (1978): 40–59. Loiseau, Ludivine, La Marque d’Imprimeur. Paris: DSAA Création Typographique de l’École Estienne & l’École Supérieure des Arts et Industries graphiques, 2016. [www.dsaatypo.info/culture/138/ la-marque-dimprimeur]. Ludwig, Walther, “Klassische Mythologie in Druckersigneten und Dichterwappen.” In: Guthmüller, Bodo & Wilhelm Kühlmann, eds., Renaissancekultur und Antike Mythologie. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999, 113–148. Lugt, Frits, Les marques de collections de dessins & d’estampes: marques estampillées et écrites de collections particulières et publiques. Marques de marchands, de monteurs et d’imprimeurs. Cachets de vente d’artistes décédés. Marques de graveurs apposées après le tirage des planches. Timbres d’édition. [...]. Amsterdam: Vereenigde Drukkerijen, 1921. (Supplement: The Hague: Nijhoff, 1956).

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Mancini, Gioacchimo & Giannetto Avanzi, “Marca.” In: Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti. Rome: Istituto Giovanni Treccani, 1929–39. [www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/marca_ (Enciclopedia-Italiana)/] Maple Press Company, Trade Marks Both Old and New: Being a Brief Consideration of Some Old Marks Used by Printers in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries with Special Reference to a Twentieth Century Trade Mark. (Keepsake American Institute of Graphic Arts, 40) York, PA: The Company, 1931.. Maurer, Franz, “Einiges vom Buchsignet.” Graphische Revue. Zeitschrift für das Buchgewerbe 30, 2 (1928): 61–64. Maurer, Franz, “Vom Buchsignet.” Deutscher Drucker 30 (1929): 109–111. McMurtrie, Douglas C., Printers’ Marks and their Significance. Chicago: Eyncourt Press, 1930. van der Meersch, Polydore C. Des Marques de quelques imprimeurs. S.l.: s.n., ca. 1850. Meiner, Annemarie, “Signete der Frühzeit mit Buchdruckerpressen.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 62 (1925): 105–111. Meldau, Robert, “Bildungsgesetze von Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 19, 24 (1944/49): 112–117. Meyer, Wilhelm, “Incunabula Printers’ and Publishers’ Signs = Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen der Inkunabelzeit = Marques incunables d’imprimeurs et éditeurs.” Graphische Internationale Zeitschrift für Grafik und angewandte Kunst (Graphis) 16 (1960): 144–153. Moran, James, Heraldic Influence on Early Printers’ Devices. Leeds: Elmete Press, 1978 Mumey, Nolie, A Study of Rare Books, with Special Reference to Colophones, Press Devices and Tide Pages of Interest to the Bibliophile and the Student of Literature. Denver, Col.: The Clason Publishing Company, 1930 Nipps, Karen, “Printers’ Devices as Decorative Elements in Library Architecture.” The Library Quarterly 83, 3 (July 2013): 271–278. Nordqvist, Nils, Ord som bilder, bilder som ord: enligt Emblematum liber av Andrea Alciati, Stockholm: NKI-skolan 1963. Ollfors, Anders, “The Anchor and the Dolphin and some other Printer’s Devices.” In: Sandin, Pär & Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe, eds., Dais philēsistephanos: Studies in Honour of Professor Staffan Fogelmark, Presented on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, 12 April 2004. Uppsala: Dahlia books, 2004, 322–331. Osburn, Burt N. & Ralph Paden, Early Printers’ Marks: 1457–1580. Millersville, Pa: State College, 1970. Pollard, Alfred W., “Printers’ Marks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” The Connoisseur 2 (1902): 262–267. Preetorius, Emil & Wilhelm Hausenstein, Exlibris und Signete. Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1924. Preisendanz, Karl, “Ein altes Ewigkeitssymbol als Signet und Druckermarke.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 10 (1935): 143–149. Printers’ Marks. A Compilation of Printers’ Marks Used in the Last Half of the 15th and Early Part of the 16th Centuries. Appleton, Wis.: Fox River Paper Co, 1924. Quenaidit, Commandant, “Les énigmes des marques d’imprimeurs.” Bulletin de la Société Archéologique, Historique et Artistique ‘Le Vieux Papier’ 43 (1907): 227–231. Rautenberg, Ursula, “Printer’s and Publisher’s Devices and the Title-Page in Germany, Venice, the Netherlands and Basle.” L’Erasmo. Trimestrale della civilità Europea 25 (2005): 14–20. Reise, Heinz, “Familienwappen als Verlagszeichen: Ein Beitrag zur Gebrauchsgraphik.” Genealogie und Heraldik 8–9 (1949): 138–139. Roberts, William, Printer’s Mark. A Chapter in the History of Typography. (Ex-libris series) London & New York: George Bell and Sons, 1893. [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25663]. Rogers, Bruce, The Mark of a Printer. Together with Some Bold Speculations about Printers’ Marks in General. Detroit, Mich.: Evans-Winter-Hebb, 1939.



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Rosarivo, Raúl, “Simbolos alquímicos en marcas tipográficas del siglo 15 y 16.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 41 (1966): 310–314. Rosner, Charles, “Printers’ Printed Publicity – Eigenwerbung des Druckers – Imprimés pour imprimeurs.” Graphis. International Journal of Graphic Art and Applied Art – Internationale Zeitschrift für Graphik und angewandte Kunst – Revue internationale d’arts graphiques et d’arts appliqués 13, 69 (1957): 40–57. Roth-Scholtzius, Friedrich, Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum, i.e. Insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum ab incunabulis typographiae ad nostra usque tempora. Nuremberg & Altorf: Heirs of Johannes Daniel Tauber, 1730 Roth-Scholtzius, Friedrich, Index insignium bibliopolarum et typographorum quondam collectorum editorumque (Altdorf: Lorenz Schüpfel, 1765) Salzmann, Karl Heinz, “Vom Zeitschriftensignet.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 28 (1953): 194–203. Salzmann, Karl Heinz, “Über das Verlagssignet.” Form und Technik: Fachzeitschrift der Industriegewerkschaft Druck und Papier für alle Berufssparten des graphischen Gewerbes und der Papier und Pappe verarbeitenden Industrie 5 (1954), 511–516. Schauer, Georg K., “Druckerzeichen und Exlibris.” In: Schauer, Georg K., Von den Herbergen des Geistes. Krefeld, Germany: Scherpe, 1976, 70–73. Schechter, Frank I., “Early Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 19, 1–2 (1925): 1–28. Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015. Sello, Gottfried, “Die Glücksgöttin auf Buchdruckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts.” In: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 12 (1877): 115–118. Serna Santander, Carlos Antonio de la, Mémoire sur l’origine et le premier usage des signatures et des chiffres, dans l’art typographique; communiqué à un ami. Brussels: Des presses d’A. Gaborria, an IV [1796]. [Supplément au catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de C.A. de la Serna Santander. Brussels: s.n., an XI (1803)]. Simon, Herbert, “A Note on Printers’ Marks.” Fleuron 1 (1923): 119–122. Simon, Melinda, “Stratégies de publicité visuelles. Historisation dans les marques d’éditeurs européens et américains des 19e–20e siècles.” In: Radimská, Jitka, ed., Jazyk a řeč knihy. K výzkumu zámeckých, mĕšt’anských a církevních knihoven. (Opera Romanica 11) České Budĕjovice: Editio Universitatis Bohemiae Meridionalis – Nová Tiskárna Pelhřimov, 2009, 525–544. Simon, Melinda, “Publishers’ Devices as Indicators of Legal Continuity.” Re:marks. The Journal of Signum, International Society for Mark Studies 1 (2013): 71–87. Sjögren, Arthur, Om boktryckare- och förläggaremärken under 1400 talet: några anteckningar, Stockholm: Lagerström 1908. Spitzer, Dora & Bruce Rogers, Ancient Printers and Their Devices. New York: Dora Spitzer, 1951. Steckhan, Margarete, “Verlagssignete.” Westermanns Monatshefte 2 (1956): 54–56. Stoddard, Roger E., Marks in Books. Illustrated and Explained. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 1985. Telle, Joachim, Buchsignete und Alchemie im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Sinnbildkunst. Hürtgenwald: Guido Pressler, 2004. Todd, William B., Observations on the Incidence and Interpretation of Press Figures. Charlottesville, Va.: [Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia], 1951. (Also as article in: Studies in Bibliography 3 (1950/51): 171–205). Tommasini, Amadeo R., Printer’s Marks, Curious & Challenging. San Francisco 1967. (Privately Printed). Tuzzi, Hans, Bestiario bibliofilo. Imprese di animali nelle marche tipografiche dal XV al XVIII secolo (e altro). Milan: Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2009.

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Underwood, Will, “On Presses and Press Marks.” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 31 (2000): 136–142. Utley, George B., Some Old Time Printers’ Marks. Boston, Mass.: Bartlett, 1903. Veneziani, Paolo, “Le marche tipografiche. Problemi di metodologia.” Bollettino d’informazioni dell’Associazione Italiana Biblioteche 27 (1987): 49–55. Vercruysse, Jérôme, “Réflexions sur l’identification des fausses marques.” Le livre & l’estampe 36 (1990): 163–178. Vernizzi, Cristina, Art. “Marca tipografica.” In: Manuale enciclopedico della bibliofilia. Milan: S. Bonnard, 1997, 429–432. Victoria & Albert Museum, Early Printers’ Marks. (Small Picture Book 56) London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1962. Weber, Andreas P. & Otto Säuberlich, Wie ein Druckerzeichen entsteht. Leipzig: Brandstetter, 1922. Wehmer, Carl, “Signete der Frühdruckzeit – The Oldest Form of Printer’s Marks.” Gebrauchsgraphik 6 (1940): 27–33. Wendland, Henning, Art. “Druckermarke.” In: Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens. Vol. 2. Stuttgart 1984. Willoughby, Edwin E., Fifty Printers’ Marks. Berkeley, Cal.: Book Arts Club, Univ. of California, 1947. Windisch, Albert, “Das Signet.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 67 (1930): 57–63. Winger, Howard W., ‘The Cover Design’, Library Quarterly, 45, 4 (1975), pp. 419–420. Winger, Howard W., “The printer’s signature.” Chicago Today 5 (1968): 30–35. Winger, Howard W., Printers’ Marks and Devices. Chicago: Caxton Club, 1976. Winton, Ivor, “The Labyrinth as a Printer’s Device.” Caerdroia 21 (1987): 6–8. [http://www. labyrinthos.net/printersdevice.html]. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Druckerzeichen und Embleme von Alciato bis Rollenhagen. Eine Geschichte wechselseitiger Anregungen.” In: Harms, Wolfgang & Dietmar Peil, eds., Polyvalenz und Multifunktionalität der Emblematik. Akten des 5. Internationalen Kongresses der Society for Emblem Studies Munich 2002. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002, 845–866. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Rassegna delle fonti per lo studio delle marche tipografiche nei libri antichi (‘400–’600).” Paratesto. Rivista internazionale 3 (2006): 61–69. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Symbola ac emblemata: Perspektiven der Druckerzeichenforschung für die Frühe Neuzeit.” Wolfenbüttler Renaissance Mitteilungen 36 (2015): 25–38. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Die Selbsterfindung des Buchdrucks: Heurematakataloge und Druckerzeichen als diskurshistorische Quellen zur Analyse eines humanistischen Projekts.” In: HarichSchwarzbauer, Henriette et al., eds., Res novae – Umbrüche in den humanistischen Quellen des Oberrheins/ Res novae – Bouleversements dans les sources humanistes du Rhin supérieur. Ergebnisse der Tagung in Strasbourg, Nov. 2013. Strasbourg 2015 (in print). Zur Westen, Walter von, “Drucker- und Buchhändlersignete.” Exlibris, Buchkunst und angewandte Graphik 35 (1925): 8–18.

Research on the Printer’s Mark by Country and/or Language Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Baltic States) and Russia Beránková, Hana, Marie Růžičková & Anežka Baďurová, Signety tiskařů a nakladatelů ze 16. a 17. stolen v tiscích z fondu Knihovny Akademie věd ČR. Prague: Knihovna Akademie věd ČR, 2002. (CD-ROM) Borodaev, Jurij S. et al., Russian Publishers, Printers, Booksellers and Binders. An Annotated Bibliography of their Labels and Marks. Bicester: Primrose Hill Press, 2003. Borsa, Gedeon, “L’activité et les marques des éditeurs de Buda avant 1526.” In: Aquilon, Pierre & Henri-Jean Martin, eds., Le Livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance. Actes du colloque



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international d’études humanistes (1988 Tours, France). Paris: Promodis, Editions du Cercle de la librairie, 1988, 170–181. Borsa, Gedeon, “Il rapporto dei primi editori di Buda con Venezia e le loro marche (1480–1526).” Il Corsivo 3 (1999): 9–32. [http://www.iccu.sbn.it/corsivoNS3-99-Editori_di_Buda.pdf] Buchwald-Pelcowa, Paulina, “Emblematyczne koneksje sygnetu Mateusza Siebeneichera.” Biuletyn Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej 31, No 1–2 (1981): 109–112. Buchwald-Pelcowa, Paulina, Historia literatury i historia książki. Studia nad książką i literaturą od średniowiecza po wiek XVIII. Krakow: Tow. Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych “Universitas”, 2005. Ecsedy, Judit V.,”The Printer’s Device of the Elseviers in Hungary.” Quaerendo 21 (1991): 125–138. Ecsedy, Judit V. & Melinda Simon, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1488–1800 [= Hungarian Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices 1488 and 1800]. Budapest: Balassi, 2009 [with an english translation]. Grześkowiak, Radosław, “Związki sygnetów dawnych polskich drukarzy z emblematami Alciatusa”, Barok, 14, 1 (2007), pp. 257–277. Hałaciński, Kazimierz F. & Kazimierz Piekarski, Sygnety polskich drukarzy ksiegarzy i nakładców. Zbiór podobizn i oryginalnych odbic [=Die Firmenzeichen der polnischen Drucker, Buchhändler und Verleger [...]]. Vols. 1–3. Krakow: Nakładem Koła Miłośników Exlibrisu przy Towarzystwie Miłośników Ksiązki, 1926–1929. Horák, Frantisek, Signety starých českých tiskařů. Prague: s.n., 1941. Jakimyszyn, Anna, “Jewish Printers’ Marks from Germanic States and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 16th-18th Centuries.” Biuletyn Polskiej Misji Historycznej. Bulletin der Polnischen historischen Mission 9 (2014): 199–214. [http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/ BPMH/article/view/BPMH.2014.008] Juchoff, Rudolf, Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Niederlanden, England, Spanien, Böhmen, Mähren und Polen. München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1927. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Obelisk jako sygnet Drukarni Łazarzowej, źródła ikonograficzne i ideowe.” Terminus 1 (September 2007): 75–96. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Zagadka krakowskiego Terminusa. O sygnecie drukarskim oficyny Hieronima Wietora, propagatora erazmianizmu w Polsce.” Roczniki Biblioteczne 53 (2009): 129–146. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “In Platea Columbarum. The Printing House of Hieronim Wietor, Łazarz Andrysowic and Jan Januszowski in Renaissance Krakow.” Publishing History LXVII (2010): 5–37. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Emblematic Tradition in Renaissance Printers’Devices in Poland.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010, 112–135. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “A Goat Nibbling at a Willow Tree: The Printer’s Devices of Maciej Wirzbięta and Their Emblematic and Iconographical Context.” Emblematica 18 (2010): 33–51. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “Mens immota manet – Polish Application of an Emblematic Commonplace.” In: Probes, Christine & Sabine Mödersheim, eds, The Art of Persuasion. Emblems and Propaganda. (Glasgow Emblem Studies 17) Glasgow: Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Word/Image Cultures, University of Glasgow, 2014, 103–116. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, “When is a device not a device? Problematic woodcuts from Krakow printing shops.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 43–59. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Justyna, Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku. Źródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe. Cracow: Societas Vistulana, 2015. Klikar, František, Knižní signet. Prague: Průmyslová škola grafická, 1959.

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Kowalczyk, Jerzy, “Hippeum et Bellerophon: marque d’imprimerie de l’Academie de Zamosc.” In: Chrościcki, Juliusz A., ed., Ars auro prior: studia Ioanni Bialostocki sexagenario dicata. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawn. Nauk., 1981, 355–358. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, Polskie sygnety drukarskie od XV do połowy XVII wieku. (Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne) Poznań: Wydawnictwo “Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne”, 2006. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, “Jeszcze jeden polski sygnet o emblematycznych koneksjach (czylikilka uwag o znaku firmowym Szymona Kempiniego).” Roczniki Biblioteczne 52 (2008): 3–13. Krzak-Weiss, Katarzyna, “Typologia sygnetów drukarskich (na przykładzie znaków stosowanych przez polskich impresorów od XV do poł. XVII w.).” Biblioteka 13, 22 (2009): 7–18. Kun, Mihály, “Mütyürkék, monogramok, szignetek [= Nick-nacks, monograms, signets]”, Magyar Grafikai Kérdések, 2 (1946), 35–36 & 49. Kun, Mihály, “Tiposzignet-változatok egy téma körül [= Variations on a typosignet]”, Magyar Grafikai Kérdések, 2 (1946), 100–102 & 113–127. Lam, Stanislaw, Polskie znaki księgarskie. Warsaw: Nowa Ksia̜żka 1921. Marx, Moses, “Zur Geschichte des hebräischen Buchdruckes in Russland und Polen.” In: Marx, Alexander & Herrmann Meyer, eds., Festschrift für Aron Freimann zum 60. Geburtstage. Berlin: Soncino-Gesellschaft der Freunde des Jüdischen Buches, 1935, 91–96. Ötvös, János, “Huszár Gál nyomdászjele [= The printer’s device of Gál Huszár]”, Egyháztörténet, 3 (1958), 186–188. Pelc, Janusz, Obraz – Słowo – Znak. Studium o emblematach w literaturze staropolskiej. (Studia Staropopolskie 37) Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im Ossolińskich, 1973. Pelc, Janusz, “Polish Seventeenth-Century Emblem Literature and its Connections with Emblems Created and Printed in the Low Countries.” In: Rottermund, Andrzej, ed., Artes atque humaniora. Warsaw: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk., 1998, 181–195. Simon, Melinda, “Funkciótlan vagy funkcionális? Nyomdászjelvények, mint könyvtárépületek díszítőelemei [= Functional or not? Printers’ devices as decorative elements on library buildings]” in Apró cseppekből lesz a zápor. Bakonyi Géza emlékkötet (Szeged: Juhász Gyula Felsőoktatási Kiadó, 2008), 95–116. Simon, Melinda, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények: Szakirodalmi szöveggyűjtemény [= Chrestomathy on printers’ and publishers’ marks], 2 Vols (Szeged: Juhász Gyula Felsőoktatási Kiadó, 2009–2010). Simon, Melinda, Kiadói és nyomdászjelvények Magyarországon 1801–1900 [= Hungarian printers’ and publishers’ devices 1801–1900]. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2012. Simon, Melinda, Kiadói és Nyomdászjelvények Hagyomány és korszerüség [= Printers’ and publishers’ marks: Tradition and modernity]. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2014 (Comprehensive bibliography pp. 170–211). Simon, Melinda, “A jelvényrajzoló Butkovszky Bertalan [= A designer of printers’ marks, Bertalan Butkovszky]”, Magyar Könyvszemle 3 (2014), 353–366. Simon, Melinda, “Cataloguing printers’ marks in Hungary. Achievements and objectives.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 27–41. Soltész, Erzsébet, “Ungarische Druckerzeichen im 16. Jahrhundert.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 67 (1992): 125–133. Soskin, Leonid Markovich, Izdatel’skie marki Petrograda-Leningrada (Moscow: Novyĭ Svet, 1995). Végh, Gyula (Julius) von, Ungarische Verleger- und Buchdruckerzeichen. I. Ofner Buchhändlermarken 1488–1525. Mit erläuterndem Text. Budapest: Ungarische Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft, 1923. (German translation of Végh Gyula, Régi magyar könyvkiadó- és nyomdászjelvények. I. Budai könyvárusok jelvényei 1488–1525. Budapest: Magyar Bibliofil Társaság, 1923). Végh, Gyula (Julius), “The Bookmarks of the Buda Booksellers and Publishers 1488–1525.” Hungary. A Quarterly Review of Hungarian Life, Letters and Affairs 1 (1930): 37–41. [http://epa.oszk. hu/02500/02590/00001/pdf/EPA02590_hungary_quarterly_review_1930_01_37-41.pdf ].



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France Barbier, Olivier, “Des marques typographiques. Utilité de les connaître.” Bulletin du Bibliophile et du Bibliothécaire 8 (1864): 991–1013. Bénévent, Christine, Annie Charon-Parent; Isabelle Diu; Magali Vène, eds., Passeurs de textes. Imprimeurs et libraires à l’âge de l’humanisme. (Études et rencontres de l’École des chartes 37) Paris: Ecole des Chartes Editions, 2012. Bouland, Ludovic, Marques de livre, anciennes et modernes, françaises et étrangères. Paris: L. Giraud-Badin, 1925. Boyer, Hippolyte, “Une fausse marque typographique.” Archives du bibliophile 1 (1858): 83–84. Butsch, Albert F., Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance. Eine Auswahl stylvoller Titeleinfassungen, Initialen, Leisten, Vignetten und Druckerzeichen hervorragender italienischer, deutscher und französischer Officinen. Leipzig & München: G. Hirth, 1878–1881. Chèvre, Marie, “Le symbolisme rural dans les marques des premiers imprimeurs français.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 32 (1957): 122–128. Chèvre, Marie, “Encyclopèdies et marques des imprimeurs français de la Renaissance.” GutenbergJahrbuch 33 (1958): 132–138. Chèvre, Marie, “Notes sur des impressions à la marque d’Icare.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 34 (1959): 79–84. Clutton, George, “Notes on two French Devices (Guillaume Jouenne, Jean Boulle).” The Library 4 (1938): 456–460. Corrard de Breban, Antoine H.F., Recherches sur l’établissement et l’exercice de l’imprimerie à Troyes, contenant la nomenclature des imprimeurs de cette ville depuis la fin du XV’ siècle jusqu’à 1789 et des notices sur leurs productions les plus remarquables, avec fac-similé et marques typographiques. Paris: A. Chossonnery, 1873. (Reprint: Chatillon sur Seine: [La Roue à livres], 1973). Crous, Ernst, “Französische Büchermarken des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Archiv für Schreib- und Buchwesen 1 (1927): 147–150. Dalbanne, Claude, “Notes sur Guillaume I Merlin libraire parisien 1537–1571.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 33 (1958): 143–148. Delalain, Paul, “La marque aux cigognes du libraire-imprimeur parisien Sébastien Nivelle.” Journal général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie 8 (1893): 4. Delalain, Paul, Inventaire des marques d’imprimeurs et de libraires. Paris: Cercle de la librairie, 1886–1888. Delisle, Léopold, “Le libraire Frédéric d’Egmont et la marque parisienne aux initiales FE et IB.” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 51 (1890): 305–309. (http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/ home/prescript/article/bec_0373-6237_1890_num_51_1_447609). Desbarreaux-Bernard, Tibulle Pellet, Le Monogramme de Henri Mayer, imprimeur à Toulouse, au XV’ siècle. S.l., s.n., ca.1866. Desbarreaux-Bernard, Tibulle Pellet, La marque des cinq plaies, étude bibliographique. Toulouse: Impr. L. & J.-M. Douladoure, ca. 1877. Donati, Lamberto, “Il simbolismo nelle marche di François Régnault.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 26 (1951): 123–126. Ducourtieux, Paul, Les marques typographiques des imprimeurs de Limoges. Limoges: Imprimerie et Librarie Limosine, Veuve Henri Ducourtieux, 1890. Foxcroft, Albert B., Geofroy Tory and His Device of Pot Cassé. (Pamphlets 57, 15). Melbourne: Printing Industry Craftsmen of Australia, 1937. Gravures sur bois tirées des livres français du XVe siècle. Sujets religieux. – Démons. – Etres imaginaires. – Moeurs et costumes. – Imprimerie. – Grant danse macabre des hommes et des femmes. – Lettres ornées. – Ecussons. – Chiffres. – Marques inédites. Paris: Librairie Ancienne de Adolphe Labitte, 1868.

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Hablot, Laurent, “La devise, un nouvel emblème pour les princes du XVe siècle.” In: TaburetDelahaye, Elisabeth, ed., La création artistique en France autour de 1400. Paris: École du Louvre, 2006, 177–192. Häbler, Konrad, Verlegermarken des Jean Petit. Halle a. S.: E. Karras, 1914. Heitz, Paul & Karl A. Barack, Elsässische Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts. Mit Vorbemerkungen und Nachrichten über die Drucker. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1892. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. Van Bekhoven, 1984). [http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ SBB0000163300000000]. Jacob, Victor, Catalogue des incunables de la Bibliothèque de Metz. Accompagné d’une table alphabétique et suivi des marques des imprimeurs messines. Metz: J. Verronnais, 1876. Jadart, Henri, Les débuts de l’imprimerie à Reims et les marques des premiers imprimeurs, 1550–1650. Reims: Impr. et lithographie de l’Indépendant rémois, 1894. Kemp, William & Fabrizio Frigero, “The Evangelical ‘Fortuna’ Device of the Parisian Bookseller Jérôme Denis, 1520.” In: Marx, William, ed., Sources, Exemplars and Copy-Texts. Influence and Transmission. Essays from the Lampeter Conference of the Early Book Society 1997. Lampeter: Trivium, 1999, 117–130. Kostylo, Joanna, “Commentary on Aldus Manutius’s Warning against the Printers of Lyon (1503).” In: Bently, Lionel & Martin Kretschmer, eds., Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, Faculty of Law, 2008. [www.copyrighthistory.org] Kristeller, Paul, Die Straßburger Bücher-Illustration im 15. und im Anfange des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte NF 7) Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1888. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1966). Labarre, Albert, “La Marque de l’Imprimeur parisien Félix Baligault comme Élément de Datation.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 39 (1964): 305–311. Lastraioli, Chiara, “Choix éditoriaux et curiosités littéraires al segno de la regina.” In: Bénévent, Christine & Annie Charon-Parent et al., eds., Passeurs de textes. Imprimeurs et libraires à l’âge de l’humanisme. (Études et rencontres de l’École des Chartes 37) Paris: École des Chartes Editions, 2012, 75–98. Laurent-Vibert, Robert & Marius Audin, Les Marques de libraire et d’imprimeurs en France aux dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles. Paris: Édouard Champion, 1925. Leclerc, Emile, “Marques des imprimeurs et libraires en France au XVe siècle.” Papyrus. Revue mensuelle de toutes les industries du papier 8 (1927). Lhote, Amédée, Histoire de l’imprimerie à Châlons-sur-Marne: Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les imprimeurs, libraires, relieurs et lithographes (1488–1894). Avec marques typographiques et illustrations. Châlons-sur-Marne: Martin frères, 1894. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1969). “Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires lyonnais.” Revue française d’histoire du livre 33, 118 (2003): 265. (Société des bibliophiles de Guyenne, Bordeaux: 2003). Mazières-Mauléon, Baron Lucien de, Marques héraldiques & devises des imprimeurs & libraires normands du XVe au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Bibliothèque de la ‘Revue héraldique’, 1905. Meiner, Annemarie, “Französische Inkunabelsignete.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde: Monatshefte für Bibliophilie und verwandte Interessen: Organ der Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen der Deutschen Buchgewerbekünstler und der Wiener Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft 20 (1928): 21–24. Mellot, Jean-Dominique & Élisabeth Queval, Répertoire d’imprimeurs/libraires (vers 1500 – vers 1810). Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2004. Meyer, Wilhelm J., Die französischen Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts. München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1926 (Reprint: Hildesheim: Olms, 1970). Pellechet, Marie, Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles. Catalogue des incunables des livres imprimés de MD. à MDXX., avec les marques typographiques des éditions du XV’ siècle. Paris: A. Picard, 1889.



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Polain, Marie-Louis, Marques des imprimeurs et libraires en France au XVe siècle. Deux cent neuf marques typographiques reproduites en fac-similck als Experimentier Paris: E. Droz, 1926 (Reprint: Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1977). Reichenberger, Kurt, “Das franzözische Signet im 15. Jahrhundert. Ein methodologischer Beitrag zur Inkunabelkunde.” Philobiblon 3 (1959): 271–275. Reichenberger, Kurt, “Form und Thematik der französischen Druckermarken im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte der Renaissance in Frankreich.” Bibliothek und Wissenschaft 1 (1964): 108–141. [www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/resolveppn/?PPN=GDZPPN00024077X]. Reichenberger, Kurt, “Die literarischen Epochenstile des 16. Jahrhunderts im Lichte der französischen Druckermarken.” Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 80 (1964): 43–53. Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs parisiens, libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie àParis (1470) jusqu’àla fin du XVIe siècle, leurs adresses, marques, enseignes, dates d’exercice, notes sur les familles [...] Paris: A. Claudin, 1898. (Reprint: Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Renouard, Philippe, Bibliographie des impressions et des oeuvres de Josse Badius Ascensius, imprimeur et humaniste 1462–1535. Paris: Paul & fils & Guillemin, 1908 (Reprint: New York: Burt Franklin, 1963, 1967). (Printer’s marks on pp. 42–54.). Renouard, Philippe, “Trois marques d’imprimeurs ou de libraires parisiens non identifiées.” Trésors des bibliothèques de France 1 (1926): 39–40. Renouard, Philippe, Les marques typographiques parisiennes des XVe et XVIe siècles. (Revue des bibliothèques, Supplément 14–15) Paris: Honoré Champion, 1926–1928. (Reprint: Mansfield Centre, Conn.: Martino Pub., 2003). Renouard, Philippe, “Les enseignes des libraires et imprimeurs parisiens aux XVe et XVIe siècles.” Byblis 8 (1929): 101–104. Renouard, Philippe, Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens: libraires, foundeurs de caractères correcteurs d’imprimerie, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris, 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle. Paris: M. J. Minard, 1965. (Reprint: Nogent le Roi: Libr. des arts et métierséditions, 1995). Ritter, François, Histoire d’imprimerie alsacienne aux XVe et XVIe siècles. (Publications de l’Institut des Hautes Études Alsaciennes 14) Strasbourg & Paris: F. X. Leroux, 1955. Rousse, Anissa, Une famille d’imprimeurs-libraires lyonnais des dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles: les Périsse. S.l.: s.n., 2011. [http://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00707533]. Ruiz Fidalgo, Lorenzo, La Imprenta en Salamanca 1501–1600. (Colección Tipobibliografia española) Madrid: Arco/Libros, 1994. Russell, Daniel S., The Emblem and Device in France. (French Forum Monographs 59) Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1985 Russell, Daniel S., Emblematic Structures in Renaissance French Culture. (University of Toronto series 71) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Saunders, Alison, The Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book. A Decorative and Useful Genre. (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 224) Geneva: Droz, 1988. Saunders, Alison, The Seventeenth-Century French Emblem. A Study in Diversity. (Travaux du Grand Siècle 18) Geneva: Droz, 2000. Schefer, Michel, Ces curieuses marques d’imprimeurs et libraires des XVe et XVIe siècles: catalogue thématique. Marseille: M. Schefer, 2009. Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques: ou recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rèbus, et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’imprimérie, en 1470, jusqu’àla fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des libraires et imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française. 2 vols. Paris: Renou et Maulde,

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1853–1867. (Reprints: Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1966; Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1971; Pamplona: Analecta, 2001). Upper, Lauren E., Graphic Art and Institutional Identity in Renaissance France. Parisian Printers’ Devices and the Fontainebleau Etchings. Boston, Mass., 2003. (Senior Thesis, Boston University). Vaschalde, Henry & Andrei Henry, Établissement de l’imprimerie dans le Vivarais, illustré de marques typographiques. Vienne: E.-J. Savigné, 1877. Vendel, Henri, “Les marques typographiques en France au XVIe siècle.” Arts et métiers graphiques 43 (1934): 37–41. Vertu, Aurélie, “Les marques typographiques d’imprimeurs et de libraires (XVe –XIXe siècle).” In: DESS Réseau d’information et document électronique (DESS Ride). Rapport de recherche bibliographique. March 2004. [http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/ documents/844-les-marques-typographiques-d-imprimeurs-et-de-libraires-xve-xixe-siecle.pdf]. Veyrin Forrer, Jeanne, “La seconde marque de Durand Gerlier, élément de datation.” GutenbergJahrbuch 35 (1960): 410–413. Vinken, Pierre J., “Non Plus Ultra. Some Observations on Geoffroy Tory’s Printer’s Mark.” Nederlandsch Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 7 (1956): 39–52. Vivarez, Henri, “Les marques d’imprimeurs et de libraires.” In: Bulletin de la Société Le Vieux Papier. July 1907. Wenczel, Gusztáv, “Francia nyomdászjelvények és jeligék [= French printers’ marks and mottoes]”, Magyar Nyomdászat, 5 (1910), 157–158; 6 (1910), 188–189.

German Speaking Countries Alker, Hugo, “Die älteste Druckermarke im Psalterium Moguntinum von 1457 (Inkunabel IV. A. 4.) der Österr. Nationalbibliothek. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Mainzer Frühdruckes.” GutenbergJahrbuch 25 (1950): 134–142. Alker, Hugo, “Die älteste Druckermarke. Nachträge und Randbemerkungen.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 27 (1952): 44–46. Alte Wiener Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen. Ed. Verband der Oesterreichischen Buch-, Kunst-, Musikalien-, Zeitungs-, und Zeitschriftenhändler. Wien: Der Verband, 1926. Am Rhyn, August, “Ursprung und Symbolik der Hausmarken, Handwerks- und Steinmetzzeichen, Autoren-, Verlags-, Notariats-, Kanzleisignete und Handelsmarken im Lichte neuer Forschung.” Innerschweizerisches Jahrbuch für Heimatkunde 11/12 (1947/48): 193–218. Barack, Karl A., “Ein noch zweifelhaftes Buchdruckerzeichen.” Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit 6 (1859): 123–124. Bauch, Gustav, “Das schönste deutsche Buchdruckersignet des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 19 (1896): 435–436. Bauer, Konrad F., “Marken und Monogramme.” Klimschs Jahrbuch13 (1924/25): 1–24. Bauer, Konrad F., “Missverstandene Druckerzeichen des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Imprimatur 7 (1936/37): 213–216. Benzing, Josef, “Druck- und Verlagsvermerke im älteren deutschen Buch.” Das Antiquariat 10 (1954): 29–30. Berjeau, Jean P., “Marque de Erhard Ratdolt. Divo Hieronymo Sacrum, Divae annae sacrum.” Le bibliophile illustré 1 (1862): 173–176. Berjeau, Jean P., “Marque de Martin Schott.” Le bibliophile illustré 1 (1862): 176. Berjeau, Jean P., “Marque de Thomas Wolf.” Le bibliophile illustré 1 (1862): 96. Berjeau, Jean P., Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks. London: E. Rascol, 1866.



Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts 

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Bockwitz, Hans H., “Drucker- und Verlegermarken in alter und neuer Zeit.”Typographische Mitteilungen 7 (1921): 93–97. Bockwitz, Hans H., “Druckerzeichen von Peter Schöffer d.J. 1531. Zum Umschlagbild.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 80, 1 (1943). Bockwitz, Hans H., “Woher stammt das Signet der Druckerfamilie Wechel?” [S.l.] [s.n.], 1944. Bockwitz, Hans H., “Woher stammen die Druckersignete?” Das Buchgewerbe 2 (1944): 29. Bockwitz, Hans H, “Kunst, Symbolik und Werbekraft in Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen.” Graphik 3 (1948): 19–26. Bockwitz, Hans H., “Die Herstellermarke als Schlußsignet. Eine Betrachtung über alte Druckerzeichen.” Papier und Druck 1 (1956): 261–262. Bockwitz, Hans H., Kunst und Symbolik in Druckerzeichen. Leipzig: Buchdr. O. Schmidt, 1966. Boerner, C.B., Auktions-Institut, Kunst- und Buchantiquariat, ed., Auktions-Katalog der Sammlungen des in Frankfurt a/M. verstorbenen Herrn Heinrich Eduard Stiebel (Leipzig, 1910) http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/boerner1910_11_21/0239 (contains a collection of printers’ marks) Boerner, C.B., Auktions-Institut, Kunst- und Buchantiquariat, ed., Sammlung kostbarer alter Holzschnitte des 15. Bis 19. Jahrhunderts dabei die bekannte Spezialsammlung des 1916 in Wien verstorbenen Herr Josef Wünsch (Leipzig, 1927) (contains a collection of printers’ marks) Bradshaw, Henry, “On the Engraved Device Used by Nicolaus Gotz of Sletzstat, the Cologne Printer, in 1474.” In: Bradshaw, Henry, ed., Collected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889, 237–246. Butsch, Albert F., Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance. Eine Auswahl stylvoller Titeleinfassungen, Initialen, Leisten, Vignetten und Druckerzeichen hervorragender italienischer, deutscher und französischer Officinen. Leipzig & München: G. Hirth, 1878–1881. Carleberg, A.G., “Boktryckarmarken från 1500-talets Genève.” Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen 76 (1989): 32–53. Collijn, Isak G.A., “Die Wanderung eines Druckerzeichens. Zu GfT 785–786.” In: von Rath, Erich, ed., Wiegendrucke und Handschriften. Festgabe Konrad Haebler zum 60. Geburtstage. Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1919, 74–79. Conquergood, Charles R., “The Moral of Two German Marks. An Address by Chas. R. Conquergood.” [‘On the device of the printers Fust and Schoeffer, afterwards adopted by the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen as their Emblem, and the Swastika of the National Socialist Party.’] Montreal: Montreal Club of Printing House Craftsmen, 1942. Debes, Dietmar, “Die Druckvermerke Leipziger Offizinen vor 1600.” Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 1 (1965): 21–51. Deutsche Verlagssignete. Berlin: Francken & Lang, 1924. Endres, Heinrich, “Würzburger Druckermarken des 16. Jahrhunderts.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde. Neue Folge 40 (1936): 51–53. Endres, Heinrich, “Alte Würzburger Druckermarken und ihre Schicksale.” Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kunst 2 (1950): 339–343. Estermann, Monika, “Signete und Widmungsbriefe Frankfurter Verleger des späten 16. Jahrhunderts.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 59 (2005): 65–90. Geldner, Ferdinand, “Das Fust-Schöffersche Signet und das Schöffersche ‘Handzeichen’.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 1 (1958): 171–174. Geldner, Ferdinand, “Sinngehalt und Gestaltung der deutschen Buchdruckersignete des 16. Jahrhunderts.” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel 21 (1965): 1184–1186. Geldner, Ferdinand, “Die ältesten Buchdrucker als ‘cives academici’.” Archiv für die Geschichte des Buchwesens 11 (1971): 373–380.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Gollob, Hedwig, “Wiener Titelblätter und Signete der Renaissancezeit.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 17/18 (1942/43): 198–213. [http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/resolveppn/?PPN=GDZPPN000469890] Grimm, Heinrich, Von den Druckerzeichen des 1549–1581 in Frankfurt an der Oder tätigen Universitätsbuchdruckers und Buchführers Johann Eichorn. Frankfurt a. O & Berlin: Trowitzsch & Sohn, 1939. Grimm, Heinrich, “Einiges über Buchdrucker-Signete des deutschen Sprachbereichs im 16. Jahrhundert.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 3 (1961): 1455–1472. Grimm, Heinrich, “Geadelte deutsche Buchdrucker-Familien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert.” GutenbergJahrbuch 36 (1961): 257–271. Grimm, Heinrich, “Das vermeintliche Allianzsignet Fust-Schöffer und seine Schildinhalte. Ein Beitrag zur Deutung des ältesten Druckerzeichens.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 37 (1962): 446–455. Grimm, Heinrich, Deutsche Buchdruckersignete des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte, Sinngehalt und Gestaltung kleiner Kulturdokumente. Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1965. Grimm, Heinrich, “Über deutsche Buchdruckersignete im XV. und XVI. Jahrhundert.” Philobiblon 2 (1967): 135–153. Grunau, Gustav, “Bernische Druck- und Verlagssignete.” Blätter für bernische Geschichte, Kunst und Altertumskunde 2 (1906): 114–128. [http://dx.doi.org/10.5169/seals-176480] Gutiérrez, Luisa C., “Marcas de impresores alemanes en libros españoles de los siglos XV y XVI.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 37 (1962): 459–465. Häbler, Konrad, Die deutschen Buchdrucker des XV. Jahrhunderts im Auslande. München: J. Rosenthal, 1924. Hämmerle, Albert, “Das Buchzeichen im alten Augsburg.” Viertel-Jahreshefte zur Kunst und Geschichte Augsburgs 1 (1935/36): 11–47, 104–134, 182–194, 210–262; 2 (1936/37): 20–92. Heckethorn, Charles W. & Joseph Pennell, The Printers of Basle in the XV and XVI Centuries. Their Biographies, Printed Books and Devices. London: Unwin Bros., 1897. Heidenheimer, Heinrich, “Johannes Gutenberg in den Schöfferschen Drucken des deutschen Livius.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde: Monatshefte für Bibliophilie und verwandte Interessen: Organ der Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen der Deutschen Buchgewerbekünstler und der Wiener Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft 2(1898): 368. Heitz, Paul & Carl Chr. Bernoulli, Basler Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1895. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1984). [http://resolver. staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0000165900000000]. Heitz, Paul, Die Zürcher Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts. Ein bibliographischer und bildlicher Nachtrag zu C. Rudolphis und S. Vuogelins Arbeiten über Zürcher Druckwerke. Zurich: Fäsi & Beer, 1895. Heitz, Paul, Frankfurter und Mainzer Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen bis in das 17. Jahrhundert. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1896. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1970). Heitz, Paul & Otto Zaretzky, Die Kölner Büchermarken bis Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1898. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1970). Heitz, Paul, Genfer Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen im 15., 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Strasbourg: Heitz & Mündel, 1908. Hieronymus, Frank, Basler Buchillustration 1500 bis 1545. Basle: Universitätsbibliothek,1984. Hieronymus, Frank, En Basileia polei tés Germanias. Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen. (Exhibition Catalogue)(Publikationen der UB Basel 15) Basle: Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel, 1992/1993. [http://www.ub.unibas.ch/cmsdata/spezialkataloge/gg/] Hieronymus, Frank, 1488 Petri – Schwabe 1988. Eine traditionsreiche Basler Offizin im Spiegel ihrer frühen Drucke. Basle: Schwabe & Co, 1997. Hölscher, Eberhard, “Deutsche Verlagssignete.” Gebrauchsgraphik 7 (1955): 40–47.



Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts 

 391

Husung, Max J., “Das Portratsignet des Johann von Paderborn als Bucheinbandstempel.” GutenbergJahrbuch (1927): 252–255. Husung, Max J., “Chrysostomus Hanthaler als Fälscher eines Inkunabelsignets.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 3 (1928): 115–117. [http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN366382810_1928&DMDID=dmdlog20] Jakimyszyn, Anna, “Jewish Printers’ Marks from Germanic States and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 16th-18th Centuries.” Biuletyn Polskiej Misji Historycznej. Bulletin der Polnischen historischen Mission 9 (2014): 199–214. [http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/ BPMH/article/view/BPMH.2014.008] Johnson, Alfred F., Frühe Basler Buchdruckerkunst. Hellerau, Austria: Demeter-Verlag, 1928. Johnson, Alfred F., Devices of German Printers 1501–1540. London: Bibliographical Society, 1965. Klecker, Elisabeth, “Signa Vides? Devices of Viennese printers brought to light and to life.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 61–79. Koch, Herbert, “Die Signete der Jenaer Drucker des 16. Jahrhunderts (Der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität zu ihrem 400. Geburtstag).” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 33 (1958): 188–193. Koch, Herbert, “Stadtansicht statt Druckersignet.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 35 (1960): 414–418. Koch, Herbert, “Die Hausmarke als Druckersignet.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 36 (1961): 255–256. Koegler, Hans, “Basler Büchermarken bis zum Jahre 1550.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 12, (1908/09): 253–255, 283–286, 328–330, 364–368, 440–447, 499–501. Kreyenberg, Gerhard, “Die Kölner Buchdrucker und Verleger im Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts.” Exlibriskunst und Graphik: DEG Jahrbuch (1983): 3–4. Kühne, Heinrich, Wittenberger Buchdruckersignets. Die Signets der Wittenberger Drucker und Verleger des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: VEB Fachbuchverlag, 1983. [Additions in: Marginalien 135, 3 (1994): 3–20]. Langer, Gottfried, “Von vier sich ähnlichen Titelholzschnitten und deren Verwendung als Druckermarken.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 52 (1977): 91–95. Meiner, Annemarie, “Alte Portrait-Signete.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Buchwesen und Schrifttum 11/12 (1921): 142–143. Meiner, Annemarie, “Geschichte des deutschen Signets.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Buchwesen und Schrifttum 1–3 (1922): 1–72. Meiner, Annemarie, Die Geschichte des deutschen Signets im Zusammenhang mit der Kulturgeschichte. Diss. Leipzig, 1922. Meiner, Annemarie, Das deutsche Signet. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig: Druck von H. Schmidt, 1922. Meiner, Annemarie, “Ein unbekanntes Signet des Marcus Ayrer von 1506.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 21 (1929): 76–78. Meiner, Annemarie, “Signete des Humanismus.” Imprimatur 7 (1936/37): 31–38. Meiner, Annemarie, “Über Signete.” In: Vinz Curt & Günter Olzog, eds., Dokumentation deutschsprachiger Verlage. Vol. 1. München: Olzog, 1962, 76–112. Meyer, Carl, Die historische Entwicklung der Handelsmarke in der Schweiz. (Diss. Bern) Bern: Stämpfli, 1905. Mörtzsch, Otto, “Die Hausmarken der Buchdrucker Matthes Stöckel und Gimel Bergen.” Dresdener Geschichtsblätter 7 (1920): 251–253. Painter, George D., “Michael Wenssler’s devices and their predecessors, with special reference to Fust and Schoeffer’s.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 34 (1959): 211–219. Plard, Henri, “Les imprimeurs allemands et le mouvement humaniste.” Études germaniques 21, 3 (1966): 381–383. Presser, Helmut, “Mainzer Druckerzeichen, einst und jetzt.” Mainzer Kalender (1955): 49–62.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Riethmüller, Brigitte, “Im Zeichen der Druckermarken und Verlagssignets. Das Büchergewerbe in Tübingen.” Tübinger Blätter 65 (1978): 111–116. Rosen, Gerd, “Die älteste Druckermarke.” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel 16 (1960): 89–90. Roth, Friedrich W.E., “Druckermarken aus Speyer und Neustadt an der Hardt.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 2 (1898): 99–100. [https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Roth_Druckermarken_aus_Speier_und_Neustadt_a._d._Hardt.pdf] Roudolph, George, “Die Signete. Ein Fragment zur Geschichte des Buchhändlers.” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (1889): 3446–3448, 3566–3567. Roudolph, George, “Die Literatur der Signete.” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (1894): 672–674. Scheibe, Michaela, Christina Schmitz & David Zellhöfer, “Towards a standardised description of printers’ devices: authority files and more.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 139–160. Schmid, Heinrich A., “Die Basler Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts.” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 18 (1895): 448–453. Schmitz, Wolfgang, “Alte Kölner Druckerzeichen.” In: Boge, Birgit, ed., 70 Jahre Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft Köln 1930–2000. Cologne: Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft, 2002, 21–24. Schramm, Albert, “Buchdrucker- und Buchhändler-Signete.” Das Plakat 10 (1919): 401–412. Schramm, Albert, Maria Möller & Wieland Schmidt, eds., Der Bilderschmuck der Frühdrucke. Vols. 1–23. Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1920–1943. (Reprints: Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1981, 1983). [http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/schramm1920ga] Schubert, Anton, “Einige unreproduzierte Inkunabelsignete.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 4 (1900/1901): 114–117, 157–159, 211–213, 254–256, 299–301, 336–338. Sondheim, Moritz, “Die Frankfurter und Mainzer Druckerzeichen.” In: Sondheim, Moritz, Gesammelte Schriften: Buchkunde, Bibliophilie, Literatur, Kunst u.a.; für den Verfasser gedruckt zum 25. Aug. 1927. Frankfurt am Main: Baer, 1927, 146–149. Sondheim, Moritz, Die Druckerzeichen des Theodoricus de Borne. Frankfurt am Main: s.n., 1927. Ströhl, Hugo G., Die Wappen der Buchgewerbe. Wien: A. Schroll, 1891. Struck, Gustav, “Von alten Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen und den lübischen Büchermarken.” Lübeckische Blätter 82 (1940): 234–236. Vogel, Paul H., “Die Druckermarken in der Emdener niederländischen Bibeldrucken 1556–1568.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 37 (1962): 456–458. Voigt s. Meiner Wehmer, Carl, Deutsche Buchdrucker des 15. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971. Weil, Ernst, Die deutschen Druckerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts. (Die Drucker- und Buchhändlermarken des XV. Jahrhunderts 1) München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1924. (Reprint: Hildesheim: Olms, 1970). Weil, Ernst, Die Leipziger Druckerzeichen des 15. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: s.n., 1925. Wendland, Henning, Signete. Deutsche Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen 1457–1600. Hannover: Schlüter, 1984. Wolff, Hans, “Alte Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen.” Archiv für Buchgewerbe 48, 1 (1911): 10–17. Wolff, Hans, Die Buchornamentik im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Leipzig: Buchgewerbeverein, 1912–1913. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Humanistische Bildung und neues Selbstverständnis in Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 73 (1998): 165–179. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Pro imaginibus aenigmata pingere: Bilder und Rätsel in Druckersignets des 16. Jahrhunderts.” In: Bauer, Barbara, ed., Melanchthon und die Marburger Professoren (1527–1627). Vol 2. (Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Marburg 89) Marburg: Universitätsbibliothek, 1999, 677–694.



Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts 

 393

Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002. Würffel, Reinhard, Lexikon deutscher Verlage von A-Z. 1071 Verlage und 2800 Verlagssignete vom Anfang der Buchdruckerkunst bis 1945. Adressen, Daten, Fakten, Namen. Berlin: Verlag Grotesk, 2000. Würffel, Reinhard, Würffels Signete Lexikon. Über 4500 Verlage, 11000 Signete. Berlin: Verlag Grotesk, 2010. Zimmermann, Hildegard, “Samuel Selfisch, seine Signete und ihre Zeichner.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 17 (1925): 129–137. Zobeltitz, Fedor von, “Neuere deutsche Drucker-, Verleger- und Antiquariats-Marken.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 1 (1897): 637–641.

Greece & Greek Titles Printed Outside Greece Hieronymus, Frank, En Basileia polei tés Germanias. Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen. (Exhibition Catalogue)(Publikationen der UB 15) Basle: Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel, 1992/1993. [http://www.ub.unibas.ch/cmsdata/spezialkataloge/gg/] Staikos, Konstantinos & Timothy Cullen, Charta of Greek Printing. The Contribution of Greek Editors, Printers and Publishers to the Renaissance in Italy and the West. Cologne: Dinter, 1998. Staikos, Konstantinos, Printers’ and Publishers’ Marks in Books for th Greek World 1494–1821. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press; Houten, Netherlands: HES & De Graaf Publishers, 2009. Staikos, Konstantinos, The Greek Editions of Aldus Manutius and his Greek Collaborators (c. 1494–1515). New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2016.

Hebrew Amram, David W., The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy. Being Chapters in the History of the Hebrew Printing Press. Philadelphia. (Reprint: London: Holland Press, 1963, 1988). Fränkel, David, Hebräische Inkunabeln 1475–1494 mit Faksimiles. An Exhibition Catalogue. Vienna: Druck der Offizin Haag-Drugulin AG. in Leipzig, 1920. Freimann, Aron, “Über hebräische Inkunabeln. Vortrag gehalten in der bibliothekarischen Sektion der XLVI. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner zu Strassburg i. E. am 3. Oktober 1901.” Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 19 (Leipzig) (1902), 108–117. Habermann, Abraham M., “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book.” In: Roth, Cecil, ed., Jewish Art. An Illustrated History. (Revised Edition: London: Mitchell, 1971) New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, 455–492. Hacker, Joseph R. & Adam Shear, eds., The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy. Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Heller, Marvin J. “Mirror-image monograms as Printers’ Devices on Title Pages of Hebrew Books Printed in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries.” Printing History. Journal of the American Printing History Association 20 (1999/2000): 3–12. Heller, Marvin J., “The Printer’s Mark of Marco Antonio Giustiniani and the Printing Houses that Utilised it.” In: Library Quarterly 3 (2001): 383–389. (Reprint: Marvin J. Heller, Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 44–53). Heller, Marvin J., Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Heller, Marvin J., Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Jakimyszyn, Anna, “Jewish Printers’ Marks from Germanic States and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 16th-18th Centuries.” Biuletyn Polskiej Misji Historycznej. Bulletin der Polnischen historischen Mission 9 (2014): 199–214. [http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/ BPMH/article/view/BPMH.2014.008] Marx, Moses, “Zur Geschichte des hebräischen Buchdruckes in Russland und Polen.” In: Marx, Alexander & Herrmann Meyer, eds., Festschrift für Aron Freimann zum 60. Geburtstage. Berlin: Soncino-Gesellschaft der Freunde des Jüdischen Buches, 1935, 91–96. Posner, Raphael & Israel M. Ta-Shema, eds., The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1975. Prijs, Joseph, Die Basler hebräischen Drucke (1492–1866). Enl. & ed. Bernhard Prijs. Olten: Urs Graf-Verlag, 1964. Yaari, Avraham, Hebrew Printers’ Marks from the Beginnings of Hebrew Printing to the End of the 19th Century. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press Association, 1943. (Reprint: Westmead: Gregg, 1971).

Italy Amelung, Peter, “Zwei unbekannte italienische Druckermarken des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Philobiblion 2 (1982): 147–156. Amram, David W., The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy. Being Chapters in the History of the Hebrew Printing Press. Philadelphia. (Reprint: London: Holland Press, 1963, 1988). Antonellis, Giacomo de, “Le ‘marche’ nel libro rinascimentale.” L’Esopo 10, 40 (1988): 47–56. Ascarelli, Fernanda & Emerenziana Vaccaro, “Marche poco note di tipografi ed editori italiani del sec. XVI dalla raccolta della Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina.” In: Miscellanea di studi in memoria di Anna Saitta Revignas. (Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana 86) Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1978, 29–52. Avanzi, Giannetto, “Il primo libro aldino con l’ancora.” Il corriere librario: Periodico mensile di domande e di offerte per gli amatori del libro 3 (1948): 22. Barberi, Francesco, Il frontespizio nel libro italiano del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento. (Documenti sulle arti del libro 7 ) Milan: Il Polifilo, 1969 & 1977. Basile, Salvatore, “Riflessioni sopra una marca tipografica del Sec. XVI.” Samnium 56 (1983): 136–153. Basile, Salvatore, “Una marca tipografica poco nota.” Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia 51 (1983): 122–126. Basile, Salvatore, “Doctor subtilis. Cinquecentine da Montecalvo: un’edizione di Lione e una marca tipografica da Venezia.” Samnium 69 (1996): 235–246. Biblioteca centrale della Regione siciliana, Excerpta di marche e immagini delle cinquecentine siciliane della Biblioteca centrale della Regione siciliana. Ed. Concetta Fiorani; Intr. Adele Mormino & Carmela Perretta. Palermo: Regione siciliana, Assessorato regionale dei beni culturali e ambientali e dello pubblica istruzione, 1997. Boffito, Giuseppe, “Battaglie di marche tipografiche di Stefano Della Bella e l’ultima memoria scientifica dettata da Galileo Galilei.” La bibliofilia 43 (1941): 145–156. Boffito, Giuseppe, “Per due imprese tipografiche.” La bibliofilia 44 (1942): 46–47. Bresciano, Giovanni, Le insegne dei tipografi Napoletani dei secoli XV e XVI. Naples: L. Lubrano, 1919. Bresciano, Giovanni, “Insegne di tipografi e librai napoletani dei secoli XV e XVI.” Bolletino del bibliofilo 2 (1919): 129–156. Brown, Horatio F., The Venetian Printing Press, 1469–1800. An Historical Study Based upon the Study of Documents for the Most Parts hitherto Unpublished. London: J. C. Nimmo, 1891. (Reprint: Amsterdam: Gérard Th. van Heusden, 1969).



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 395

Butsch, Albert F., Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance. Eine Auswahl stylvoller Titeleinfassungen, Initialen, Leisten, Vignetten und Druckerzeichen hervorragender italienischer, deutscher und französischer Officinen. Leipzig & München: G. Hirth, 1878–1881. Buttò, Simonetta, Riutilizzo di marche tipografiche e altri studi. (Quaderni della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma 8) Rome: Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, 2000. Cassano, Francesca Romana, Marche e fregi di tipografi ed editori a Perugia fra ‘500 e ‘600. Perugia: Volumnia editrice, 1995. Castellani, Carlo & Frederic W. Goudy, “The Devices of the Early Italian Printers”. Colophon 5, 10 1931. Corgnali, Gian B., “L’impresa tipografica di G. B. Natolini.” CF – Bollettino mensile della Società Filologica Friuliana 19 (1943): 202–205. Donati, Lamberto, “L’àncora aldina.” La bibliofilia 50 (1948): 179–182. Donati, Lamberto, “Tre marche tipografiche.” In: Donati, Lamberto, ed., Spigolature bresciane. Omaggio offerto a Duilio Grazioli nel suo settantesimo compleanno: Brescia il 27 maggio 1949. Milan: Hoepli, 1949, 15–17. Donati, Lamberto, “Le più piccole marche tipografiche: marche ignote di Giovanni Nicola Anheymer.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 27 (1952): 96–97. Donati, Lamberto, “Una marca tipografica di Francesco di Jacopo della Spera ed il problema del Polifilo.” Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia 25 (1957): 246–261. Donati, Lamberto, “La marca del guerriero sul bue.” La bibliofilia 64 (1962): 271–283. Donati, Lamberto, “Le marche tipografiche di Aldo Manuzio il Vecchio.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 49 (1974): 129–132. Donati, Lamberto, “Storia d´una marca tipografica (Nicola Bevilacqua, Venezia 1561).” La bibliofilia 79 (1977): 17–35. Dorez, Léon, “Les héritières de Jacopo Giunta et Filippo Tinghi.” Revue des bibliothèques 5 (1895): 52–55. Dorez, Léon, “Études Aldines I-IV.” In: Revue des Bibliothèques 6 (1896): 143–160 (“La marque typographique d’Alde Manuce”); 237–283 (“Des origines et de la diffusion du ‘Songe de Poliphile’”); 311–326 (“Alde Manuce et Ange Politien”); 380–386 (“Alde le jeune et Niccolò Manassi”). Dorez, Léon, “La marque de la fleur de lys de Florence. Giovanna Giunta et Filippo Tinghi. Libraires à Lyon.” Revue des bibliothèques 7 (1897): 140–149. Fiorani, Concetta, Adele Mormino & Carmela Perretta, eds., Excerpta di marche e immagini delle cinquecentine siciliane della Biblioteca centrale della Regione Sicilia. Palermo: Regione siciliana, Assessorato regionale dei Beni culturali e ambientali e della Pubblica Istruzione, 1997. Fletcher, Harry G., “The Device of the Dolphin and Anchor.” In: Fletcher, Harry G., ed., New Aldine Studies. Documentary Essays on the Life and Work of Aldus Manutius. San Francisco: B.M. Rosenthal Inc., 1988, 43–60. Franceschelli, Remo, “Cenni sulle marche tipografiche, sulle vanterie commerciali, sulle indicazioni di provenienza, nel primo secolo dell’arte della stampa.” In: Scritti giuridici in onore della CEDAM nel cinquantenario della sua fondazione. Vol. 1. Padua: s.n., 1953, 13–21. Fumagalli, Giuseppe, “Delle insegne tipografiche e specialmente delle italiane: prime note.” Il Fanfani. Giornale di filológia, letteratura e scienze 13 (1883): 8–29. Fumagalli, Giuseppe, “Di un nuovo libro sulle insegne tipografiche. Osservazioni ed aggiunte.” Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi 2 (1889): 33–38. Gerulaitis, Leonardas V., Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice. Chicago: American Library Association, 1976. Hacker, Joseph R. & Adam Shear, eds., The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy. Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

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Heller, Marvin J., “The Printer’s Mark of Marco Antonio Giustiniani and the Printing Houses that Utilised it.” In: Library Quarterly 3 (2001): 383–389. (Reprint: Marvin J. Heller, Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 44–53). Husung, Max J., “Das Portratsignet des Johann von Paderborn als Bucheinbandstempel.” GutenbergJahrbuch (1927): 252–255. Husung, Max J., “Chrysostomus Hanthaler als Fälscher eines Inkunabelsignets.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 3 (1928): 115–117. [http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN366382810_1928&DMDID=dmdlog20] Husung, Max J., Die Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen Italiens im XV. Jahrhundert. München: Verlag der Münchener Drucke, 1929. Husung, Max J., “Neue Italienische Signete und Zierstücke der Inkunabelzeit.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 6 (1931): 139–144. [http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN366382810_1931&DMDID=dmdlog13] Husung, Max J., “Nochmals: Neue Italienische Signete der Inkunabelzeit.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 9 (1934): 112–113. [http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN366382810_1934&DMDID=dmdlog19] Husung, Max J., Ein unbekanntes Signet des Inkunabel-Druckers Michael Geraldus in Pavia. Helmstedt: [Helmstedt, Heinrichspl. 12] Bibl. R. Dr. M.J. Husung, 1937. Iafelice, Marianna, “Marche dei tipografi e degli editori del XVII secolo. Milano-Venezia.” La Capitanata. Quadrimestrale della Biblioteca Provinciale di Foggia 19 (2006): 245–278. [http:// www.bibliotecaprovinciale.foggia.it/capitanata/2006/2006_19.htm] Istituto centrale per il catalogo unico delle biblioteche italiane e per le informazioni bibliografiche (ICCU), ed., Inter omnes. Contributo alio studio delle marche dei tipografi e degli editori italiani del XVI secolo. Rome: ICCU, 2006. [http://www.iccu.sbn.it/opencms/export/sites/iccu/docum ICCU enti/inter_omnes.pdf] Kostylo, Joanna, “Commentary on Aldus Manutius’s Warning against the Printers of Lyon (1503).” In: Bently, Lionel & Martin Kretschmer, eds., Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, Faculty of Law, 2008. [www.copyrighthistory.org] Kristeller, Paul, Die italienischen Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen bis 1525. Strasbourg: Heitz, 1893. (Reprints: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1969; Mansfield Centre: Martino Fine Books, 1999). Lippincott, Kristen, “The Genesis and Significance of the Fifteenth-Century Italian Impresa.” In: Anglo, Sidney, ed., Chivalry in the Renaissance. Woodbridge, UK & Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 1990, 51–54. Lippincott, Kristen, “Un Gran Pelago: The Impresa and the Medal Reverse in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” In: Scher, Stephen K., ed., Perspectives on the Renaissance Medal: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance. New York: Garland, 2000, 76–77. Lowry, Martin, The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979. Lowry, Martin, Nicholas Jenson and the Rise of Venetian Publishing in Renaissance Europe. Oxford, UK & Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Lowry, Martin, “The Manutius Publicity Campaign.” In: Franklin D. Murphy, David S. Zeidberg & Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi, eds., Aldus Manutius and Renaissance Culture. Essays in Memory of Franklin D. Murphy. (Acts of an International Conference Venice and Florence, 14–17 June 1994) Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1998, 31–46. Masséna, Victor, Prince d’Essling, Les missels imprimés à Venise de 1481 à 1600. Description, illustration, bibliographie. Avec cinq planches sur cuivre et 350 gravures, initiales et marques. (Études sur l’art de la gravure sur bois à Venise) Paris: Rothschild, (1894)-1896. Masséna, Victor, Prince d’Essling, Études sur l’art de la gravure sur bois à Venise. Livres à figures vénitiens de la fin du XV’ siècle et du commencement du XVIe. Florence: L.S. Olschki, Paris: H. Leclerc & Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1907–1914.



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Meiner, Annemarie, “Italienische Inkunabelsignete.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde: Monatshefte für Bibliophilie und verwandte Interessen: Organ der Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, der deutschen Buchgewerbekünstler und der Wiener Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft 22 (1930): 28–31 Melzi, Gaetano, Count, Fac-simile di alcune imprese di stampatori italiani dei secoli XVe XVI. Milan: s.n., 1838. Moro, Giacomo, “Insegne librarie e marche tipografiche in un registro veneziano del ‘500.” La Bibliofilia. Rivista di storia del libro e di bibliografia 91, 1 (1989): 51–80. Nuovo, Angela, “Giovanni Giolito, Publisher of Law Books in Pavia (1503–1520).” GutenbergJahrbuch 79 (2004): 153–182. Nuovo, Angela, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance. (Enlarged version of “Il commercio librario nell’Italia del Rinascimento”, 1998). Transl. by Lydia C. Cochrane. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Ongania, Ferdinando & Carlo Castellani, L’arte della stampa nel rinascimento italiano: Venezia. Venice: F. Ongania [Tipografia Emiliana], 1894. (Reprint: Trieste: Casa Editrice Lint, 1973). Pasciuti, Giustino, “Ottaviano Scoto tipografo editore e libraio in Venezia.” Studi Monzesi 11, 12 (2002): 59–84. Pozzi, Giovanni, Francesco Colonna e Aldo Manuzio. Bern: The Monotype Corporation, 1962. Raimondo, Luigi, “Ex-libris e marchi editoriali di Luigi Servolini.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 25 (1950): 362–368. Richardson, Brian, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Sacchi, Federico, I tipografi ebrei de Soncino. Studi bibliografici. Cremona: Tipog. Ronzi e Signori, 1877. (Reprint: Cremona: Turris, 1986 [Collana storica dell’Editrice Turris 14]). Salloch, William & Marianne Salloch, “Sessas Katze. Über eine frühe venezianische Druckermarke.” Aus dem Antiquariat 3 (1986): 121–124. Samek Ludovici, Sergio, Gutenberg e l’Italia. Rome: Fratelli Palombi Editori, 1965. Samek Ludovici, Sergio, “Ragione e fantasia nelle marche tipografiche.” L’Italia grafica 9 (1967): pp. 4. Soepnel, Ine, Festina Lente. Aldus Manutius, drukker/uitgever. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1986. Sorbelli, Albano, “Intorno alla origine ed al significato delle marche tipografiche.” In: Il risorgimento grafico: rassegna mensile d’arte grafica e della rilegatura 20 (1923): 240–245. Sorbelli, Albano, Le marche tipografiche bolognesi nel secolo XVI. Milan: Vanzetti, [1923]. Staikos, Konstantinos, The Greek Editions of Aldus Manutius and his Greek Collaborators (c. 1494–1515). New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2016. Tamani, Giuliano, I tipografi ebrei a Soncino, 1483–1490: atti del convegno, Soncino, 12 giugno 1988. Soncino, CR: Edizioni dei Soncino, 1989. Tarr, John C., “Aldus Manutius.” The Black Art 2, 4 (1963/64): 124–125. Tosi, Paolo A., Fac-simile di alcune imprese di stampatori italiani dei secoli XV e XVI [...] Milan: P.A. Tosi, 1838. Vaccaro, Emerenziana, Le marche dei tipografi ed editori italiani del secolo 16. nella Biblioteca Angelica di Roma. (Biblioteca di bibliográfia italiana 98) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1983. Veneziani, Paolo. “La marca tipografica di Comin da Trino.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 65 (1990): 162–174. Veneziani, Paolo. “Il libraio al segno della fontana.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 74 (1999): 242–266. Veneziani, Paolo, “A furore rusticorum libera nos domine: la marca del guerriero sul bue.” Miscellanea Marciana 25 (2000): 61–78. Veneziani, Paolo, “Riutilizzo di marche tipografiche.” In: Veneziani, Paolo, Riutilizzo di marche tipografiche e altristudi. (Quaderni della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma 8) Rome: Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, 2000, 5–23. Venier, Marina, “Italian printers’ devices databases: from edit16 to SBN and not least Mar.T.E.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 81–94. Vianelli, Athos, Marche di antichi maestri stampatori di Bologna. Bologna: Tamari,1970.

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Witcombe, Christopher L.C.E., Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the Privilegio in SixteenthCentury Venice and Rome. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 100) Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2004. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “La cultura classica nelle marche tipografiche italiane. Un gioco umanistico del ‘500.” Schede umanistische 2 (1999): 143–163. Wolkenhauer, Anja, Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens 35) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002 (includes chapters on the marks of Aldus Manutius, Baptista de Farfengo, Bissolus & Mangius) Zappella, Giuseppina, Contributo a una bibliografia sulle marche tipografiche italiane del sec. XVI. Avellino: Nuova Stampa,1982. Zappella, Giuseppina, Le marche dei tipografi e degli editori italiani del Cinquecento. Repertorio di figure, simboli e soggetti e dei relativi motti. (Grandi opere 1) Milan: Editrice Bibliográfica, 1986. Zappella, Giuseppina, II libro antico a stampa. Struttura, tecniche, tipologie, evoluzione. (I manuali della biblioteca 3) Milan: Editrice Bibliografica, 2001.

Low Countries (Belgium, Netherlands) Adams, Alison, “Georgette de Montenay and the Device of the Dordrecht Printer François Bosselaer.” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 63 (2001): 63–72. Arnold, Thomas J.I. & Ferdinand van der Haeghen, Dictionnaire des devises des hommes de lettres, imprimeurs, libraires etc. [1e-]2e Supplément à la liste publiée par Ferdinand Vanderhaeghen. Brussels: Fr. J. Olivier, 1879–1883. Asselt, G.F. van, “Een opmerking over de beteekenis van het drukkersmerk van Gillis van den Rade.” Het grafisch museum 8 (1938/39): 55–56. Berjeau, Jean P., Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks. London: E. Rascol, 1866. Bradshaw, Henry, List of the Founts of Type and Woodcut Devices used by Printers in Holland in the Fifteenth Century. London: Macmillan & Co., 1871. Brandhorst, Hans, “Cataloguing printers’ devices in the age of digitalization and collaboration.” In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 109–137. B[roa], Gh. de, “Variétés bibliographiques: Marques d’imprimeurs.” Le Bibliophile Belge 9 (1852): 416–423. [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082016084;view=1up;seq=430] 1986. Cockx-Indestege, Elly, “Marks in Books Printed by the Brothers of the Common Life in Brussels: Production and Reception.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 4 (1997): 607–633. Colin, Georges, “Reliures à la marque de Jean Bogard.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 41 (1966): 372–377. Colin, Georges, “Le compas d’or sur les reliures.” De Gulden Passer 66/67 (1988/89): 325–336. Colin, Georges, “Les marques de libraires et d’éditeurs dorées sur des reliures.” In: Anthony Hobson & Dennis E. Rhodes, eds., Bookbindings & Other Bibliophily. Essays in Honour of Anthony Hobson. Verona: Valdonega, 1994, 76–115. Conway, William M., The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 1884. Davidson, Peter, The Vocal Forest. A Study of the Context of three Low Countries Printers’ Devices of the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Academic Press Leiden, 1996. Doeschot, Bertus ten, Naamspreuken op uitgeversmerken: een eerste verkenning en poging tot inventarisatie van een typisch Nederlands verschijnsel in de periode eind 19e – eerste helft 20e eeuw. Hengelo: Antiquariaat De Boekenvriend, 1991. van Dokkum, Jan D. Chr., “Drukkers- en uitgeversmerken.” Het Grafisch Museum 4 (1934): 53–59.



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Ecsedy, Judit V.,“The Printer’s Device of the Elseviers in Hungary.” Quaerendo 21 (1991): 125–138. Eusman, Elmer, “Ploos van Amstel’s Mark.” Print Quarterly 17 (2000): 248–261. Evers, Gerrit A., “De Bijbel als merkteeken van Utrechtsche boekverkoopers en – drukkers.” De Tampon (Utrecht) 14 (1933/1934): 17–32. Farquhar, James D., “Identity in an Anonymous Age: Bruges Manuscript Illuminators and Their Signs.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (1980) 371–384. Franssen, Peter J.A., Tussen tekst en publiek. Jan van Doesborch, drukker-uitgever en literator te Antwerpen en te Utrecht in de eerste helft van de zestiende eeuw. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1990. van Gulik, Egbertus, “Drukkers en geleerden – De Leidse Officina Plantiniana (1583–1619).” In: Lunsingh Scheurleer, Th.H. & G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes, eds., Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century. An Exchange of Learning. Leiden: Brill, 1975, 367–393. van Havre, Gustave C., Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires Anversois recueillies. 2 vols. Antwerp: J.E. Buschmann, 1883–1884 [i. e. 1885]. van Havre, Gustave C., Les marques typographiques de l’imprimerie plantinienne. Antwerp: Editions du Musée Plantin-Moretus & Bureau d’édition, 1911. Heller, Marvin J., “The Printer’s Mark of Immanuel Beneviste and its Later Influence.” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 19 (1994): 3–20. Hoftiijzer, Paul G., “‘In de wereld vol druckx.’ Drukkers en boekverkopers en hun uithangtekens.” De Boekenwereld 4 (1988): 42–53. Hoftijzer, Paul G., The Signboards of Leiden Printers and Booksellers. Woubrugge: Stichting Drukwerk in de Marge & Oxford: Alembic Press, 1990. Hoftijzer, Paul G., Pieter van der Aa (1659–1733). Leids drukker en boekverkoper. (Zeven Provinciën reeks 16) Hilversum: Verloren, 1999. Hoftijzer, Paul G., “‘Tuta sub aegide Pallas.’ Drukkersmerken door de eeuwen heen.” Jaarverslag 2004 van de Koninklijke Brill NV. Leiden, 2005, 69–81. [http://hdl.handle.net/1887/15633] Holtrop, Jan W. & C.H. Gould, Monuments typographiques des Pays Bas au quinzième siècle. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1868. Horodisch, Abraham, De nederlandsche drukkersmerken in de vijftiende eeuw. Utrecht: M.G.V., 1938. van Huisstede, Peter & Hans Brandhorst, Dutch Printer’s Devices 15th-17th Century. A Catatalogue with Cd-rom. 3 vols., Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1999. [Rev. by Jochen Becker in Quaerendo, 32 (2002): 304–313.] Juchoff, Rudolf, Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Niederlanden, England, Spanien, Böhmen, Mähren und Polen. München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1927. De Keyser, Paul, “Twee studies; I: Het ‘Vrou Aventure’-drukkersmerk van Jan van Doesborch; II: De houtsnijder van Gerard Leeu’s “‘Van den drie blinde danssen’ (Gouda, 1482).” Gentsche bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis 1 (1934): 45–68. De Keyser, Paul, “Het ‘Vrou Aventure’-drukkersmerk van Jan van Doesborch.” Handelingen van het derde congres voor boek- en bibliotheekwezen. Gent: Vyncke, 1935, 65–75. Kok, Ina, Woodcuts in incunabula printed in the Low Countries. Houten: Hes & De Graaf, 2013. Kronenberg, Maria E., “Een onbekend drukkersmerk van Jan van Doesborch.” Het Boek 24 (1936): 225–230. Le Clercq, Léopold, Het ‘Drie-Deuchden’ merk. Antwerpen: De Coker, 1934. León, Pedro R., “Brief Notes on Some 16th Century Antwerp Printers with Special Reference to Jean Steelsius and his Hispanic Bibliography.” De Gulden Passer 54: 77–92 Meeus, Hubert, “Jan Moretus en de Noordnederlandse boekhandel 1590–1610.” In: de Schepper, Marcus & Francine de Nave, eds., Ex Officina Plantiniana Moretorum: studies over het drukkersgeslacht Moretus. Antwerp: Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliophielen, 1996, 343–369. Meeus, Hubert, “Titelbladen van toneeldrukken in de Nederlanden vóór 1700.” In: Coppens, Chris, ed., E codicibus impressique: opstellen over het boek in de Lage Landen voor Elly Cockx-Indestege. Vol. 2. Leuven: Peeters, 2004, 301–328.

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Meeus, Hubert, “Printing in the Shadow of a Metropolis.” In: Rial Costas, Benito, ed., Print Culture and Peripheries in Early Modern Europe: a Contribution to the History of Printing and the Book Trade in Small European and Spanish Cities. Leiden: Brill, 2013, 147–170. Muntendam, A.M., “Critiek van Roemer Visscher op Plantin’s drukkersmerk.” De Gulden Passer 14 (1936) 77–79. Nielson, Arie C., Latijnse zinspreuken op Nederlandse boekmerken. The Hague: Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Druk- en Boekkunst, 1952. Nijhoff, Wouter, L’art typographique dans les pays-bas pendant les années 1500–1540. Réproduction en fac-simile des caractères typographiques, marques d’imprimeurs. Gravures sur bois et autres ornements employés pendant cette période. 3 Vols. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1926–1935. van Oyen, Anthonie A. Vorsterman, Les dessinateurs néerlandais d’ex-libris. Arnhem: Archives Genealogiques & Héraldiques, 1910. [Printer’s Marks pp. 61–70] van Oyen, Anthonie A. Vorsterman, Les marques d’imprimeurs. Arnhem: s.n., 1910. Polain, Marie-Louis, “Marques et devises de quelques imprimeurs des Pays-Bas.” Bulletin du bibliophile 2 (1836/37): 16–17, 142–143. Porteman, Karel, “T’is al goet wat cunste doet. Beschouwingen bij een drukkersmerk van de gebroeders Van de Venne.” In: de Nave, Francine, ed., Liber amicorum Leon Voet. Antwerp: Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliophielen, 1985, 329–345. Rahir, Édouard, ed., Catalogue d’une collection unique de volumes imprimés par Elzevier et divers typographes hollandais de XVII’ siècle. Précédé d’un avant-propos par Ferdinand Brunetière et d’une lettre de M. Alphonse Willems. Paris: Morgand, 1896. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: B. De Graaf, 1965). (Printer’s Marks pp. 419–466). Reiffenberg, Frédéric A.F.T. de, “Marques des imprimeurs belges: Josse Bade d’Assche et Jacob Batius.” Le Bibliophile Belge 2 (1846): 408–409. Sabbe, Maurits, “De symboliek der oude drukkersmerken.” In: Handelingen van het Wetenschappelijk Vlaamsch Congres voor Boek- en Bibliotheekwezen. Antwerpen, 25–28. Apr. 1930. Antwerp 1931: 171–219. Sabbe, Maurits, “Le symbolisme des marques typographiques.” De Gulden Passer 10 (1932): 72–119. Schlüter, Lucy & Pierre Vinken, The Elsevier ‘Non solus’ Imprint. Amsterdam & New York: Elsevier Science, 1997. Schretlen, Martinus J.A.M., Printers’ Devices in Dutch Incunabula. New York: Press of Ars Typographica, 1927. van Selm, Bertus, Alles komt teregt. Leiden: De Ammoniet, 1991. Simoni, Anna E.C., “Bearwood, Tree, Flatfish & Co.: Some Punning Dutch Devices.”In: Croiset van Uchelen, A.R.A., ed., Hellinga Festschrift/feestbundel/mélanges: Forty-Three Studies in Bibliography Presented to Prof. Dr. Wytze Hellinga on the Occasion of his Retirement from the Chair of Neophilology in the University of Amsterdam at the End of the Year 1978. Amsterdam: Israel, 1980, 447–466. Vandeweghe, Frank & Bart Op de Beeck, Drukkersmerken uit de 15e en de 16e eeuw binnen de grenzen van het huidige België = Marques typographiques employées aux XVe et XVIe siècles dans les limites geographiques de la Belgique actuelle. (Nationaal Centrum voor de Archeologie en Geschiedenis van het boek = Centre National de l’Archéologie et de l’Historire du Livre 5) Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1993. Voet, Léon, The Golden Compasses. A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp. Amsterdam: Van Gendt; New York: Abner Schram, 1969–1972. Willems, Alphonse, Les Elzevier. Histoire et annales typographiques. Brussels: G.A. van Trigt, 1880. (Reprint: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1962, 1991). [Printer’s Marks pp. 90–93]. Willering, Albertus (Bert), Uitgevers- en drukkersvignetten met een naamspreuk. Assen: Alwil, 2013.



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North America, New Spain Bradley, Will, Printers’ Marks, Old and New. S.l; s.n. 195–?. Conquergood, Charles R., “The Moral of Two German Marks. An Address by Chas. R. Conquergood.” [‘On the device of the printers Fust and Schoeffer, afterwards adopted by the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen as their Emblem, and the Swastika of the National Socialist Party.’] Montreal: Montreal Club of Printing House Craftsmen, 1942. Garone Gravier, Marina, “Marcas tipográficas del siglo XVI: los primeros pasos de la identidad editorial.” Revista Quadra. Diseño Gráfico y Comunicación Visual (Universidad de Guadalajara) 4 (2009): 7–9. Garone Gravier, Marina, La tipografía en México: ensayos históricos (siglos XVI al XIX). México, D.F: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2012. Garone Gravier, Marina & Elizabeth Castro Regla, Marcas tipográficas: las huellas de antiguos impresores. Puebla: Universidad de las Américas Puebla, 2014. Gilliss, Walter, The Story of a Motto and a Mark; Being a Brief Sketch of a Few Printers’ Marks and Containing the Facts Concerning the Mark of the Gilliss Press. New York: The Gilliss Press, 1902. [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101063800716]. Hammond, Mason, “A Carved Tablet Showing Early Printers’ Marks in the Widener Library.” Harvard Library Bulletin 36 (1988): 373–380. [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:139076?n=17602] Harman, Marian, Printer’s and Publisher’s Devices in Incunabula in the University of Illinois Library. Urbana, Ill.: s.n., 1983. Hollister, Paul M. & Bruce Rogers, A Characterization of the Designer of the Mark of the Cygnet Press. Cambridge, Mass.: Cygnet Press, 1929. Lemus, Claudia R., Bárbara Skinfill Nogal & Suhey Morales León, Marcas de impresores y editores del siglo XVI: muestrario iconográfico: del Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca Pública Universitaria de Morelia, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Morelia: Tribunal Superior de Justicia del Estado de Zacatecas, 2007. Raya Lemus, Claudia, Skinfill Nogal, Bárbara & Suhey Morales León, Marcas de impresores y editores del siglo XVI, muestrario iconográfico del Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca Publica Universitaria de Morelia, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Michoacán: Centro de Producción Artística y Desarrollo Cultural de Michoacán, 2007. Reilly, Elizabeth C., A Dictionary of Colonial American Printers’ Ornaments and Illustrations. Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1975. Simon, Melinda, “Stratégies de publicité visuelles. Historisation dans les marques d’éditeurs européens et américains des 19e–20e siècles.” In: Radimská, Jitka, ed., Jazyk a řeč knihy. K výzkumu zámeckých, mĕšt’anských a církevních knihoven. (Opera Romanica 11) České Budĕjovice: Editio Universitatis Bohemiae Meridionalis – Nová Tiskárna Pelhřimov, 2009, 525–544. Soskin, Leonid M., Izdatel’skie marki Petrograda-Leningrada. Moscow: Novyĭ Svet: Kniga, 1995. Weygand, James L., A Collection of Pressmarks Gathered from America’s Private Presses and from Others not so Private. Nappanee, Ind.: Private Press of the Indiana Kid, 1956. Weygand, James L., A Second Book of Pressmarks Gathered from America’s Private Presses and from Others not so Private. Nappanee, Ind.: Private Press of the Indiana Kid, 1959. Weygand, James L., A Third Book of Pressmarks Gathered from America’s Private Presses and from Others not so Private. Nappanee, Ind.: Private Press of the Indiana Kid, 1962 [i. e. 1963].

Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) Drees, Jan, Deutschsprachige Gelegenheitsdichtung in Stockholm und Uppsala zwischen 1613 und 1719. Bibliographie der Drucke nebst einem Inventar der in ihnen verwendeten dekorativen Druckstöcke. (Acta Bibliothecae Regiae Stockholmiensis 56) Stockholm: Kungliga Biblioteket, 1995.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Haugsted, Mogens, “Ældre Danske bogtrykker- og forlæggermærker. I-III.” Fund og Forskning 2 (1955): 39–58; 3 (1956): 44–61; 4 (1957): 7–23. [https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/fundogforskning/article/view/1901/3244; https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/fundogforskning/ article/viewFile/1909/3260; https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/fundogforskning/article/ view/1925/3292] Hermannsson, Halldór, Icelandic Books of the Sixteenth Century, 1534–1600. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 1916. Horstbøll, Henrik, Menigmands medie. De folkelige boogtryk i Denmark 1500–1840. En kulturhistorisk ondersøgelse. Copenhagen: Kongelige bibliotek: Museum Tusculanums forlag, 1999. Kvaran, Guðrún, “Die Anfänge der Buchdruckerkunst in Island und die isländische Bibel von 1584.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 72 (1997): 140–147. Lagerström, Hugo, Svenska bokhantverkares exlibris, märken och signeter; en nutidskrönika om svenskt bokhantwerk och svenska bokhantverkare. Stockholm: Bröderna Lagerström, 1943. Nohrström, Holger, Boktryckarmärken i Finland, Helsingfors: Frenckellska tryckeri aktiebolagets förlag 1925. Nordlunde, Carl Volmer, Bogskrifter og bogtrykkere. Copenhagen: Nyt nordisk forlag, 1945. Nordqvist, Nils, Bomärket på titelbladet, en Studie i boktryckarmärkets Symbolik. Stockholm: Tryckeri Aktiebolaget Thule, 1952. Ridderstad, Per, “Tryckpressens makt och makten över tryckpressen: Om tryckerietableringar i det svenska riket 1600–1650”. In: Sten Åke Nilsson & Margareta Ramsay (eds.), 1600-talets ansikte. Nyhamnsläge: Gyllenstiernska Krapperupstiftelsen 1997, pp. 345–356. Sjögren, [Carl] Arthur, “Ur anteckningsboken, I–II”, Nordisk boktryckarkonst, vol. 8, Stockholm 1907, pp. 427–435. Sjögren, [Carl] Arthur, Om boktryckare och förläggaremärken under 1400-talet: nagra anteckningar. Stockholm: Bröderna Lagerström, 1908 Sjögren, [Carl] Arthur, “Ur anteckningsboken, V”, Nordisk boktryckarkonst, vol. 10, Stockholm 1909, pp. 13–23. Sjögren, [Carl] Arthur, “Något om äldre svenska bokförläggaremärken”, Pro novitate pars secunda: festskrift utgifven af Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreningen till minne af dess 25-åriga tillvaro 1888–1913, Carl Lundahl (ed.), Stockholm: Svenska bokhandelsmedhjälpareföreneningen 1914, pp. 256–275. Sjögren, [Carl] Arthur, “Vandrande tryckare- och förläggaremärken”, Bibliografiska studier tillägnade friherre Johannes Rudbeck, Stockholm 1917.

Spain & Portugal Agulló y Cobo, Mercedes, La imprenta y el comercio de libros en Madrid (siglos XVI-XVIII). Memoria para optar al grado de doctor. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones, 1992. Bosch Cantallops, Margarita, Contribución al estudio de la imprenta en Valencia en el siglo XVI. Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1989. Bover de Rosselló, Joaquin M., Imprentas de las Islas Baleares. Palma de Mallorca: M. Font, 1991. Burgos Rincón, Javier, Imprenta y cultura del libro en la Barcelona del setecientos 1680–1808. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1995. Cacheda Barreiro, Rosa M.,“Aproximación iconográfica a la figura del impresor a través de sus marcas tipográficas. Una visión emblemática del siglo XVI.” Cuadernos de arte e iconografía 11 (2002): 49–76. Castro Regla, Elizabeth, Comentarios en torno a la marca tipográfica de Diego Fernández de León, UNAM, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 2008 (MA Thesis).



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Gutiérrez, Luisa C., “Marcas de impresores alemanes en libros españoles de los siglos XV y XVI.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 37 (1962): 459–465. Häbler, Konrad, Spanische und Portugiesische Bücherzeichen des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts. (Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen 5) Strasbourg: J.H. Ed. Heitz (Heitz & Mündel), 1898. (Reprint: Naarden: Anton W. van Bekhoven, 1969). Juchoff, Rudolf, Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Niederlanden, England, Spanien, Böhmen, Mähren und Polen. München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1927. López Poza, Sagrario, “Signos visuales de identidad en el Siglo de Oro.” In: Galiana, Antonio Azaústre & Santiago Fernández Mosquera, eds., Compostella Aurea. Actas del VIII Congreso de la AISO. Vol. 1. (Cursos y congresos de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 197). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2011, 61–94. [hdl.handle. net/2183/12190] López Poza, Sagrario, “Empresas, emblemas, jeroglíficos: agudezas simbólicas y comunicación conceptual.” In: Chartier, Roger & Carmen Espejo Cala, eds., La aparición del periodismo en Europa. Comunicación y propaganda en el Barroco. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2012, 37–85. Pastor, Cristóbal Pérez, Marcas tipográficas de España con noticias biográficas de los impresores y libreros que las usaron (Siglos XV, XVI y XVII). 2 Vols. (Manuscript only). Pedraza García, José M. & Helena Carvajal González, “De emblema a marca comercial: análisis y evoución de las marcas tipográficas del taller zargozano de los Hurus, Coci, Nájera y Bernuz (1490–1571).” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 89 (2014): 106–128. Rodríguez Valcárcel, José A., “Escudos y marcas tipográficas de editoriales científicas del siglo XX.” Investigación Bibliotecológica 20, 40 (2006): 32–52. Verger Arce, Neus, The “Printers’ Devices Database” of the University of Barcelona. In: Scheibe, Michaela & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Signa Vides. Researching and Recording Printers’ Devices. London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2015, 95–107. Vindel, Francisco, Escudos y marcas tipográficas de los impresores en España durante el siglo XV (1485–1500). Madrid: Francisco Vindel, 1935. Vindel, Francisco, Investigación bibliográfica por los viejos anaqueles de la “Antigua librería Babra”: la imprenta de Ibarra, sus marcas tipográficas de carácter tipográfico y las de los impresores españoles del siglo XVIII. Barcelona: s.n., 1938. Vindel, Francisco, Escudos y marcas de impresores y libreros en España durante los siglos XV a XIX (1485–1850). Prólogo de D. Vicente Castañeda Alcover. Barcelona: Orbis, 1942. (Supplement: Madrid: Orbis, 1950). Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Die vielfältige Lesbarkeit humanistischer Druckerzeichen. Geistesgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen und methodische Konsequenzen.” Emblemata 9 (2003): 289–313 (with a summary in Spanish).

United Kingdom Avis, Frederick C., “English Printers’ Marks of the Incunabula Period.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 31 (1956): 111–115. Avis, Frederick C., English Printers’ Marks of the Fifteenth Century. London: Glenview Press, 1964. Avis, Frederick C., English Printers’ Marks of the Sixteenth Century. London: Glenview Press, 1965. Avis, Frederick C., “The Wodewose Device in Early British Printing.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 46 (1971): 116–121. Berjeau, Jean P., Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks. London: E. Rascol, 1866. Blades, William, The Biography and Typography of William Caxton, England´s first Printer. London: Joseph Lilly, 1861; London: Strassburg, 1882. (Reprints: New York: B. Franklin, 1965; Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1971; Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003).

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Davies, Hugh William, Devices of the Early Printers, 1457–1569. Their History and Development. With a Chapter on Portrait Figures of Printers. London: Grafton & Co 1935 (Reprint: Folkestone: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974). Durkan, John, Medieval Scottish Pressmarks. (Edinburgh Bibliographical Society) Edinburgh: Eccles, 1983. Ferguson, W. Craig, “Some Additions to McKerrow’s ‘Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices.” Library. A Quarterly Review of Bibliography 13 (1958): 201–203. Gartner, John, The Craftsmen ‘s Emblem. Being the Story of the 1457 Device. Melbourne: Printing Industry Craftsmen of Australia, 1941. Juchoff, Rudolf, Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Niederlanden, England, Spanien, Böhmen, Mähren und Polen. München: Verlag der Münchner Drucke, 1927. Kirwood, Albert E.M., “Richard Field, Printer, 1589–1624.” Library s4-XII (1) (1931): 1–39. Lightbown, Ronald & Margery Corbett, The Comely Frontispiece. The Emblematic Titlepage in England 1550–1660. London & Boston, Mass.: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. McKerrow, Ronald B., Pennell, Joseph & Howard C. Levis, Printers’ & Publishers’ Devices in England & Scotland 1485–1640. London: Bibliographical Society at the Chiswick Press, 1881, 1913. (Reprint: Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2003). [www2.kb.dk/elib/bhs/mckerrow/ intro.htm] (Supplements: Ferguson, W. Craig, “Some Additions to McKerrow’s Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices.” The Library s5-XIII (3) (1958): 201–203. Lavin, J.A.,“Additions to McKerrow’s Devices.” The Library s5-XXIII (3) (1968): 191–205.) Nix, Linda, “Early Medieval Book Design in England: The Influence of Manuscript Design on the Transmission of Texts.” In: Myers, Robyn & Michael Harris, eds., A Millennium of the Book: Production, Design & Illustration in Manuscript & Print 900–1900. Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1994. Plomer, Henry R., Wynkyn de Worde and his Contemporaries from the Death of Caxton to 1535. A Chapter in English printing. London: Grafton & Co., 1925. Shaw, David J., “An English Bookseller’s Device Used in Paris in c. 1512: Bibliographical Note.” The Library 11, 4 (2010): 468–473. Thompson, Sylvanus P., “Peter Short, Printer, and His Marks.” Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 4, 1 (1898): 103–128.

Contexts for the Study of the Printer’s Mark: Cultural, Economic, Semiotic, Social Attwood, Philip, “Emblems and Reverses. The Back of the Medal in Sixteenth-Century Italy.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem. From Incunabula to the Internet: Selected Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies, 28th July – 1st August 2008. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010, 21–46. Augustyn, Wolfgang, “Fingierte Wappen in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Bemerkungen zur Heraldik in den Bildkünsten.” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, Dritte Folge 66 (2005): 41–82. Balavoine, Claudie, “Archéologie del emblème littéraire. La dédicace à Conrad Peutinger des Emblemata d’André Alciat.” In: Jones-Davies, Marie Thérèse, ed., Emblèmes et devises au temps de la Renaissance. Paris: J. Touzot, 1981, 9–21. Baldacchini, Lorenzo & Attilio M. Caproni, Aspettando il frontespizio. Milano: Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004. Bässler, Andreas, Die Umkehrung der Ekphrasis. Zur Entstehung von Alciatos Emblematum liber (1531). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012.



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Bath, Michael, Speaking Pictures. English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture. London & New York: Longman, 1994. Bayley, Harold, A New Light on the Renaissance. Displayed in Contemporary Emblems. London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1909. (Reprints: New York: B. Blom, 1967; London: J. M. Dent, 2010). Bayley, Harold, The Lost Language of Symbolism. An Inquiry into the Origin of Certain Letters, Words, Names, Fairy-Tales, Folklore and Mythologies. London: Williams and Norgate, 1912. (Reprints by various publishers: 1935, 1951, 1960, 1996).[http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15703688W/ The_lost_language_of_symbolism] Bietenholz, Peter, Der italienische Humanismus und die Blütezeit des Buchdrucks i. (Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft 73) Basle: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1959. Bissels, Paul, Humanismus und Buchdruck. Vorreden humanistischer Drucke in Köln im ersten Drittel des 16. Jahrhunderts. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1965. Bockwitz, Hans H., “Warum hat die Inkunabel kein Titelblatt?” Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 78, 8 (1941): 296−304. Bolzani, Lina, The Gallery of Memory: Literary and Iconographic Models in the Age of the Printing Press. Transl. Jeremy Parzen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Bouchot, Henri & Edward C. Bigmore, The Printed Book, its History, Illustration, and Adornment, from the Days of Gutenberg to the Present Time. New York: Scribner, 1887; London: H. Grevel & Co., 1890. Braider, Christopher, Refiguring the Real. Picture and Modernity in Word and Image, 1400–1700. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Bregoli-Russo, Mauda, L’impresa come ritratto del Rinascimento. Naples: Loffredo, 1990. Burger, Combertus P., “Het hieroglyphenschrift van de Renaissance.” Het Boek 13 (1924): 273–300. Burger, Konrad, Buchhändleranzeigen des XV. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1907. Caldwell, Dorigen S., “Studies in Sixteenth-Century Italian Imprese.” Emblematica 11 (2001): 1–257. Caldwell, Dorigen S., The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice. (AMS Studies in the Emblem 17) New York: AMS Press, 2004. Callahan, Virginia W., “Andreas Alciatus and Boniface Amerbach. The Chronicle of a Renaissance Friendship.” In: Revard, Stella P., Fidel Rädle & Mario A. di Cesare, eds., Acta conventus neo-latini Guelpherbytani. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Neo-Latin studies, Wolfenbüttel, 12 August to 16 August 1985. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 53) Binghamton Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1988, 193–200. Callahan, Virginia W., “Erasmus’ Adages – A Pervasive Element in the Emblems of Alciato.” Emblematica 9 (1995) 241–254. Cavallar, Osvaldo, Susanne Degenring & Julius Kirshner, eds., A Grammar of Signs: Bartolo da Sassoferrato’s Tract on Insignia and Coats of Arms. Berkeley, CA: Robbins Collection, University of California at Berkeley, 1994. Cheesman, Clive, “Some Aspects of the ‘Crisis of Heraldry’.” The Coat of Arms 220 (2010): 65–80. Daly, Peter M., Emblem Theory. Recent German Contributions to the Characterization of the Emblem Genre. (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 9) Nendeln/Liechtenstein: KTO Press, 1979. Daly, Peter M., “Modern Advertising and Renaissance Emblem Modes of Verbal and Visual Persuasion.” In: Peter M. Daly & Wolfgang Lottes, eds., Word and Visual Imagination. Studies in the Interaction of English Literature and the Visual Arts, Nuremberg: Universität Erlangen, 1988, 349–371. David, Madeleine V., Le débat sur les écritures et l’hiéroglyphe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et l’application de la notion de déchiffrement aux écritures mortes. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1965. Delepierre, Octave, Essai historique et bibliographique sur les rébus. London: Wertheimer, 1870 Dennys, Rodney, The Heraldic Imagination. London: Barrie & Jenkins; New York: C. N. Potter, 1975.

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Desachy, Matthieu, ed., L’Héraldique et le livre. Avant-propos de Michel Pastoureau. Toulouse: Service interétablissements de coopération documentaire de Toulouse; Paris: Somogy, 2002. Dibdin, Thomas F., The Bibliographical Decameron. Or: Ten Days Pleasant Discourse upon Illuminated Manuscripts and Subjects Connected with Early Engraving, Typography, and Bibliography. London: Printed for the author, by W. Bulmer and Co., Shakespeare Press, and sold by G. and W. Nicol, Payne and Foss, Evans, John and Arthur Arch, Triphook, and J. Major, 1817. (Reprint: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Dieckmann, Lieselotte, “Renaissance Hieroglyphics.” Comparative Literature 9 (1957): 308–321. Dieckmann, Lieselotte, Hieroglyphics. The History of a Literary Symbol. St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1970. Drysdall, Denis L., “The Hieroglyphs at Bologna.” Emblematica 2 (1987): 225–247. Drysdall, Denis L., “The Emblem according to the Italian Impresa Theorists.” In: Adams, Alison & Anthony J. Harper, eds., The Emblem in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Tradition and Variety. Selected papers of the Glasgow International Emblem Conference, 13–17 August 1990. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, 22–32. Drysdall, Denis L., “Devices as ‘Emblems’ before 1531.” Emblematica 16 (2008): 253–269. Eckert, Willehad P., “Erasmus von Rotterdam. Seine Drucker, Verleger, Buchhändler. Buchdruck und Buchhandel.” In: Eckert, Willehad P., ed., Erasmus von Rotterdam. Werk und Wirkung. Vol. 2. (Zeugnisse der Buchkunst 4) Cologne: Wienand-Verlag, 1967, 499–578. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., “The Early Printer as a ‘Renaissance Man’.” Printing History 3 (1981): 6–16. Enenkel, Karl A.E., ed., Cognition and the Book: Typologies of Formal Organisation of Knowledge in the Printed Book of the Early Modern Period. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Fraenkel, Béatrice, “La signature et le rébus de nom propre.” In: Heussner, Martin et al., eds., Word and Image Interactions: A Selection of Papers Given at the Second International Conference on Word and Image August 1990. Basle: Wiese Verlag, 1993, 35–40. Freeman, Rosemary, English Emblem Books. London: Chatto & Windus, 1948. (Reprint: New York: Octagon Books, 1966). Gehl, Paul F., “Moral Analogies in Print: Emblematic Thinking in the Making of Early Modern Books.” Philosophica 70 (2002): 91–107. Giehlow, Karl, “Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance, besonders der Ehrenpforte Kaisers Maximilian I.” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 32 (1915): 1–232. (Engl. Tr.: The Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance. Tr. Robin Raybould. Leiden & Boston: Brill – HES & De Graaf, 2015.) Giesecke, Michael, Der Buchdruck in der frühen Neuzeit. Eine historische Fallstudie über die Durchsetzung neuer Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 19914, 2006. Gilmont, Jean-François, La fabrication du livre au XVIe siècle. Brussels: Musée de la Maison d’Érasme, 2003. Gilmont, Jean-François, Le livre et ses secrets. (Cahiers d’ humanisme et Renaissance 65) Geneva: Droz; Louvain-la-Neuve: Université catholique de Louvain, 2003 (Ch.2, pp.45–57: “Les humanistes face à l’ARS IMPRESSORIA.”) Gilmont, Jean-François & Alexandre Vanautgaerden, eds., La page de titre à la Renaissance: treize études suivies de cinquante-quatre pages de titre commentées et d’un lexique des termes relatifs à la page de titre. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols; Brussels: Musée de la Maison d’Érasme, 2008. Goldschmidt, Ernst P., The Printed Book of the Renaissance: Three Lectures on Type, Illustration, Ornament. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1950. (Reprint: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).



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Griese, Sabine, “Bild -Text – Betrachter. Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten von Einblatt-Druckgraphik im 15. Jahrhundert.” In: Henkel, Nikolaus et al., eds., Dialoge. Sprachliche Kommunikation in und zwischen Texten im deutschen Mittelalter. Hamburger Colloquium 1999. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 2003, 315–335. Gruel, Léon, Recherches sur les origines des marques anciennes qui se rencontrent dans l’art et dans l’industrie du XVe au XIXe siècle par rapport au chiffre quatre. Paris: G. van Oest, 1926. Gruel, Léon, Jean-Michel Mathonière & Paul Delalain, Études sur les marques au quatre de chiffre. Dieulefit: La nef de Salomon 1994. Guigne, Marie-Claude, De l’origine de la signature et de son emploi au Moyen Âge, principalement dans les Pays de Droit écrit. Paris: Dumoulin, 1863. Hablot, Laurent, “Emblématique et mythologie médiévale. Le cygne, une devise princière à la fin du Moyen Age.” Histoire de l’Art 49 (2001): 51–64, 104. Hablot, Laurent & Martin Aurell, & Michel Pastoureau, La devise, mise en signe du prince, mise en scène du pouvoir. Les devises et l’emblématique des princes en France et en Europe à la fin du Moyen Age. Poitiers: Université de Poitiers, 2001. Hablot, Laurent, “Concevoir et créer la devise du prince.” In: Cassagnes-Brouquet, Sophie & Geneviève Nore, eds., Poètes et artistes. La figure du créateur en Europe du Moyen Age à la Renaissance. Limoges: Pulim, 2007, 205–219. Hayaert, Valérie, “Pierre Cousteau’s ‘Pegma’. 1555. Emblematics and legal humanism.” Emblematica 14 (2005): 55–99. Hayaert, Valérie, ‘Mens emblematica’et humanisme juridique. Le cas du ‘Pegma cum narrationibus philosophicis’ de Pierre Coustau. 1555. (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 438) Geneva: Droz, 2008. Hayaert, Valérie, “De l’art de la jurisprudence à celui de l’emblème chez André Alciat et Pierre Coustau. Æquiparatio, acumen et satire.” In: Engammare, Max, Alexandre Vanautgaerden & Franz Bierlaire, eds., L’Intime du droit à la Renaissance. Actes du cinquantenaire de la FISIER, Bruxelles-Liege 22–24 marzo 2007. (Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 117) Geneva: Droz, 2014, 19–41. Heckscher, William S., “Renaissance Emblems. Observations Suggested by some Emblem-Books in the Princeton University Library.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 15 (1954): 55–68. Heckscher, William S. & Karl A. Wirth, Art. “Emblem, Emblembuch.” In: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte. Vol. 5. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1959, 85–228. Helmrath, Johannes, “Bildfunktionen der antiken Kaisermünze in der Renaissance oder: Die Entstehung der Numismatik aus der Faszination der Serie.” In: Schade, Kathrin, Detlev Rößler, & Alfred Schäfer, eds., Zentren und Wirkungsräume der Antikerezeption. Zur Bedeutung von Raum und Kommunikation für die neuzeitliche Transformation der griechisch-römischen Antike. Münster: Scriptorium, 2007, 77–97. Helmrath, Johannes, “Die Aura der Kaisermünze. Bild-Text-Studien zur Historiographie der Renaissance und zur Entstehung der Numismatik als Wissenschaft.” In: Helmrath, Johannes, Albert Schirrmeister & Stefan Schlelein, eds., Medien und Sprachen humanistischer Geschichtsschreibung. (Transformationen der Antike 11) Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009, 99–138. Helmrath, Johannes, “Transformationen antiker Kaisermünzen in der Renaissance. Einige Thesen.” In: Peter, Ulrike & Bernhard Weisser, eds., Translatio Nummorum. Römische Kaiser in der Renaissance. Akten des internationalen Symposiums Berlin 16.-18. November 2011. (Cyriacus. Studien zur Rezeption der Antike 3) Mainz: Franz Philipp Rutzen, in Kommission bei Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013, 301–317. Helmrath, Johannes, “Die Aura des Runden: Transformationen antiker Kaisermünzen in Sammlungen der Renaissance.” In: Doronin, A.B. & D. Kydrjabzew, eds., Collecting and Arts Patronage in the Renaissance. Moscow: s.n., 2015, 129–145. Henkel, Arthur & Albrecht Schöne, eds., Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1967. ²1976.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Hill, George F. & Graham Pollard, A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance Before Cellini. London: British Museum, Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1930. Hind, Arthur M., An Introduction to a History of Woodcut. With a Detailed Survey of Work Done in the Fifteenth Century. 2 vols. London: Constable, 1935. (Reprint: New York: Dover, 1963). Hirsch, Rudolf, Printing, Selling, and Reading, 1450–1550. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967. Hoffmann, Konrad, “Alciati und die geschichtliche Stellung der Emblematik.” In: Haug, Walter, ed., Formen und Funktionen der Allegorie. Symposium Wolfenbüttel 1978. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1979, 514–534. Hoffmann, Konrad, “Alciato and the Historical Situation of Emblematics.” In: Daly, Peter M., ed., Andrea Alciato and the Emblem Tradition. Essays in Honor of Virginia Woods Callahan. New York: AMS Press, 1989, 1–45. (Translation of previous title) Höltgen, Karl J., “Emblematic Title Pages and Brasses.” In: Höltgen, Karl J., ed., Aspects of the Emblem. Studies in the English Emblem Tradition and the European Context. (Problemata Semiotica 2) Kassel: Reichenberger, 1986, 91–140. Homann, Holger, Studien zur Emblematik des 16. Jahrhunderts. Sebastian Brant, Andrea Alciati, Johannes Sambucus, Mathias Holtzwart, Nicolaus Taurellus. (Bibliotheca Emblematica 4) Utrecht: Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert, 1971. Horne, Thomas H., An Introduction to the Study of Bibliography to which is prefixed a Memoir on the Public Libraries of the Antients. 2 vols. London 1814. (Reprints: Detroit, Gale Research Co., 1967; Dobbs Ferry, NY: Glanville, 1981). Houwen, Luuk A., “Every Picture Tells a Story. The Importance of Images in the Wider Dissemination and Reception of Texts.” In: Johnston, Andrew J., Ferdinand von Mengden & Stefan Thim, eds., Language and Text. Current Perspectives on English and Germanic Historical Linguistics and Philology. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006, 99–113. Howard, Nicole, The Book. The Life Story of a Technology. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2005. Hunnisett, Basil, Engraved on Steel. The History of Picture Production Using Steel Plates. Aldershot, Hants UK & Brookfield, VT.: Ashgate, 1998. Jehne, Paul & William Blades, Über Buchdruck-Medaillen. Dippoldiswalde: Selbstverlag, 1907. (Reprints: Zuidlaren: Drie Boompjes, 2010; Whitefish: Kessinger Publications, 2011). Jehne, Paul, Erster Nachtrag zu dem Werke: Über Buchdruck-Medaillen. Dippoldiswalde: Selbstverlag, 1913. Johnson, Henry L., Historic Design in Printing; Reproductions of Book Covers, Borders, Initials, Decorations, Printers’ Marks and Devices Comprising Reference Material for the Designer, Printer, Advertiser and Publisher. Boston, Mass: Graphic Arts Co., 1923. Klein, Robert, “La Théorie de l’Expression figurée dans les Traités italiens sur les Imprese. 1555–1612.” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 19 (1957): 320–342. Also in: Klein, Robert & André Chastel, eds., La Forme et l’Intelligible. Écrits sur la Renaissance et l’Art moderne. (Bibliothèque de sciences humaines) Paris: Gallimard, 1970, 125–150. Klein, Robert, “The Theory of Figurative Expression in Italian Treatises on the Impresa, 1555–1612.” In: Klein, Robert, Form and Meaning: Essays on the Renaissance and Modern Art. New York: Viking Press, 1979: 2–24 (translation of the preceding). Kocher, Ursula, “Imagines und picturae. Wissensorganisation durch Emblematik und Mnemonik.” In: Frank, Thomas, Ursula Kocher & Ulrike Tarnow, eds., Topik und Tradition. Prozesse der Neuordnung von Wissensüberlieferungen des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts. (Berliner Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitforschung 1) Göttingen: V & R unipress, 2007, 31–45. Landau, David & Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print, 1470–1550. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Larwood, Jacob & John C. Hotten, The History of Signboards from Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Chatto & Windus, 11, 1900 (first ed. 1867). Laurens, Pierre, Entre texte et image: emblèmes, devises, iconologie. Paris: Librarie Paul Jammes, 2003.



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Leal, Pedro Germano, “Belles Lettres: Hieroglyphs, Emblems and the Philosophy of Images.” In: McKeown, Simon, ed., The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010, 97–111. Maggi, Armando, Identità e impresa rinascimentale. Ravenna: Longo, 1998. Mallinckrodt, Bernhard von, & Johann Kinckius, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicæ dissertatio historica. In qua præter alia pleraque ad calcographices negocium spectantia de auctoribus et loco inuentionis præcipuè inquiritur. Proque Moguntinis contra Harlemenses concluditur. Cologne: Apud Ioannem Kinchium, Sub Monocerote veteri, 1640. Margolin, Jean-Claude, “Devices, armes parlantes et rébus au temps des grand rhétoriqueurs.” In: Jones-Davies, Marie-Thérèse, ed., Emblèmes et devises au temps de la Renaissance: actes du 1er colloque du 28–29 novembre 1980 et du 2ème colloque du 27–28 mars 1981, Paris. Paris: J. Touzot, 1981, 65–80. Mazal, Otto, “Paläographie und Paläotypie: zur Schriftgeschichte des 15. Jahrhunderts.” In: Hellinga, Lotte & Helmar Härtel, eds., Buch und Text im 15. Jahrhundert. Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1981, 59–78. McMurtrie, Douglas C., The Book: the Story of Printing and Bookmaking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1943. Meldau, Robert, Zeichen, Warenzeichen, Marken. Kulturgeschichte und Werbewert graphischer Zeichen. Bad Homburg v.d.H., Berlin & Zürich: Gehlen, 1967. Melsaeter, Torgeir, Zeichen der Macht, die Macht der Zeichen: heraldische und para-heraldische Elemente in Kunst, Architektur und Literatur unter Papst Alexander VII. Chigi, 1655–1667. Antwerp: Universiteit Antwerpen, 2013. Miedema, Hessel, “The Term Emblema in Alciati.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968): 234–250. Miller, Charles W.E., “Ne extra oleas.” The American Journal of Philology 4 (1914): 456–462. Mödersheim, Sabine, “Emblem, Emblematik,” In: Ueding, Gert et al., eds., Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vol. 2. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994: 1098–1108. von Monroy, Ernst Friedrich, Embleme und Emblembücher in den Niederlanden 1560–1630. Eine Geschichte der Wandlungen des Illustrationsstils. Ed. & Introd. H.M. v. Erffa. Utrecht: Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert, 1964. Montecchi, Giorgio, Il libro nel Rinascimento. Saggi di bibliologia. Milan: Editrice La storia, 1994. Moran, James, Printers and Heraldry. New York: The Composing Room, 1969. Neubecker, Ottfried, Heraldiek: bronnen, symbolen en betekenis. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1977. Neuber, Wolfgang, “Locus, Lemma, Motto. Entwurf zu einer mnemonischen Emblematiktheorie.” In: Berns, Jörg J. & Wolfgang Neuber, eds., Ars memorativa. Zur kulturgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der Gedächtniskunst 1400–1750. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993, 351–372. Pastoureau, Michel, “Aux origines de l’emblème: la crise de l’héraldique européenne aux XVe et XVIe siècles.” In: Jones-Davies, Marie Thérèse., ed., Emblèmes et devises au temps de la Renaissance. Paris: J. Touzot, 1981, 129–136. Also in: Pastoureau, Michel, L’Hermine et le Sinople. Etudes d’héraldique médiévale. Paris: Léopard d’or, 1982, 327–334 Peil, Dietmar, “Emblem Types in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Nucleus Emblematum.” Emblematica 2 (1992): 255–282. Peil, Dietmar, “Zum Problem der Physiologus-Traditionen in der Emblematik.” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 30 (1995): 61–80. Plotke, Seraina, “Emblematik vor der Emblematik? – Der frühe Buchdruck als Experimentierfeld der Text-Bild-Beziehungen.” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 129 (2010): 127–142. Pollard, Alfred W., An Essay on Colophons. With Specimens and Translations. (Burt Franklin Bibliography and Reference Series 142) New York: Burt Franklin, 1968. Pollard, Alfred W., Old Picture Books: With Other Essays on Bookish Subjects. London: Methuen, 1902. (Reprint: New York: B. Franklin, 1970).

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Pollard, Alfred W., Early Illustrated Books: a History of the Decoration and Illustration of Books in the 15th and 16th Centuries. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1893. (Reprints: London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1917, New York: Haskell, 1968). Porteman, Karel, Inleiding tot de Nederlandse emblemataliteratuur. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1977. Praz, Mario, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. 2 Vols. London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1939. (2nd enlarged edition: Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1964 [Sussidi eruditi 16]) . Prete, Sesto. The Humanists and the Discovery of Printing. Krefeld, Germany: Scherpe, 1982. Prieur, P. & Louis Dubois, Les arts graphiques et l’imprimerie. Puteaux: Prieur et Dubois et Cie, 1906. Prijs, Joseph, Die Basler hebräischen Drucke (1492–1866). Enl. & ed. Bernhard Prijs. Olten: Urs Graf-Verlag, 1964. Rautenberg, Ursula, “Die Ökonomie des Buches und der Leser. Flächengliederung, Index und Titelblatt.” In: Miedema, Nine & Rudolf Suntrup, eds., Literatur – Geschichte –Literaturgeschichte. Festschrift für Volker Honemann zum 60. Geburtstag. Frankfurt am Main & New York: Lang, 2003, 503–512. Rautenberg, Ursula, “Pojawlenije titula w epochu rannewo knigopetschatania [Emergence of the title page in early printing].” Kniga i ziwilisazia 2, 2004, 86–89. Rautenberg, Ursula, Das Titelblatt. Die Entstehung eines typographischen Dispositivs im frühen Buchdruck. Erlangen: Buchwissenschaftliches Seminar der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2004. Rautenberg, Ursula, “La page de titre. Naissance d’un dispositif typographique dans les débuts de l’imprimerie.” In: Messerli, Alfred & Roger Chartier, eds., Scripta volant, verba manent. Schriftkulturen in Europa zwischen 1500 und 1900. Basle: Schwabe-Verlag, 2007, 61–92. Rautenberg, Ursula, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Buchtitelblatts in der Inkunabelzeit in Deutschland, den Niederlanden und Venedig. Quantitative und qualitative Studien.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 62 (2008): 1–105. Reudenbach, Bruno, “Ein Weltbild als Hieroglyphe. Das Signet des Warburg Institute.” In: Buschendorf, Bernhard & Michael Diers, eds., Porträt aus Büchern. Bibliothek Warburg und Warburg Institute. Hamburg – London 1933. Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 1993, 145–155. Richter, Günther, “Humanistische Bücher in Buchhändlerkatalogen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts.” In: Krafft, Fritz & Dieter Wuttke, eds., Das Verhältnis der Humanisten zum Buch. Boppard: Boldt, 1977, 184–208. Rosand, David, “Ekphrasis and the Generation of Images.” Arion 1 (1990): 61–105. Schechter, Frank I., The Historical Foundations of the Law Relating to Trade-marks. New York: Columbia University Press, 1925. (Reprint: New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, 2008). Schenck, Eva-Maria, Das Bilderrätsel. Hildesheim & New York: Olms, 1973. Schenk zu Schweinsberg, Eberhard, Art. “Devise.” In: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte. Vol. 3. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1954, 1345–1354. Scholz, Bernhard F., “‘Libellum composui, cui titulum feci Emblemata.’ Alciatus’ Use of the Expression ‘Emblema’ Once Again.” Emblematica 1 (1986): 213–226. Scholz, Bernhard F., “The 1531 Augsburg Edition of Alciato’s Emblemata: A Survey of Research.” Emblematica 5 (1991): 213–254. Scholz, Bernhard F., “From Illustrated Epigram to Emblem: The Canonization of a Typographical Arrangement.” Speed Hill, W., ed., New Ways of Looking at Old Texts. Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, 1985–1991. Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies: Renaissance English Text Society, 1993, 149–157. Scholz, Bernhard F., Art. “Emblem.” In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997, 435–438.



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Scholz, Bernhard F., Art. “Emblematik.” In: Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike. Vol 13. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1999, 952–956. Scholz, Bernhard F. “Ekphrasis and Enargeia in Quintilian’s Institutionis oratoriae libri xii.” In: Oesterreich, Peter L. & Thomas O. Sloane, eds., Rhetorica Movet. Studies in Historical and Modern Rhetoric in Honour of Heinrich F. Plett. Leiden: Brill, 1999, 3–24. Scholz, Bernhard F., Art. “Hieroglyphik.” In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000, 46–49. Scholz, Bernhard F., Art. “Imprese.” In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000, 135–137. Scholz, Bernhard F., Emblem und Emblempoetik. Historische und systematische Studien. (Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft – Wuppertaler Schriften 3) Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002. Sebastiani, Valentina, “Basilea 1514, Erasmo e Froben: un incontro fortuito o una raffinata strategia editoriale?” In: Baldini, Artemio E. & Massimo Firpo, eds., Religione e politica in Erasmo da Rotterdam. (Studi storici e politici 6) Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2012, 201–218. Sebastiani, Valentina, “Die kulturelle, geistige und materielle Bedeutung des Bündnisses zwischen Humanismus und Druckwesen im Basel der frühen Neuzeit (1477–1513). Eine Studie zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen Johannes Heynlin und Johannes Amerbach.” In: Christ-von Wedel, Christine et al., eds., Basel als Zentrum des geistigen Austauschs in der frühen Reformationszeit. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014, 79–95. Smith, Margart M., The Title-Page. Its Early Development 1460–1510. London: The British Library; New Castle, Del.: Oaknoll Press, 2000. Sotheby, Samuel L., The Typography of the Fifteenth Century: Being Specimens of the Productions of the Early Continental Printers, Exemplified in a Collection of Fac-similes from One Hundred Works, together with their Water Marks. Arranged and Edited from the Bibliographical Collections of the Late Samuel Sotheby, by his Son, S. Leigh Sotheby. London: T. Rodd, 1845. Spica, Anne-Elisabeth, Symbolique humaniste et emblématique: l’évolution et les genres (1580–1700). (Lumière classique 8) Paris: H. Champion, 1996. Stegman, André, “Les théories de l’emblème et de la devise en France et en Italie (1520–1620).” In: Giraud, Yves & Claudie Balavoine, eds., L’emblème à la Renaissance. Paris: Sedès, 1982, 61–77. Sternaux, Ludwig, “Das deutsche Signet des Mittelalters.” Das Sammlerkabinett 3 (1922): 9–17. Stoddard, Roger E., Marks in Books. Illustrated and Explained. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 1985. Stokes, Henry P., The Emblem, the Arms and the Motto of the University of Cambridge. Notes on their Use by University Printers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928. Stolberg-Rilinger, Barbara, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne.” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 31 (2004): 489–527. Stopp, Frederick J., The Emblems of the Altdorf Academy: Medals and Medal Orations, 1577–1626. London: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1974. Sulzer, Dieter, “Poetik synthetisierender Künste und die Interpretation der Emblematik.” In: Anton, Herbert, ed., Geist und Zeichen. Festschrift für Arthur Henkel zu seinem 60. Geburtstag. Heidelberg: Winter, 1977, 401–426. Świerk, Alfred, ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buches und seiner Funktion in der Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Hans Widmann zum 65. Geburtstag am 28. März 1973. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1974. Theise, Antje & Anja Wolkenhauer, eds., Emblemata Hamburgensia: Emblembücher und angewandte Emblematik im frühneuzeitlichen Hamburg. Katalog zur Ausstellung in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, 12. Februar – 22. März 2009. (Publikationen der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky 2) Kiel: Ludwig, 2009. Tomicka, Joanna A., “The Black Art. Typography and its Allegories in Emblems During the 16th-18th Centuries.” Bulletin du Musée national de Varsovie 39 (1998): 50–70.

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 Research Bibliography: The Early Modern Printer’s Mark in Its Cultural Contexts

Tschichold, Jan, “Das traditionelle Titelblatt.” In: Bose, Günter & Erich Brinkmann, eds., Schriften 1925–1974. Vol 2. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose, 1991, 218–234. Updike, Daniel B., Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use. A Study in Survivals. 2 Vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1922. (Reprints: Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1962; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press., 2001). Vanautgaerden, Alexandre, Erasme typographe. Humanisme et imprimerie au début du XVIe siècle. (Travaux d’ Humanisme et Renaissance 503) Geneva: Droz, 2012. Veneziani, Paolo, “Il frontespizio come etichetta del prodotto.” In: Il libro Italiano del ‘500: produzione e commercio (=Exhibition catalogue). Rome: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 1989, 101–125. Vernizzi, Cristina, Art. “Imprese, libri di.” In: Manuale enciclopedico della bibliofilia. Milan: S. Bonnard, 1997, 364–366. Vervliet, Hendrik D.L. & Fernand Baudin, eds., The Book Through Five Thousand Years. A Survey. London & New York: Phaidon, 1972. Volkmann, Ludwig, Bilderschriften der Renaissance. Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen. Appendix: “Hieroglyphen und Embleme in den Drucker- und Verlegerzeichen.” (Veröffentlichungen des deutschen Vereins für Buchwesen und Schrifttum) Leipzig: K. W. Hiersemann, 1923 (Reprints: Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf 1962 and 1969). Volkmann, Ludwig, “Von der Bilderschrift zum Bilderrätsel.” Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde N.F. 18 (1926): 65–82. Volz, Hans, “Das Lutherwappen als ‘Schutzmarke’.” Libri 4 (1953/54): 216–225. Vouillème, Ernst, “Nachträge zu den Buchhändleranzeigen des XV. Jahrhunderts in getreuen Nachbildungen.” In: Rath, Erich von, ed., Wiegendrucke und Handschriften. Festgabe Konrad Haebler zum 60. Geburtstag. Leipzig: K. W. Hiersemann, 1919, 18–44. Vuilleumier, Laurens F., La Raison des figures symboliques à la Renaissance et à l’Âge classique. Fondements philosophiques, théologiques et rhétoriques de l’image. (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 340) Geneva: Droz, 2000. Warncke, Carsten-Peter, Sprechende Bilder – Sichtbare Worte. Das Bildverständnis in der frühen Neuzeit. (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 33) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987. Warncke, Carsten-Peter, Symbol, Emblem, Allegorie. Die zweite Sprache der Bilder. Cologne: Deubner, 2005. Wehde, Susanne, Typographische Kultur: Eine zeichentheoretische und kulturgeschichtliche Studie zur Typographie und ihrer Entwicklung. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000. Wesseling, Ari, “Devices, Proverbs, Emblems. Hadrianus Junius’ Emblemata in the Light of Erasmus’ Adagia.” In: Bolzoni, Lina & Silvia Volterani, eds., Con parola brieve e con figura. Emblemi e imprese fra antico e moderno. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2008, 87–133. Wolkenhauer, Anja, “Alla ricerca di antenati classici. Tacitus, Ann. 11, 14 e l’attegiamento degli umanisti nei confronti della tipografia.” In: Secchi Tarugi, Luisa, ed., L’Europa del Libro nell’Età dell’Umanesimo. Atti del XIV Convegno Internazionale. Chianciano, Firenze, Pienza, 16–19 luglio 2002. (Quaderni della Rassegna 36) Florence: Franco Cesati, 2004, 205–218. Woodcuts, types and typographical devices reproduced from early printed books. Florence: T. de Marinis & C., 1913.

Contributors Andreas Bässler teaches Modern German Literature at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Major publications: Two monographs on interart studies with special reference to Renaissance Picta poesis: Sprichwortbild and Sprichwortschwank. Zum illustrativen und narrativen Potential von Metaphern in der deutschsprachigen Literatur um 1500. Berlin 2003 [Proverb Image and Proverb Story. On the Illustrative and Narrative Potential of Metaphors in German Literature around 1500] and Die Umkehrung der Ekphrasis. Zur Entstehung von Alciatos “Emblematum liber” (1531). Würzburg 2012 [The Reversal of Ekphrasis. On the Origins of Alciato’s Emblematum liber (1531)]. Articles on German literature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Valérie Hayaert is currently a research associate at the Institut des Hautes Études sur la Justice (IHEJ) Paris, France. Her research primarily focuses on legal iconology and the symbolic thought of Early Modern lawyers. Justice images, rituals and judicial settings are explored using tools from visual anthropology, art history and cultural history of law. Latest publications: Mens emblematica et humanisme juridique. Geneva 2008; together with Antoine Garapon: Allégories de Justice, la grand’chambre du Parlement de Flandre. Abbeville 2014; co-edited with Peter Goodrich: Genealogies of Legal Vision, London 2015. She currently acts as Review Editor for Emblematica, An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies. Paul G. Hoftijzer is P.A. Tiele professor in the history of the Early Modern Dutch book at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Among his research interests are the international booktrade of the Dutch Republic and the history of printing and bookselling at Leiden in the Early Modern period. Luuk Houwen holds the chair for Medieval Language, Literature and Culture at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. His research interests revolve around the dissemination of knowledge and the medieval natural world. Silvia Hufnagel studied German and Art History in Salzburg and Reykjavík and wrote her PhD thesis on an Icelandic mythical-heroic saga at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen. She held post-doc positions in Reykjavík, Caen and Copenhagen and is currently a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Her research interests are print and manuscript culture, the sociology of literature, quantiative codicology and post-medieval Icelandic manuscripts. Anna Jakimyszyn-Gadocha is an Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and the vice-director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University at Cracow, Poland (2012–2016). Her research interests concentrate on the history and culture of Polish Jews, especially the history of Jews in Cracow, the history of the Jewish book and Jewish folklore. She is the autor of several books and numerous articles including Mykwa. Dzieje żydowskiej łaźni rytualnej przy ul. Szerokiej w Krakowie. Cracow & Budapest 2012, Żydzi krakowscy w dobie Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej. Status prawny. Przeobrażenia gminy. System edukacyjny. Cracow & Budapest 2008, Statut krakowskiej gminy żydowskiej z roku 1595 i jego uzupełnienia (tłumaczenie w oparciu o transkrypcję Majera Bałabana). Cracow 2005. Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba is an Assistant Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. She is the author of Czcionką i piórem. Jan Januszowski w roli pisarza i tłumacza. Cracow, Poland DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-019

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 Contributors

2007, a monograph about a master-printer in sixteenth-century Cracow. Her recent work includes a monograph on the printers’ devices in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania entitled Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku. Źródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe. Cracow 2015, and an edition of a sixteenth-century book on fortune-telling, Fortuna abo Szczęście. Cracow 2015. Kristina Lundblad is an Associate Professor of Book History at Lund University, Sweden. Her research focuses on the cultural production of meaning in relation to books, their materiality and the historical conditions of their production. She is currently leading an international project on books and politics in which the political aspects of typography, paper and document types are investigated. She is the author of the award-winning book Bound to be Modern. Publishers’ Cloth Bindings and the Material Culture of the Book, 1840–1914. New Castle, Del. 2015 (Original Swedish edition: Om betydelsen av böckers utseende. Malmö 2010). Hubert Meeus is a Professor at the Department of Literature and the ISLN (Instituut voor de Studie van de Letterkunde in de Nederlanden) at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His subjects of research are literature and theatre in the Low Countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the history of the printed book from its invention till 1800. Dietmar Peil was a Professor of German Philology at Munich University, Germany from 1982 until his retirement in 2008. His research interests are in the fields of Medieval and Early Modern German Literature, the study of metaphor (“metaphorology”) and emblematics. Until 2011 he was the national representative for Germany of the Society for Emblem Studies; currently he is a member of the Editorial Board of Emblematica. His most recent publication is a volume of articles entitled Ausgewählte Beiträge zur Emblematik, Hamburg 2014. Bernhard F. Scholz was until his retirement a Professor of General and Comparative Literature at Groningen University, The Netherlands. His areas of interest were/are Word-Image Relations, esp. Early Modern and Modern (Emblem, Impresa, Rebus, Renaissance Hieroglyphs); Relations of Literature and Natural History (“Liber Naturae”, Buffon, Alexander von Humboldt); Early Modern Artes Mechanicae, especially pottery and bookbinding; “Nachleben” of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Proportional Figure” in the Modern Mass Media, esp. in Advertising; History of Poetics and Rhetoric; Concept History (“Begriffsgeschichte”), Bakhtin. Melinda Simon is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Cultural Heritage and Human Information Science at the University of Szeged, Hungary. The main focus of her research is on the history of printing. Her fields of specialisation include the study and cataloguing of Hungarian printers’ and publishers’ marks, and characteristics of European devices of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Konstantinos Sp. Staikos was born in Athens in 1943. He studied interior architecture and design, and has been practising in that field since the 1960s. In his professional capacity he was commissioned to redesign and reorganize two historic libraries of the Christian world: those of the Monastery of St John on Patmos (founded in 1089), completed in 1989, and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Phanar, Constantinople (dating from 353, soon after the city’s official inauguration as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire), completed in 1993. Towards the end of the 1980s he embarked on a systematic study of the history of libraries in the countries of the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East. Among his publications are The Great Libraries: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. New Castle, Del. 2000; the five volume History of the Library

Contributors 

 415

in Western Civilization. New Castle, Del. 2001–2013; Books and Ideas. The Library of Plato and of the Academy, New Castle, Del. 2013; The Library of Aristotle. New Castle, Del. 2016 and The Greek Editions of Aldus Manutius and his Greek Collaborators, New Castle, Del. 2016. Joanna A. Tomicka is an Art Historian. She studied at the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1996 she has been a Curator in the Department of European Prints (XV–XIX c.) at the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. Her fields of interest include Dutch, Flemish and French printmaking of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the reception of antiquity in Early Modern times, emblematics and typography. Publications in such journals as the Bulletin of Art History (BHS), CODARTCourant, Glasgow Emblem Studies, Littératures classiques. Her exhibition catalogues include Rembrandt: Drawings and Prints in the Polish Collections: Critical Catalogue. Warsaw 2009; Ars Mitologica. Issues Concerning the Reception of Greek Myths. Ancient Ceramics and Sculpture, European Graphic and Decorative Art of sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Warsaw 1999. Among her articles are “Ars Scientiae. Grafika zachodnioeuropejska z kręgu ikonosfery nauki XVI– XVIII w.” In: Visualization of Knowledge. From Biblia Pauperum to Hypertext, ed. Maciej Kluza. Lublin 2010: 74–87; “Le paysage en Vanité dans L’art graphique européen, XVIe–XVIIIe siécles. Pistes de lecture.” In: Littératures classiques, No 56 (2005):187–197; “The Black Art: Allegories of Typography in Emblems during the 16th–18th centuries”, In: Bulletin Du Musée National de Varsovie 39, N˚ 1–4 (1998): 50–70. Judit Vizkelety-Ecsedy is a researcher in the Department of Book History of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest, Hungary. Her publications focus on the national bibliography of Hungary, the history of printing in Hungary, the history of book illustration and typography, and false and fictitious imprints. Anja Wolkenhauer was educated at the Universities of Hamburg and Florence. She studied Classics, Art History and History of Sciences after having gained several years of work experience as an antiquarian bookseller. Currently, she serves as Chair of Latin Philology at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany. Since her Doctoral Dissertation, entitled Zu schwer für Apoll. Die Antike in humanistischen Druckerzeichen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden 2002) she has been trying to bring together different disciplinary approaches to the Early Book and Printing Culture in her books and articles, workshops and exhibitions.

Index Namely an index of proper names, place names, literary works, personifications and mottoes A Jóságos erköltsnek semmi sem nehéz 342 Aa, Pieter van der 187, 188, 190 Aaron and Gershom ben Chaim David ha-Levi 137 Aberdeen 60 Åbo 229 Abraham 134 Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe 143 Ackersdijk, Theodor ab 355 Agathander see Bonhomme Aich, Johann von 18 Akontiano, Gabriel 114 Alba, reign of 95 Albert V, Duke of Bavaria 203, 209 Alberti, Leandro 30 Alberti, Leon Battista 30, 42 Albertinus, Aegidius 205, 219, 220 Alberto III Pio da Carpi 309, 312 Alcalá de Henares 121 Alciato, Andrea 3, 5–10, 12–15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 25, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 54, 59, 88, 92, 93, 97, 201–204, 270, 271, 273–281, 283–286, 320, 324, 326, 327, 341 – Concordia 327 – De singulari certamine liber 301 – Ex literarum studiis immortalitatem acquiri 59, 161 – Firmissima convelli non posse 326 – In silentium 12, 320 – Nec verbo nec facto 17 – Obdurandum adversus urgentia 13 – Parergon Iuris 297 – Princeps subditorum 54 Alexander I Jagiellon, king of Poland 154 Alexander of Crete 112 Alexander the Great 36, 41 Aliis inserviendo consumor 349 Altius labore et favore 338, 339, 341 Amana, Henricus 335 Ambró, Ferenc Ignác 342 Ambrose (Saint) 68 Amerbach, Bonifacius 8 Ammonius Hermiae 106 Amor fervens 83 Amor vincit omnia 91, 264 DOI 10.1515/9783110430271-020

Amoros, Carlos 234 Amsterdam 77, 137, 169, 191, 335, 337, 343, 352, 357 Anchora salutis Christus 341 Andromeda 303 Andros 32 Aneau, Barthélemy 20, 302–304, 309, 311 Anglicus, Bartholomaeus 284 Anthologia Graeca 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 17, 32, 36, 37 Antioch 242 Antwerp 42, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 162, 175–177, 179, 185, 189, 174, 342 Apianus, Peter 342, 369 Apollonios of Tyre 114 Arason, Jón 257 Arbuthnet, Alexander 54, 57 Aristophanes 108, 343 Aristotle 103, 106, 107, 282, 284–286, 288–291, 300–302 Arnhem 18 Arnold, Johann 308 Arte et Marte 341 Asclepius 249 Asher ben Yechiel 131 Assurgo pressa 179 Athena 164, 170, 186, 187, 189, 247, 303, 338, 341–343, 348–350 Athos 111, 112 Atlantis 245 Aubrius, Johannes 311 Audin, Marius 347 Augsburg 5, 7, 215, 354, 355, 368, 373 Augustus 108 Ausonius 38, 39 Back, Govaert 82 Badger, Richard 52, 56 Badius Ascensius, Jodocus 42, 152, 308, 350 Balen, Pieter van 177 Bamberg 199, 200, 220, 353, 357 Barbou, Joseph 354 Barcelona 234 Barker, Christopher 187 Barker, Robert 187 Barth, Peter 357

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 Index

Bartholomeus, Daniel 349 Basil the Great 114 Basis actionum charitas 178 Basle 12–14, 24, 34, 35, 111, 121, 180, 237, 271, 280, 306, 307, 319, 353, 354, 368, 372 Bassaeus, Nicolaus 41 Basson, Govert 179 Basson, Thomas 177–179 Bauer, Georg 348 Beale, John 58 Beatus Rhenanus 34 Beauvais, Vincent de 271, 284, 289 Bebel, Johann 6, 14, 15, 180 Behem, Franz 185 Belgium 77, 78, 83, 85, 96 Bell, Henry 67 Bellagatta, Domenico 354 Bellerus, Joannes 89, 91, 92, 97 Bellini, Giovanni 32 Bembo, Pietro 308 Bene naufragium feci 95 Benedetti, Alessandro 271 Benigni, Cornelio 109, 110 Benno, Bishop of Meissen 209, 210, 214 Berg, Adam – the Elder 197–211, 213, 217, 221, 222 – the Younger 198, 212, 213 Berg, Anna 198, 207, 211–213, 219, 220 Berger, Christoph Heinrich 352 Bergh, Jean van den 357 Berghen, Adriaen 82 Beunje, Jacob de 170 Beys, Gilles 90 Bèze, Théodore de 8 Bible 10, 12, 57, 62, 68, 81, 83, 95, 172, 179, 180–182, 190, 199–201, 209, 227, 235, 251, 259, 260, 321, 333, 338, 340 – New Testament 57, 67, 83, 94, 96, 131, 172, 173, 227, 232–234, 236, 336 – Old Testament 162, 333, 334, 336, 339, 340, 343 – Psalms 69, 93, 145, 158, 165, 208, 246, 298, 306, 321, 336, 342, 344, 345 Biblia Polyglotta 90 Bielck, Johann Felix 352 Bignon, Jean 304 Biondo, Flavio 29 Birckman, Arnold 82 Bissoli, Giovanni 105 Blado, Antonio 114

Blaeu, Willem Jansz 191 Bleck, Wibius 355 Bleyswyck, Frans van 169, 192 Block, Gerard 353 Boechout, Adriaen Kempe de 95 Boethius 12, 13 Bohemia 130 Boissard, Jean Jacques 311 Bologna 356 Bolt, Jacob 355 Bonhomme, Macé 302, 304, 305, 309, 311 Bonte, Gregorius de 79, 92 Boom, Heinrich 357 Boom, Theodor, the widow of 357 Botticelli, Sandro 42 Bouwensz, Jan 177 Boxe, Willem Christiaensz van der 184, 191 Brabant 80 Brandis, Lucas 233 Brask, Hans 227, 231 Bratislava see Pozsony Breidabólstadur 258, 259 Bremen 353 Brescia 114 Breu, Jörg 14, 15 Brevis hora ima permutat summis 88 Brewer, Samuel 341, 343 Bruges 79 Bruni, Leonardo 103 Brussels 80 Buch, Christian Franz 350 Buda 342 Bünting, Heinrich 240 Buonaccorsi, Filippo 112 Burby, Cuthbert 56 Bütgen, Konrad 199 Bynneman, Henry 49, 50, 52, 56, 63 Caelum non inferiora sequor 245, 246 Calabria 112 Callistratus 31, 37, 41 Calvo, Francesco 6, 8, 9, 270, 271, 273–277, 279–281, 283, 288, 289, 291, 292, 297 Cambridge 60 Camerarius, Joachim 20, 216, 301, 309 Candidior illis 341 Cantimpratensis, Thomas 284 Cantiuncula, Claudius 35 Caritas 325 Cartari, Vincenzo 31

Index  Casimir Vasa, king of Poland 164 Cassioticus nodus 7, 22, 306 Catuffe, Jean 350 Cauweel, Jan 80 Caxton, William 52, 61 Celerius elephanti pariunt 281–283, 287, 289 Celle 351 Ceres 182 Cernit deus omnia vindex 245, 246 Cervicornus, Eucharius 35, 41–44 Cervini, Marcello 114 Cezary, Franciszek 161 Chaignieau, François 355 Chalkokondyles, Demetrios 104, 105 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 116 Charles VIII, king of France 271 Charron, Jean 304 Chepman, Walter 55, 63 Chigi, Agostino 109 Christina, queen of Sweden 239, 247 Chronos 191 Chrysoloras, Manuel 103 Chrysostom, John 35 Ciriaco d’ Ancona 29 Claesz, Pieter van Balen 172 Clerc, Guillaume le 290 Clercq, Pieter de 79 Clousier, Jacques 353 Cluj-Napoca see Kolozsvár Clusius, Carolus 176 Coesmans, Hans 88 Cologne 18, 40, 177, 199, 200 Conatus dii fortunant 201, 211 Concordia 327 Concordia res parvae crescunt 92, 180, 327 Conradi, Johann Gottfried 349 Constantinople 42, 103, 105, 110–112, 117 Copenhagen 229, 238, 257–259, 351 Cor rectum inquirit scientiam 83 Cor regis in manu Domini 162 Corfu 115, 118, 119 Cornarius, Janus 39 Corona iustitiae 91 Corrozet, Gilles 41, 43 Corvinus, Antonius 259, 264 Cosimo, Piero di 303 Cotta, Christoph Friedrich 348 Cousin, Gilbert 8 Coustellier, Anton 354

 419

Cracow 125, 129–131, 133, 136, 137, 141, 142, 153, 154, 315–322, 325 Cramer, Johann Heinrich 348 Cranach, Lucas – the Elder 236 – the Younger 261 Cratander, Andreas 6, 9, 35, 41, 44, 237, 238 Creede, Thomas 51, 58 Crescit eundo 339, 341 Crespin, Johann 53 Crete 105, 110, 114, 118 Crinitus, Johannes 238 Cröcker, Johann Rudolf, widow of 354 Croon, Willem 348 Croy, Philippe de 186 Cruce itur ad caelum 214 Cunctando propero 177 Cuno, Christian Heinrich 349 Curio, Henric 229, 243, 244, 247, 249, 250 Dalen, Cornelis van 191 Dalen, Daniel van den 170, 191 Damilas, Demetrios 103 Damme, Hendrik van 182, 191 Damme, Jan van 170 Daniel, prophet 80 Danzig see Gdańsk Dat esse manus, superesse Minerva 187 David, king 96 Davidson, Thomas 55 Dawson, John 54 Dawson, Thomas 65 Day, John 69 Dayn, Victor 81 De Croock, Hubert 79 De Gheet, Jan 79 De la mia morte eterna vita io vivo 56 Debrecen 333–335, 338, 340–345 Dederich, Vincent 357 Dekadyos, Ioustinos 112 Delatour, Louis-François 348 Delft 82, 171, 181 Demeter 53 Denham, Henry 52 Denmark 229, 259, 264 Deo et conatu 338, 339, 341 Detrahit et polit 187 Detrekö 341 Deus adiutor in tempore opportuno 240 Deus labore omnia vendit 218

420 

 Index

Devaris, Matthaios 116 Deventer 103 Didot, François-Ambroise 354 Dietz, Ludwig 264 Digito compesce labellum 320 Dii laboribus omnia vendunt 90 Diligere parentes, prima naturae lex 92 Dillingen 215 Disticha Catonis 88, 96 Ditata dulcedo 341 Diu parturiens, nihil pariens 273–277, 281, 286, 288, 291 Dobereiner, Philipp 206 Doesborch, Jan van 85, 86 Dole, Antoine van 349, 352 Dominus providebit 338, 341 Dorheit macht Arbeit 264 Dorp, Jan Claesz van 172, 177, 183 Dorpe, Roeland van den 80, 85 Doude, Aernout 186 Doukas, Demetrios 108 Dousa, Janus 175 Dresden 354 Drexel, Jeremias 213 Du labeur la gloire 303, 304 Du labeur la vie 304 Dulcia mixta malis 89 Dulssecker, Johann Reinhold 353 Dürer, Albrecht 32 Durus et constans ut petra 217 Eckert van Homberch, Henrick 79, 82 Edinburgh 55, 57 Einarsson, Gissur 258 Eisleben 236 Eitzenberger, Franz Anton 342 Ek tou ponou ho kléos 309 Eld, George 70 Eliakim ben Chaim Helicz 131 Eliezer ben Yitzhak 131 Elizabeth I, queen of England 60 Elzevier office 180 335, 343, see also Non solus Elzevier, Abraham 180, 343, 344 Elzevier, Bonaventura 180, 343, 344 Elzevier, Isaac 180 Emergam 216 Engel, Johann Joseph 341 Engelvaart, Pieter 170 England 51, 53 England, Nicholas 53

Episcopius, Nicolaus 309 Erasmus Roterodamus 5, 7, 12, 22, 34, 35, 39, 42, 88, 91, 93, 95, 96, 103, 108, 157, 173, 188, 272, 279–283, 285, 287, 289, 291, 312, 320 – Historiae Augustae scriptores 34 – New Testament 34 Erfurt 121 Erik XIV, king of Sweden 227 Erpenius, Thomas 179 Eskrich, Pierre 303 Esslinger, Friedrich 350 Estienne family 158, 180 Estonia 241 Estote prudentes sicut serpentes et simplices sicut columbae 94, 281 Et flore et fructu 335, 341 Europe 6, 11, 17, 78, 85, 125, 334, 335, 340, 348, 353, 354 Eustathius of Thessalonica 114 Ex bello pax 92, 183, 341 Ex morte immortalitas 183 Ex pace ubertas 341 Exerce imperia et ramos compesce fluentes 93 Eyfrid, Konrad 335 Fabert, Abraham 311 Fabri, Bartholomeus 232 Fabriano, Giacomo 117 Fac et spera 181, 191 Fama 96, 151, 242, 248, 342 Fama volat 342 Faques, Richard 64 Faques, William 64 Fasanini, Filippo 32 Felsecker, Carl 350 Festina lente 276, 277, 279–281, 298, 306, 311, see also Manutius Feucht, Jakob 199, 200 Feuille, Daniel de la 301 Fides 325 Field, Richard 51, 56 Filep, Sámuel Deáki 341 Finland 229 Fisher, Thomas 67, 68 Flavius Josephus 177 Florence 42, 103, 107, 111, 303 Fontio, Bartolomeo 42 Förster, Georg Ludwig 353 Fortuna 9, 53, 86–90, See also Occasio

Index  Fortuna cum blanditur, tunc vel maxime metuenda est 88 Fortuna favente 88 Fortuna rotat omne Fatum 88 Frambotti, Paolo 247 France 6, 35, 79, 300, 310, 312, 318 Franck, Caspar 207, 208 Francken, Christoph Peter 357 François I, king of France 310 Franeker 335, 355 Frank, Hans 35 Frankfurt a.M. 111, 162, 350, 352, 355, 357 Freysing 354 Fritsch, Caspar 349, 354 Fritz, Johann Nepomuk 350 Froben, Johann 6, 7, 9, 10, 22, 24, 34, 35, 270, 271, 273, 275–278, 280, 281, 289, 291, 292, 297, 306, 309, 368 Fructus Concordiae 92 Fuchs, Caspar Heinrich 351 Fulget crucis mysterium 83 Fulvio, Andrea 29 Furius Antias 93 Furter, Michael 368, 372 Fust, Johann 78, 126, 364, 368, 372 Gallet, George 349 Ganymede 18 Garbe, Johann Gottlieb 357 Gdańsk 164, 165, 351 Gebauer, Johann Justinus 352 Gellius, Aulus 35, 93 Gemelos, Augustinos 119 Geneva 53, 60, 68, 159, 341, 354 George (Saint) 53, 64 Germany 6, 35, 78, 88, 94, 229, 234, 243, 264, 318 Geronimus, Dennis 303 Gerrevink, Johannes van 170 Gesner, Conrad 284 Gessner, Andreas 322 Ghent 81, 83, 92, 94 Giberti, Gian Matteo 114 Giolito de’ Ferrari, Gabriele 56 Giovio, Paolo 84, 173, 174, 183, 271, 275, 277 Giunti family 298, 309 Giustiniani, Marco Antonio 143, 144, 368 Gloria in excelsis Deo 342 Gloria mundi 186 Goebhardt, Tobias 353, 354

 421

Goeree, Jan 192 Goes, Hugo 52, 66 Goes, Mathias van der 79, 80, 82 Goltze, Moritz 368 Goltzius, Hubertus 95 Gorgon 349 Gosse, Pierre 357 Gothenburg 242–244 Göttingen 351, 357 Gouda 230, 231 Grabbe, Johann Gottlieb 348 Grafton, Richard 51 Granjon, Robert 119 Grapheus, Joannes 92, 93 Grasset, François 350 Grattenauer, Ernst Christoph 353 Graviora legis misericordia, fides, iudicium 92 Great Britain 312 Greece 29, 32, 110, 116 Grefwe, Amund 242–244 Gregory of Nazianzus 114 Griffith, William 58, 68 Gröll, Michael 354 Groningen 355 Grotius, Hugo 176 Gründler, Gottfried August 357 Grus Vigilans 24 Gryphe, Antoine 305 Gryphe, Sébastien 57–59, 305, 307 Gsellius, Georg Konrad 351 Gubbins, Thomas 58 Gudbrandsbiblia 259 Guevara, Antonio de 201, 203, 205, 211, 212, 222 Gustav I Vasa, king of Sweden 227, 232, 238, 239, 252 Gustav II Adolf, king of Sweden 239, 245 Gutenberg, Johannes 125, 315 Gutterwitz, Andreas 235, 238, 241 Guyot, Christopher 177, 179 Gymmicus, Johannes 309 Haak, Theodor 353 Haaring, Frederik 187, 191 Hac itur ad astra 187 Hacque, Johann Baptist 342 Haec mel sugit, at ista venenum 342 Haestens, Hendrick van 177 Hagemann, Zacharias 242 Hall, Rowland 60, 68 Halle 349, 352, 356, 357

422 

 Index

Haller, Jan 153, 154, 316–318 Halma, François 355 Halych 130 Hamburg 177, 235 Hamont, Michiel van 80 Hanau 335 Harlingen 355 Harmelas Theophilus, Godefridus 88 Harpocrates 5, 12, 13, 320 Harpocraticum signum 319 Harrison, Richard 67 Hazenberg, Hendrik 170 Hedberg, Arvid 241 Heeneman, Frans 170 Heger, Frans de 186 Heidegger & Comp. 356 Heidelberg 354 Heinrich, Nikolaus – the Elder 198, 213 – the Younger 198, 210, 213–215, 217, 220, 221 Heinsius, Daniel 176, 191 Helicz brothers 130, 131 Helmstedt 357 Helsing, Anund Olofsson 240 Helsing, Olof Olofsson 245, 246 Heltai, Gáspár 341 Hendel, Johann Christian 349 Hercules 44, 182, 186, 190, 191 Hercules, Nicolaes 182 Herdingh, Leendert 170 Hermannsson, Halldór 257, 258 Herodotus 116, 301 Herold, Johann 32 Hertsroy, Johannes 198, 211, 215, 216, 218, 221 Hesiod 304 Hevelius, Johannes 164 Heyd vaste damme 182 Heynrici, Heynricus 171 Hillenius, Michel 79 Hilscher, Christian Gottlieb 351 His coepta expedire tentabo 249 Hjaltason, Ólafur 258, 259 Hochfeder, Kasper 153, 316 Hochmeister, Martin 339–341, 354 Hoffhalter, Raphael 334 Hoffhalter, Rudolf 334 Hólar 257, 258, 260, 262, 265 Holbein, Ambrosius 34, 35, 44 Holbein, Hans the Younger 12, 34, 35, 44, 238, 320

Hoochstraten, Johannes Hillen van 88 Hoochstraten, Michiel Hillen van 87 Horapollon 20, 32, 33, 32 Hörling, Johann David 355 Hörmann, Johann Andreas 344 Horst, Dierick Gerritsz 173 Hout, Jan van 172, 175 Hugh of St. Victor 289 Humanae vitae speciem praeferre videtur 93 Humbert, Pierre 352 Hungary 333–340 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego 116 Hutten, Ulrich von 34 Hypnerotomachia Polifili 11 Iceland 257–262, 264, 265 Ignatius of Antioch 242 Immolor Malis Bestiis 242 Immortalitati 183 In Deo spes est mea 338, 342 In dies arte ac Fortuna 89 In hoc signo vinces 83 In me mors et vita 199 In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo 339 Indefessus agendo 191 Ingenio et labore 338, 342 Ingenio et viribus 338, 342 Ingenio tantum 338, 342 Ingolstadt 200, 215, 342, 369 Invicta concordia 186 Invidiae amuletum 215 Isaac 134, 136, 141, 144, 146 Isidore of Seville 58, 70, 284, 289, 290 Isocrates 104 Isserles, Moshe 133 Italy 6, 133, 271, 289, 310, 312, 318, 354 Iustitia 93, 238, 251 Iustitia et Pax osculatae sunt 93 Jacob 248 Jacob, Cyriacus 162 Jacobäer, Friedrich Gotthold 348 Jaffe family 132, 141, 144 Jahve (Motto) 246 Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland 164 Janssonius, Johan 229, 243, 247–250 Januszowski, Jan 327 Jena 352, 354 Jerusalem 129, 132, 138, 140–144 Jesuits 206, 212–215, 218, 221

Index  Johan III, king of Sweden 227, 238 Johannes Chrysostomos 114 John (Saint) 175 Jollat, Mercure 15 Jönköping 244 Jonson, Ben 66 Jónsson, Arngrímur 260 Jónsson, Jón 258 Josef ben Yakar 131 Joseph ben Ephraim Karo 136, 138, 139 Jugge, Richard 54, 57, 67 Jung, Johann Adam 352 Junius, Hadrianus 20, 185 Juvenal 13, 320 Kachelofen, Konrad 368 Kaetz, Peter 79 Kairos See Occasio Kalliergis, Zacharias 105, 106, 109, 110, 112 Kalmar 239 Kalonymos ben Mordechai Jaffe 131 Kalonymos Kalman Jaffe 132, 145 Karancsi, György 344, 345 Karl IX, king of Sweden 239, 241 Karl X Gustav, king of Sweden 239 Karl XI, king of Sweden 239 Keerberghen, Jan (I) van 90 Keerberghen, Peeter van 95 Kertesz, Abraham Szenci 343 Kerver, Thielman 64 Keyser, Henrik – the Elder 240, 242 – the Younger 229, 240, 243, 244 Keyser, Merten de 94 Keysere, Arend de 79 Keysere, Pieter de 83 Kielcza, Wincenty of 155 Klett, Eberhard, widow of 355 Knight, Clement 63 Kohen family 130 Kollmann, Josef Franz 344 Kolozsvár 341, 342, 344, 353, 354 Komárom 341, 344 König, Johann Ludwig 353 König, Peter 198, 212, 215, 217, 218, 220, 221 Kontoleos, Christophoros 116 Koppe, Johann Christian 354 Kounadis, Andreas 111–115, 119 Kouvlis, Nikolaos 121 Kronos see Tempus

 423

Krug, Ernst Gottlieb 352 Kühnlin, Johann Heinrich 357 Kurzböck, Joseph 354, 356 Labore et constantia 77, 90, 93, 176, 190 see also Plantin Labore et industria 90 Laet, Hans de 90 Lambrecht, Joos 94 Langenheim, Johann Christian 350 Laocoön 30 Laonicus of Crete 112 Laskaris, Constantine 107 Laskaris, Janus 103, 109, 115 Latini, Brunetto 284, 290 Laurentsson, Amund 228, 235–238 Laurent-Vibert, Robert 347 Lauringer, Eucharius 245 Laus Deo 171 Lay, Sophie 216 Le Riche, Nicolas 298 Leeu, Gheraert 79, 80, 86, 230, 231, 233 Leeuwenhoek, Anthonie van 182 Leiden 170–180, 182–184, 186–192, 337, 343, 344, 352, 353 Leiden, Philips van 179 Leipzig 316, 351, 352, 354–357, 368 Lemerre, Alphonse 182 Leo X, Pope 109, 115, 116 Leoncini, Giacomo 120 Leoniceno, Ognibene 103 Lepetit, Jean-Jacques 354 Lerche, August Wilhelm 355 Lettersnijder, Cornelis H. 79 Leuven 78, 79, 83, 90, 91, 93, 96, 177 Levoča see Löcse Leysser, Cornelius 198, 216, 217 Liberty 170 Liceat sperare timenti 90 Liège 89 Liesvelt, Jacob van 79 Ling, Nicholas 67 Linköping 227, 244 Lipsius, Justus 176 Literae immortalitatem pariunt 96 Löcse 343 Löhnbom, Laurentius 242 London 53, 58, 177, 187 Louis XII, king of France 271 Louvain see Leuven

424 

 Index

Low Countries 335, 342, 355 Löwe, Anton 342, 344 Lübeck 230, 232–234, 238 Lublin 125, 131–133, 137–139, 144 Luchtmans, Jordaan 188 Luchtmans, Samuel 189 Lucian 32, 34, 35, 42, 43 – Calumny of Apelles 30, 32, 34, 36, 42, 44 – Hercules Gallicus 32, 35, 43 Lucretius 341 Lund 244 Luther, Martin 172, 227, 235, 261 Lviv 354 Lynne, Walter 70 Lyon 59, 299, 316 Lysippus 36, 39, 41 Mainz 185, 199, 364, 368 Maire, Antoine 177 Maire, Jean 177, 181, 191 Malcotius, Libertus 93 Malmö 244 Mangio, Benedetto 105 Manilius, Cornelius 92 Manilius, Gislenus 83, 92 Manilius, Gualtherus 83 Manneke, Jacob 170 Mansfeld, Johann Ernst 344, 357 Mansion, Colard 80 Mantegna, Andrea 32 Mantskovit, Valentinus 341 Manutius, Aldus 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 32, 103, 107, 111, 112, 152, 158, 249, 253, 270–272, 280, 297, 298, 306–308, 312, 368, see also Festina lente, Hypnerotomachia Marche, Christian Gottfried 349 Mariefred (monastery) 228 Marmaretos, Demetrios 117 Marnef, Dionyse 185 Marnef, Jérôme 185 Martens, Dirk 79 Martial 22, 24, 281 Masius family 83 Mathijszoon, Jan 173, 177 Matsys, Quentin 157 Matthiaes, Johannes 239 Matthíasson, Jón 257–259 Mauss, Johann Gerhard 342 Maximilian of Austria, Archduke 231 Mayneri, Mayno de 230

Medio tutissimus ibis 186 Medusa 302 Mela, Pomponius 35 Melanchthon, Philipp 238 Melpomene 96 Menachem Meisels ben Moshe Shimshon  133, 136 Mens immota manet 161 Mercurius 9, 53, 187, 189, 348, 354 Mersus ut emergam 216 Metz 316 Meurer, Ignatius 229, 240–243 Michault, Pierre 86 Middelburch, Hendrick Peetersen van 88, 95 Middleton, Henry 61, 69 Miechów, Maciej of 142 Mignault, Claude 17 Mihi non mundo sed adherere Deo bonum 246 Milan 103–105, 112, 230, 271, 354 Miller, Abraham 52 Miller, George 51 Miller, Johannes 368 Minerva see Athena Mint a Baran meg nemvl a nirv elot 333, 342, 343 Mocetto, Girolamo 44 Moeyaert, François 186 Mollijns, Jan 80 Montaigne, Michel de 371 Montesdoca, Martin de 174 Moravia 130, 133 Morberius, Gualterus 89 Mordehay ben Gershom ha-Kohen 143 More, Thomas 39, 42 Moretus, Jan 90 Mortier, David 349 Mortier, Pierre 353 Moscow 129 Moses 249 Mössmer, Sebastian 354 Multa quae uno impetu superari non possunt paulatim superantur. Ingenium plus quam vires 91 Munich 197, 198, 201, 203, 210, 212, 213, 215, 219, 221, 350 Murmelius, Stanislaw 162 Musurus, Marcus 103, 108 Mutua defensio tutissima 91 Mylner, Ursyn 66, 234 Myron 5

Index  Nafplio 121 Nagyszombat 340, 344 Ne extra oleas 335, 343, 354 Nemesis 17 Netherlands 103, 162, 171, 173, 243, 247, 337, 338 New York 129 Niclaes, Hendrik 93 Nicolai, Arnold 94 Nicolini da Sabbio brothers 112, 114, 115 Nicolini da Sabbio, Antonio 114 Nicolini da Sabbio, Cornelio 114 Nicolini da Sabbio, Giovanni 114 Nicolini da Sabbio, Giovanni Maria 114 Nicolini da Sabbio, Pietro 114 Nicolini da Sabbio, Stefano 113–115 Nil penna, sed usus 184 Nimia festinatio noverca eruditarum cogitationum 249 Noli altum sapere sed time 180, 338 Non satis una tenet ceratas anchora puppes 298 Non sine spe 276 Non solus 180, 189, 336–338, 343, 344 Norrköping 244 Norwich 177 Notaras, Anna 105 Notaras, Loukas, Grand Duke of Constantinople 105 Notary, Julian 65, 69 Nullum adversus sycophantae morsum remedium 44 Núpufell 258 Nuremberg 237, 316, 364, 350, 353 Nusquam solus 245 Nutius, Martinus 92 Nutius, Phillippus 92 Nyköping 244 Occasio 5, 9, 36, 39–41, 44, 87, 88, 237, 238, 251 Officium natura docet 174 Okes, Nicholas 54 Olofsson, Anund 241, 242, 252 Olympia 41 Omnia mecum porto mea 217 Oradea see Várad Orange, William of 174 Orwin, Thomas 56 Ossenbruck, Johann 200

 425

Ovid 24, 186, 191, 298, 303 Oxenbridge, John 67 Oxford 129 Pacem te poscimus omnes 335, 338, 344 Pacis opus 247 Padua 110, 247 Paep, Johannes 342 Paets Jacobsz, Jan 177 Paffraet, Richard 103 Pagliarini, Niccolò and Marco 355 Pallas nostra salus 187 Pange, lingua 94 Paradin, Claude 20, 184 Paradin, Guillaume 305, 306 Parijs, Guilliam van 83, 185 Paris 8, 11, 90, 111, 121, 185, 228, 234, 354, 355 Páriz, Ferenc Pápai 337 Parma 120 Pasquati, Lorenzo 117 Passe, Crispin de 19, 20–22, 24 Pastoureau, Michael 315 Patientia 89 Patras 111 Patzko, Franz August 336, 337, 344, 345 Patzowsky, Albert Anton 355 Paul (Saint) 95 Pauli, Johannes 247 Pauperies virtus studia in contraria tendunt 201 Pausanias 29, 32, 41, 116 Pax optima rerum, quas homini natura dedit 93 Pécs 341 Pederson, Claes 228 Pedetentim 249 Pegasus 96 Pellicier, Guillaume 117 Peloponnese 111 Per patientiam vestram possidete animas vestras 94 Pergamenus, Nicolaus 230 Periit et inventa est 69 Perrière, Guillaume de la 220 Perseus 302–305 Pest 339, 342 Pest-Buda-Kassa 353 Peter (Saint) 170 Petreius, Johannes 237 Petri, Andreas 236, 237 Peutinger, Konrad 8 Phalesius, Petrus 96

426 

 Index

Phidias 39 Philippin, Johanna Dorothea, née Sysangin 357 Philips, Jan Caspar 192 Philostrat 31 Phoenix 182 Physiologus 50, 55–57, 63, 71, 322 Picinelli, Filippo 290 Pigouchet, Philippe 55 Pindar 109 Pirckheimer, Willibald 32 Plaats, Folkert Jansz van der 355 Placho, Giorgio 352 Plantin office 176 Plantin, Christopher 77, 85, 90, 93, 119, 175–177, 190, 304 Plato 103, 106 Plautus 282, 285 Plavecký Hrad see Detrekö Pliny the Elder 32, 174, 282–291, 301 Plotinus 32 Plus Ultra 340 Plutarch 32, 91, 116, 177 Pluto 304 Poetsch, Gotthard 348 Poland 125, 129–131, 137, 144, 318, 325 Poland-Lithuania, Commonwealth of 318, 327 Poliziano, Angelo 39, 108 Posidippus 36, 38–40 Post tenebras lux 77 Pottendorf 342 Potuliet, Gerhard 352 Pozsony 336, 341–345 Prądnik Czerwony 317 Praestat (Motto) 191 Prague 129, 130, 131, 143 Preuss, Jacob 351 Princeps subditorum incolumitatem procurans 54 Principis amor, civium felicitas 276 Principium ex fide, finis in charitate 185 Pro memoria 344 Prodicus 304 Prostějov 133, 136 Provehimur non praemio, sed patrio amore 344 Prudens simplicitas amorque recti 22, 281, 306 Prudente simplicitate 22 Ptolemy I Soter, king of Egypt 43 Ptolemy, Claudius 116 Pynson, Richard 64, 66

Pythagoras 12, 33 Querceus, Erasmus 89 Qui duos insectatur lepores neutrum capit 91 Qui vicerit, possidebit haec 209 Quibus respublica conservetur 54 Quid tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris 300 Raban, Edward 60 Rabbi Jaffa Tzvi 146 Rade, Gillis van den 81 Rader, Matthäus 220 Radziwiłł, Mikołaj 163 Rallis, Konstantinos 116 Raphelengius, Christophorus 176 Raphelengius, Franciscus 176, 179 Raphelengius, Franciscus II 176 Raphelengius, Jodocus 176 Rastell, John 63 Ravescot, Ludovicus 78, 79 Reddo quod accepi 344 Redemptoris mundi arma 264 Redman, Robert 64 Rej, Mikołaj 163, 323, 324 Reusner, Christoffer 241 Reussner, Christoph August 348 Reval 241 Reykjavík 257, 259 Reynes, John 64 Rhine 188 Rhodiginus, Ludovicus Caelius 108 Richard, Jean 88 Richolff, Anne 233 Richolff, Jürgen – the Elder 229, 233 – the Younger 229, 232–235 Ridolfi, Niccolò 116 Rieger, Matthaeus 349, 355 Rihel, Theodosius 368 Rihel, Wendelin 17 Rivius, Gerardus 96 Roce, Denis 58 Roelants, Jan 91, 94 Rollenhagen, Gabriel 18–22, 24, 57, 59, 180, 181, 185 Roma 274 Romania 341–344 Rome 32, 243, 352, 355 Rosnyai, János 343 Rossos, Ioannis 105, 106 Rostock 238, 241, 264, 354

Index  Rotarius, Martinus 96 Rötzl, Franz Joseph 350 Rouillé, Guillaume 59 Roye, Mattheus van 95 Rudbeck, Johannes 245–247 Rudbeck, Olof the Elder 245 Rudolstadt 355 Ruremunde, Christoffel van 80 Ruscelli, Vincenzo 20 Sabbio 114, 115 Sadeler, Johann 218–220 Sadeler, Raphael 198, 215, 218–220 Sallust 162 Salus aliorum salus mea 350 Salutati, Coluccio 103 Sambucus, Johannes 20, 85 Santa Maria, Damiano 113, 114, 119 Sapiens omnia sua secum portet 217 Saraval, Leon Vit 129 Sárdi, Samuel 341 Sárospatak 343 Sassoferrato, Bartolo of 297–299, 312 Satis quercus 94 Scaliger, Josephus Justus 176 Scaliger, Julius Caesar 8 Scarlet, Thomas 49 Schädlin, Abraham 207, 208 Scheurleer, Henri 354 Schleuen, Johann David 357 Schneider, Jean Herman 357 Schöffer, Peter 59, 78, 231, 364, 368, 372 Schrot, Martin 202, 205 Scinzenzeler, Ulrich 104 Scriverius, Petrus 191 Scrutamini scripturas 94 Segen, Melchior 198, 213, 215, 221 Semel, et unum 290 Semper eadem 56, 183 Sermo Dei ignitus et penetrantior quovis gladio ancipiti 236 Sertorius, Quintus 91 Sessa, Melchior 114, 115 Seversz, Jan 171 Shakhor, Chaim 131 Sheldonian Theatre 356 Si deus nobiscum quis contra nos 89 Si Fortuna tonat nolito mergi 89 Si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae 89 Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses 12, 13

 427

Sibelius, Gerard 357 Siberch, John 60 Sibiu see Szeben Sic ars chalcographi saxea monstra domat. 304 Sic currite ut comprehendatis 91 Sidney, Sir Philip 270 Siebeneicher, Mateusz 321–323, 325–327 Sigismund III, king of Sweden 227 Silesia 131 Silvius, Carel 175 Silvius, Willem 94, 175, 177 Simmes, Valentine 62 Simon, Guillaume 89 Sine sanguinis effusione non fit remissio 83 Skálholt 258 Skot, John 58 Skulason, Thorlakur 259 Slovakia 340–345 Smits, Gerard 90 Snell, Johan 229–233 Söderköping 227, 231, 233 Sola fide 94 Soolmans, Niclaes 91 Sophianos, Nikolaos 115–117 Sophocles 108 Soubret, Rémy 338 Spain 174 Speelmans, Gerard 94 Spera in Domino, et fac bonitatem 181 Spernere vis mortem? Vis puram vivere vitam? Vis fieri sapiens, virque probus, vigila! 173 Spes alit agricolas 90, 189 Spes confisa Deo nunquam confusa recedit  336–338, 344, 345 Spinelli, Andrea 119–121 Spyridopoeus, Wilhelm 35, 42 St Albans Press 52 Stanislaus of Szczepanów (Saint) 154 Steelsius, Johannes 162 Steene, Jan (I) van den 94 Steene, Jan (II) van den 94, 186 Steene, Jan (III) van den 94 Steenwijck, Pieter 184 Steyner, Heinrich 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17 Stöckelman (Stockelmann), Hans 238 Stockholm 227, 230, 232, 233, 236, 239–241, 243, 247, 252, 257 Strabo 116 Strängnäs 239 Strasbourg 17, 121, 353, 368

428 

 Index

Strasse, Johan 232 Straube, Kasper 153, 315 Strick, Leonard 355 Strohmayer, Ignaz Anton 353 Structa super lapidem qui ruet ista domus 182 Stuchs, Johann 364, 372, 373 Studio ac labore 214 Studio et vigilantia 187 Sub parvo sed meo 220 Suidas 105 Sulke, Herman 235, 240, 241, 252 Suo premitur exemplo 301 Surius, Laurentius 208 Svenonis, Ericus 241 Sweden 227–233, 235, 238, 239, 241, 243, 245, 247, 252, 259 Syria 242 Szachna, Shalom 131 Szarfenberg, Maciej 321, 322 Szeben 341, 354, 357 Tabula Cebetis 32, 34 Taedama, Zacharias 335 Tallinn 241 Talmud 131, 134, 137–140, 145, 147 Tam diu parturiens, nihil pariens 273 Tandem bona causa triumphat 188 Tandem fit surculus arbor 357 Tarde sed tuto 276 Tempus 87 Terminus 156, 318 Terminus concede nulli 157 Teunissen, Cornelius 262 Teypins, Adriana 83 The Hague 352–354, 357 Theophylactus of Ohrid 114 Thibault, Jean 80, 90 Thomas Aquinas 171 Thompson, Silvanus 54 Thorláksson, Gudbrandur 258, 259 Thurneysen, Emanuel 259 Thysius, Johannes 184 Tibullus 189 Tidemansson, Torbjörn 235, 238 Tilianus, Hadrianus 88 Töltési, István 341, 343–345 Torah 137, 145 Torresano d’Asola, Andrea 113, 114 Torstensson, Anders 235, 238 Totum sic irrigat orbem 96

Tournes, Gabriel de 354 Tournes, Jean I de 299, 301, 305, 307 Transylvania 340, 344 Trattner, Johann Thomas 153, 339–341, 350, 356 Treveris, Peter 56 Trieste 129 Triptolemus 53 Trnava see Nagyszombat Tromp, Maarten Harpertsz 184 Troy 81 Tübingen 352 Tuta sub aegide Pallas 189 Tutum silentii praemium 173 Tzvi ben Abraham Kalonymos Jaffe 131–133, 136, 138, 139–142, 145 Ulfsson, Jakob 230 Ulrichsson, Olof 227 Ulrici, Olaus 227, 231–233, 235 Ungler, Florian 141, 154, 318, 319, 320 Uppsala 227, 229, 232, 233, 239, 243–245, 247, 248 Uri ben Faivus Aaron ha-Levi 137 Utrecht 19, 335, 341, 355 Vác 342 Vaenius, Otho 186 Valenciennes 177 Valeriano, Pierio 32 Valeris, Ippolytos 117, 118 Valeris, Matthaios 118 Valeris, Vasileios 117, 118 Valerius Maximus 92 Valerius, Stephanus 93 Valla, Giorgio 105 Van Ghelen family 83 Vandenhoeck, Abraham, the widow of 357 Várad 343 Varrentrapp, François 350 Västerås 239, 245, 246 Vautrollier, Thomas 58 Veen, Martin van der 355 Veith brothers 354 Veldener, Johannes 78 Vellert, Dirk 87 Velpius, Reinerus 91 Velpius, Rutger 93 Veni et vide 209 Venice 103, 105, 107, 111–122, 271, 280, 316, 342, 355, 368

Index  Verbum Dei 89 Verdussen, Hieronymus 342 Vergerio, Pier Paolo 103 Vergis, Antonios 119 Verhasselt, Merten 83 Verhulst, Rombout 170 Verona 114 Veronese, Guarino 103 Verruwhert, Sybrant 169 Verschout, Andries 175 Verus Pellicanus alit suo sanguine 83 Vervliet, Daniel 80 Verwithagen, Jan 91 Vesalius, Andreas 247 Victrix Fortunae Patientia 90 Victrix patientia duri 180 Vienna 334, 339–342, 344, 350, 354, 355–357 Vigilate 173, 174 Vignon, Eustache 341 Vijgh, Daniel 170 Ville, Nicolas de 349 Vinci, Leonardo da 32 Vincze, György 344 Virescit vulnere virtus 93 Virgil 93, 161, 187, 247, 335, 342, 344 Virgil Solis 207 Virgula divina 69 Virtus non territa monstris 182 Virtute duce, comite fortuna 57 Visconti, Ambrogio 297, 301, 302 Visconti, Otho 301 Visingsö 244 Visscher, Roemer 77 Vitae (Motto) 345 Vitam quae faciant beatiorem 22 Vitré, Antoine 182 Vivimus ex uno 186 Vivitur ingenio caetera mortis erunt 247 Vlastos, Nikolaos 105, 106 Volpe, Lelio dalla 348, 356 Voorn, Jacob 170 Voorn, Johannes 170 Vor fruwe tydher 233 Vorsterman, Willem 79 Vostre, Simon 234 Vriese, Peeter de 83 Waesberghe, Jan (I) van 96 Waesberghe, Johannes Janssonius van 335, 341

 429

Wald, Peder Ericsson 229, 245 Waldegrave, Robert 54, 70 Walther, Wolfgang 349 Ward, Robert 70 Warsaw 129, 354 Weber, Simon Peter 339, 341 Wechel, André 311 Wechel, Chrétien 8, 10, 11, 15, 309 Wedel, Daniel Ludwig 351 Weele, Jacob Marcus van der 177 Weidmann, Moritz Georg 354 Welleus, Hieronymus 91 Westfalia, Conradus de 78 Westfalia, Johannes de 78 Weygand family 356 Wietor, Hieronymus 156, 157, 318 Williamson, William 59 Windet, John 62 Wirzbięta, Maciej 163, 321–325 Wissenbach, Rudolf 322 Wither, George 57 Wittenberg 259, 368 Wohler, Johann Conrad 357 Wolfe, John 53, 56 Wolfe, Reyner 67, 69 Wolff, Joseph 354 Wolff, Thomas 12, 13, 15, 319, 320 Wolters, Johann 349 Woodcock, Thomas 67 Worde, Wynkyn de 234 Wrocław 129, 153, 321 Wykes, Henry 62, 69 Wykes, John 62 Yehuda Leib Meisels ben Simkha Bunem ben Avraham 136 Yehuda Yehuda Leib Meisels 141 Yitzhak ben Aharon 136, 146 Yitzhak ben Aharon Prostic 133, 134, 138–141, 144 Yitzhak ben Chaim 131 Zamoyski, Jan 160 Zangrius, Petrus 79 Zara 117 Zatta, Antonio 355 Zolkiew 125, 137 Zuerius Boxhornius, Marcus 191 Zürich 356