SOME FRENCH PRINTERS’ MARKS.

see endnote

F. ESTIENNE. Full text

It is rather a curious fact, all things considered, that the introduction of the printing-press into Paris should have only antedated its appearance in this country by four years; such however is the case. It was at the commencement of the year 1470, the tenth of the reign of Louis XI., that Ulrich Gering, Martin Krantz, and Michel Friburger commenced printing in one of the rooms of the College Sorbonne. They had learnt their art at Mayence, and at the dispersal of the office of Fust and Schoeffer had settled down at Basel. They were induced to take up their residence at the Sorbonne by Jean Heinlin and Guillaume Fichet, two distinguished professors of that place. The first book printed at Paris was the “Letters” of Gasparin of Bergamo, 1470, which contains the following quatrain at the end of the work:

BERCHTOLDVS R

B. REMBOLT.

By the end of 1472 the three companions had issued thirty works, apparently without indulging in the luxury of a Mark, but their patrons separating they had to leave the Sorbonne. Their new quarters were at the sign of the “Soleil d’Or” in the Rue St. Jacques—the Paternoster Row of Paris. Here they remained until 1477, when Gering was the sole proprietor. He was joined in 1480 by George Mainyal, and in 1494 by Bertholt Rembolt, and died in August, 1510. Within thirty years of the introduction of printing into Paris, there were nearly ninety printers, who issued nearly 800 works between 1470 and 1500. Rembolt, who succeeded Gering and preserved the sign of his office, was one of the earliest, if not the first to adopt a Mark, of which indeed he used four more or less distinct examples. We reproduce one of the rarest; his best known is a highly decorative picture, and has a shield (carrying a cross with the initials B. R. in the lower half of the circle which envelopes the foot of the cross) suspended from a vine tree and supported by two lions. Of this Mark there are at least two sizes; another of his Marks consisted of an enlarged form of the cross to which we have referred.

After Rembolt, the interest of the Printer’s Mark in France diverges into a number of directions. The most prolific printer was, perhaps, Antoine Vérard, who, dying in 1530, issued books continuously for about forty-five years: he was also a calligrapher, an illuminator, and a bookseller; his Books of Hours led the way for the beautiful productions of Simon Vostre, whilst his chief “line” consisted of romances, of which there are over a hundred printed on vellum and ornamented with beautiful miniatures. He had two Marks, one of which, consisting simply of the two letters A. V., is accompanied by the lines:

S V / SIMON VOSTRE

SIMON VOSTRE.

P R / CONCORDIA PARVE RES CRESCVNT / DISCORDIA MAGNE DILABVNTVR / PETRVS REGNAVLT

PIERRE REGNAULT.

Fides Ficit

GUY MARCHANT.

Of the second we give an example on p. 21. Among his publications may be mentioned “L’Art de bien Mourir,” 1492, which Gilles Couteau and J. Menard printed for him, whilst the punning Mark of the former is reproduced in our first chapter (p. 4). François Regnault, who printed a large number of books during the first half of the sixteenth century, had six Marks, chiefly variations on the one here given. He usually placed at the bottom of his books: “Parissis, ex officinâ honesti viri Francissi Regnault”; the accompanying reduced facsimile of one of his title-pages indicates the prominent position allotted at this early period to the printer’s Mark. A very remarkable and elaborate Mark of this family of printers was that of Pierre Regnault, who was putting forth books during nearly the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century. The Marchant family existed in Paris as printers for over 300 years (1481–1789). The first of the line, Guy, or Guyot, who printed books for Jehan Petit, Geoffrey De Marnef, and others, had as Mark four variations of the chant gaillard represented by two notes, sol, la, with one faith represented by two hands joined, in allusion to the words, “Sola fides sufficit,” taken from the hymn, “Pange lingua.” Beneath his Mark he placed the figures of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, patrons of the leather-dressers who prepared the leather for the binder, in which capacity Marchant acted on several occasions for Francis I. As was the case with his contemporaries, Marchant’s earliest books possessed no mark, and one of the first of the publications in which it appeared was the “Compost et Calendrier des Bergiers,” 1496. The De Marnef family also make a big show in the annals of French typography, particularly in the way of Marks, the various members using, between 1481 and 1554, nearly thirty examples, including duplicates, several of which were designed by Geoffrey Tory. Nearly all these Marks had the subject of the Pelican feeding her young as a centre piece. Jerome, however, used a Griffin among his several other examples, of which the two finest of the whole series are those numbered 746 and 812 in Silvestre, and are the work of Jean Cousin at his best. The founder of the family, Geoffrey, used the accompanying device in two sizes. The Janot family, of which the founder, Denys, was the most celebrated, were issuing books in Paris from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, and the more noticeable of their Marks contained the device: “Amor Dei omnia vincit—amour partout, tout par amour, partout amour, en tout bien” (see p. 15). The Macé family, which makes a good show with eleven Marks, was also a long-lived one of over 200 years, many of the members residing at Caen, Rennes, and Rouen, besides Paris. The same may be said to some extent of the Dupré or Du Pré family, 1486–1775; the two first, Jean or Jehan and Galliot, were the most celebrated. Of the dozen Marks employed by this family, the most original, it being the evident pun on his name, has a Galiote, at the head of the mast of which is the motto, “Vogue la Guallee,” or sometimes “Vogue la Gualee” (see p. 5). Jehan Du Pré the Lyons printer, used the accompanying Mark formed of his initials. The first as well as the most noted member of the Le Rouge family of printers was Pierre, who resided at Chablis, Troyes, and Paris, and who was the first to take the title of “Libraire-Imprimeur du Roi,” ceded to him by Charles VIII., and used in “La Mer des Histoires,” 1488. Appropriately enough, Michel Le Noir, whose motto we have already quoted, may be here referred to. He issued a large number of books, the most notable, perhaps, being “Le Roman de la Rose,” 1513. He was succeeded by his son Philippe in 1514, one of whose most noticeable publications was “Le Blazon des Hérétiques” (a satirical piece attributed to Pierre Gringoire), the figure or effigy at the head is signed with the monogram of G. Tory. The five Marks of father and son differed only in minor details, and the above example of Philippe will sufficiently indicate the character of the others. Philippe Pigouchet, who was an engraver as well as a bookseller and printer, contented himself apparently with one Mark. He is distinguished for the extreme care with which he turned out his books, particularly the Books of Hours which he undertook to produce in partnership with Simon Vostre; some of his works are freely copied by the publishers of to-day, and might with advantage be even more generally utilized than they are, for they possess all the attributes of beautiful books. Thielman Kerver, a German, was another printer who worked for Simon Vostre, one of his most important productions being a “Breviarium ad usum Ecclesiæ Parisiensis,” 1500, in red and black. His shop was on the Pont St. Michel, at the sign of the Unicorn, which, as will be seen, he adopted as his Mark, and of which there are two, which differ from one another only in minor details. Of Simon Vostre himself, a whole book might be compiled. From about 1488 to 1528 he devoted himself exclusively to the publishing of books, and employed all the best printers: it was by his energy combined with Pigouchet’s technical skill that the two produced, in April, 1488, the “Heures à l’Usaige de Rome,” an octavo finely decorated with ornaments and figures; the experiment was a complete success. It is generally assumed that the engraving was done in relief on metal, as the line in it is very fine, the background stippled, and the borders without scratches: wood could not have resisted the force of the impression, the reliefs would have been crushed, the borders rubbed and badly adjusted. The artistic connection of Pigouchet and Vostre lasted for eighteen years, and with them book production in France may be said to have attained its highest point. By the year 1520 Vostre had published more than 300 editions of the “Hours” for the use of different cities; he had two Marks, of which we give the larger example on p. 103.

see endnote

FRANÇOIS REGNAULT.
Full text
Text close-up

Le pellicā / E I G / De marnef	I P
DE MARNEF.	J. DU PRÉ.

.P. le Rouge	P N / PHILIPPE LE NOIR
PIERRE LE ROUGE.	PHILIPPE LE NOIR.

T K / THIELMAN KERVER

THIELMAN KERVER.

In many respects Jean or Jehan Petit is one of the most remarkable of the early French printers, whilst from the time he started to the final extinction of his descendants as printers covers a space of 336 years—a record which is probably unrivalled in the history of typography. Jehan Petit kept fifteen presses fully employed, and found a great deal of work for fifteen others. The family as a whole makes a good show with their marks, in which the founder is more extravagant than any of the others, having used, at one time or another, at least half-a-dozen more or less different examples. In addition to reproducing one of the finest, we give, on p. 9, also a reduced facsimile of a title-page of a book, the joint venture of Petit and Kerver; the combination of the two names on one title-page is distinctly novel and curious. He was on several occasions associated with others in producing a book, his connection with Josse Bade extending from 1501 to 1536. Of Bade or Badius it will be necessary to give a few particulars. He was born at Asche, near Brussels, and was a scholar and a poet as well as a printer. About 1495–7 he was engaged as a corrector of the press for Treschel and De Vingle at Lyons. He left about 1500 for Paris, where he started a press in 1502, which he called “Prelum Ascensianum.” In reference to this term, “the Ascension Press,” the word “prelum” was applied to the ancient wine presses, after which, in fact, the earliest printing presses were modelled. His Mark, which he first used in 1507, is the earliest picture of a printing-press. Thirteen years after, he adopted another device with the same subject, but differing in many important particulars. In the second, the composing-stick used by the figure in the act of setting type is changed from the right to the left hand; the press shows improved mechanical construction, indicating greater solidity and strength. In the latter example also the figure sitting at the case on the right side of the engraving is intended to represent a woman, instead of a man as in the earlier illustration. Contemporary with both Petit and Bade, Gilles or Gillet Hardouyn, 1491–1521, was both a printer and a bookseller, and used two Marks, of which we give the more striking. Germain Hardouyn, possibly a son of the preceding, confined himself more particularly to selling books during the first forty years of the sixteenth century.

pp. / PHILIPPE PIGOVCHET

PHILIPPE PIGOUCHET.

I P / IEHAN PETIT

JEHAN PETIT.

Prelū Ascēsianū / I B	NON PLVS
J. BADE.	GEOFFREY TORY.

printer's mark

GILLET HARDOUYN.

Geoffrey Tory resembled many others of the early printers in being also a scholar; but he was also an artist and an engraver, taking up and carrying on the great work inaugurated by Vostre and Vérard. He was born at Bourges in 1480, and one of his earliest works, which was published by Petit and printed by Gilles De Gourmont, was an edition of the “Geography” of Pomponius Mela, 1507, and between this time and his death he produced a number of Books of Hours, the decoration of which can only be described as marvellous. One of the most beautiful is undoubtedly the “Heures de la Vierge,” executed for Simon De Colines. What interests us most, however, is the Mark which he adopted when he entered into business as a printer and bookseller; it is perhaps the most elegant that had been up to that time designed. This Mark of the broken pitcher, with the motto “Non plus,” first appeared at the end of a Latin poem issued in 1524, is regarded as a memento of the death of his little daughter in 1522, and is thus explained: the broken pitcher symbolizes her career cut short; the book with clasps her literary studies; the little winged figure her soul; and the motto “Non plus,” “Je ne tiens plus à rien.” He gives his own interpretation of this Mark, however, in that curious medley of poetry and philosophy which he called “Champfleury,” 1529. It may be mentioned that on some of the bindings of his quarto volumes the broken pitcher is transversed by the wimble or toret—an obvious pun on his name.

S D C / S DECOLINES

SIMON DE COLINES.

The Estienne or Etienne family is probably the most important and interesting of the sixteenth century printers of Paris. Silvestre reproduces twenty Marks which one or other of the Estiennes employed, and a description of these might very well form a distinct chapter. But a condensed review of the family as a whole must suffice. Henry, the first of the name and chief of the family, was born at Paris about 1470; he started in 1502 a printing and bookselling business in the Rue du Clos-Bruneau, near the Ecoles de Droit; he adopted the device, “Plus olei quam vini”; and twenty-eight works are catalogued as having been printed by him. He died in 1521, leaving a widow and three children—François, Robert, and Charles. François I. continued the profession in company with Simon De Colines, who had been associated with his father, and who married the widow of Henry: his Mark is given as an initial to this chapter. Robert I., the second son of Henry, was born in 1503, and is probably more generally known as a Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scholar than as a printer. For several years he, like his brother, was associated with De Colines; he married Pétronille, daughter of Badius “Ascensius,” and was a Protestant; in 1526 he established a printing-press in the Rue St. Jean-de-Beauvois at the sign of the Olive. His editions of the Greek and Latin classics were enriched with useful notes, and promises of reward were offered to those who pointed out mistakes. He used the types of his father and De Colines until about 1532, when he obtained a more elegant fount with which he printed his beautiful Latin Bible. In 1552 he retired to Geneva, when he printed, with his brother-in-law, the New Testament in French. He established here another printing-press, and issued a number of good books, which usually carried the motto: “Oliva Roberti Stephani.” His Marks are at least ten in number, of which seven are variations of the Olive device, and three (in as many sizes) of the serpent on a rod intertwined with a branch of a climbing plant. With the exception of François the other members of the family used the Olive mark, sometimes however altering the motto, and adding in some instances an overhead decoration of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a sickle or reaping hook. He died in 1559. The third son of the founder, Charles, after receiving his diplomas as a doctor of medicine, travelled in Germany and Italy, returning to Paris in 1553, and started in business as a printer. Among the ninety-two works which he printed, special mention may be made of the “Dictionarium historicum ac poeticum, omnia gentium, hominum, locorum,” etc., Paris, 1553, reprinted at Geneva in 1556, at Oxford in 1671, and London, 1686. He possessed the opposite attributes of being the best printer and of having the worst temper of the family, and he alienated himself from all his friends and relations; he was confined in the Chatelet in Paris, and died there after two years in 1564. Henry II., son of Robert I., was born in Paris in 1528; after leaving college he travelled on the continent and visited England. He returned to Paris in 1552, when his father was leaving for Geneva. In 1554 he started a printing-press; in 1566 he published a translation of Herodotus by Valla, revised and corrected, defending, in the preface, the Father of History against the reproach of credulity. Charles, brother of Robert I., established a printing-press in 1551, and died crippled with debts in 1564. Robert II., second son of Robert I., was born in 1530, and, refusing to adopt the new religion, was disinherited by his father; he started a printing-press on his own account when his father retired to Geneva, and issued forty-eight books, some of which possessed the mark of the Olive; he was the royal printer in 1561, and died in 1575. François II., third son of Robert I., printed in Geneva from about 1562 to 1582. Robert III., elder son of Robert II., died in 1629. Paul, son of Henry II., was born in 1566, and, after a brilliant scholastic career, travelled on the continent, and started a printing-press at Geneva in 1599, where he issued twenty-six editions of the classics which were particularly notable for their correctness and notes. He died in 1627, and his son Antoine, born 1594, established himself at twenty-six years of age as a printer in Paris, reverted to Roman Catholicism, was appointed printer to the king and to the clergy, dying at the Hotel Dieu in 1674. The number of editions which this celebrated family, starting in 1502 and finishing in 1673, issued, reaches the very large number of 1590, thus classified: theology, 239; jurisprudence, 79; science and arts, 152; belles lettres, 823; and history, 297. Of the eleven members of this family, one died in exile, five in misery, one in a debtor’s prison, and two in the hospital—“Lecteur, que vous faut-il de plus?”

NOLI ALTVM SAPERE.	printer's mark
R. ESTIENNE.	ROBERT ESTIENNE.

AVDENTES IVVO / P. VIDOVÆ

P. VIDOUE.

Although in France, as elsewhere, we have to look to the printers of the fifteenth century for originality and decorative beauty, some exceedingly interesting Marks occur in the sixteenth, and are well worth studying. We have only space for the enumeration of a few of the more important. Of these, Pierre Vidoue comes well in the first rank. He was one of the most distinguished of the early Parisian Greek typographers, besides being a person of learning and eminence, and was issuing books up to the year 1544; his edition of Aristophanes, 1582, published by Gilles De Gourmont, is described as “a singularly curious impression,” whilst ten years later he printed Guillaume Postel’s “Linguarum XII. characteribus differentium Alphabetum,” which is described by La Caille as the “first book printed in oriental character,” a statement, however, which is incorrect so far as relates to the Hebrew. He had at least three Marks, all more or less similar, in one of which, however, the motto “ardentes juvo,” is supplemented by “par sit fortuna labori.” Of the six Roffets who were printing or publishing books in Paris during the sixteenth century, the most notable is perhaps Pierre, whose name frequently occurs in the bookbinding accounts of Francis I.; of their seven Marks, nearly all more or less of the same “rustic” character, the most decorative is that of Jacques (see p. 30). In their separate ways, the Marks of Mathurin Breuille, 1562–83 (p. 33), and Louis Cyaneus, 1529–46, each possesses a pleasing originality, the latter of which is inscribed with the motto “Tecum Habita.” The two Wéchels, André and Chrestien, were among the most eminent of the sixteenth century Parisian printers, and between them employed over a dozen marks. All those of André were variations of one type, namely, two hands holding a caduceus between two horns of plenty surmounted by Pegasus. This had also been used by Chrestien, of whose other Mark a reproduction is here given, and of which there were several variations. Regnault Chaudière’s shop was in the Rue St. Jacques, at the sign of “L’homme Sauvage,” which he adopted for his Mark: this he appears to have changed for one emblematical of Time when he took his son into partnership, and which, Maittaire thinks, he may have borrowed of Simon De Colines, whose daughter (and only child) he married. We give the largest of the examples used by Guillaume Chaudière, 1564–98 on p. 28. Sébastien Nivelle, who was working during the latter half of the sixteenth century until the third year of the seventeenth century, is a very interesting figure in the typographical annals of Paris. He was, at the time of his death at the age of eighty years, the doyen of the trade. His books were, for the most part, beautifully printed. His shop was in the Rue St. Jacques at the sign of the Two Storks, which he adopted for his exceedingly beautiful Mark, the four medallions representing scenes of filial piety. His daughter was the mother of Sébastien Cramoisy, “typographus regius,” who inherited the establishment of his grandfather. Of the somewhat crudely drawn Mark—an evident pun on his surname—used in or about 1504, by Guillaume Du Puys, the sign of the shop being the Samaritan, a much more decorative example was used, in various sizes, by Jacques Du Puys (p. 11), who was a bookseller, 1549–91, rather than a printer. Equally fine in another way is the tripartite example, given on page 130, used by Guillaume Merlin in partnership with Guillaume Desboys and Sébastien Nivelle, in 1559, and also with the latter in 1571. The Mark is the interpretation of the four lines:

printer's mark	printer's mark
LOUIS CYANEUS.	ANDRÉ WÉCHEL.

On the opposite page we reproduce the Mark Nivelle used for the books which he produced alone.

S N / HONORA PATREM TVVM, ET MATREM TVAM. / VT SIS LONGÆVVS SVPER TERRAM. EXOD. 20.

SÉBASTIEN NIVELLE.

VNICVM ARBVSTV NON ALIT DVOS ERITHAGOS

CHRESTIEN WÉCHEL.

I T

J. TRESCHEL.

After Paris, the next most important town in France, so far as printers and their Marks are concerned, is Lyons. The first book printed in this city is presumed to be “Cardinalis Lotharii Tractatus quinque,” “Lugduni, Bartholomæus Buyerius,” 1473 (in quarto). The same printer also published the first French translation of the Bible, by Julian Macho and Pierre Ferget, which was executed between 1473 and 1474, from which date the art of printing in Lyons increased by leaps and bounds. Panzer notices over 250 works executed (by nearly forty printers) here during the quarter of a century which followed. The most notable among these is perhaps Josse Bade, to whom we have already referred. The former of the two “honestes homes Michelet topie de pymont: & Iaques heremberck dalemaigne,” possessed a Mark which may be regarded as one of the earliest, if not actually the first, employed at Lyons. Topie and Heremberk printed the first edition of the “Chronique Scandaleuse,” about 1488, and Breydenbach’s “Voyage à Jerusalem,” of about the same period—the latter of which contains the first examples of copper-plate engraving in France, the panorama of Venice alone being sixty-four inches in length. Contemporary with these, Johannes or Jehan Treschel deserves notice not only as an eminent printer, but also as the father-in-law of one still more eminent—Bade. Treschel’s illustrated edition of Terence, 1493, is described as forming “the most striking and artistic work of illustration produced by the early French school.” The most generally known of all the Lyonese printers is Etienne Dolet, who, born at Orleans in 1509, distinguished himself not only as a printer, but as a Latin scholar, a poet, and an orator; he was burnt as an atheist in August, 1546. Dolet, as Mr. Chancellor Christie tells us in his exhaustive monograph, adopted a Mark and motto which are to be found in all or nearly all the productions of his press. The Mark and the motto are equally allusive: the former is an axe of the kind known as doloire, held in a hand which is issuing out of a cloud. Below is a portion of a trunk of a tree; it is usually surrounded by the motto, “Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo atque perfolia”; it is often also surrounded by an ornamental woodcut border, as in the accompanying illustration; and in some cases the words “scabra dolo” are printed on the axe.

HOMO NASCITVR AD LABOREM / VADE PIGER AD FORMICAM / PROVENIET TEMPVS MESSIONIS / NON ODERIS LABORIOSA OPERA

MERLIN, DESBOYS AND NIVELLE.

printer's mark	printer's mark
M. TOPIE.	E. DOLET.

Two contemporary Lyonese firms of printers, the De Tournes and De la Portes, appear to have rivalled one another in the number of their Marks. Jean De Tournes, 1542–50, himself had no less than eleven Marks, several of which are exceedingly graceful, one of the largest and best of which represents a sower, and serves as an excellent pendant to the reaper of Jacques Roffet, both of which appear in our first chapter. The seven or eight members of the De la Porte family used at least half a score Marks between them. The family, beginning with Aymé De la Porte in the last decade of the fifteenth century, and ending with Sibylle De la Porte, were in business first as printers, then as booksellers, for just a century; and the punning device apparently originated, not with the first member of the family, but with Jehan, who started a business in Paris about 1508, and in his Mark the shield bears a castellated doorway; the picture of the biblical Samson carrying off the gates was apparently first used by Hugues De la Porte, who was a bookseller at Lyons from 1530; this was superseded for the more pictorial and considerably smaller example, here given, when he entered into partnership with Antoine Vincent about 1559. Although the Du Prés were Parisian printers, Jehan of that family issued several books at Lyons during the last few years of the fifteenth century, and one of his three Marks is given on p. 108. Sébastien Gryphe, or Gryphius, who printed and published a large number of works during the second quarter of the sixteenth century, was also extravagant in the way of Marks, of which there are at least eight, all, however, of one common type—the Griffin, sometimes quite without any sort of decorative attributes or motto, and sometimes as in the example here given.

LIBERTATEM MEAM MECVM PORTO / VINCENTI

HUGUES DE LA PORTE AND A. VINCENT.

printer's mark	I C / IACQVES COLOMIES
SÉBASTIEN GRYPHE.	JACQUES COLOMIES.

M M / IMPRIME A ROVEN DEVANT SAINCT LO

M. MORIN.

So far as regards the French cities and towns, we have only space to refer briefly to a few of the more important. After Paris and Lyons, Toulouse was one of the earliest places in France in which a printing-press was set up. Although not the first, Jacques Colomies was one of the first, as he was one of the most prolific of the early printers of Toulouse, working from 1530 to 1572. Printing was established at Caen in 1480; but Pierre Chandelier, whose punning Mark we give, did not start work until eighty years after its first introduction. A punning device (p. 7), also is that of Jehan Lecoq, who was printing at Troyes from about 1509 to 1530. The only Rouen printer to whom we shall refer is Martin Morin, who appears to have been at work here as a printer from about 1484 to 1518, and of his Marks we give one example; another is formed of a large initial M, decorated with a variety of grotesque heads, with the surname Morin on the two central strokes of the letter.

LVCERNIS ACCENSIS FIDELITER MINISTRO.

PIERRE LE CHANDELIER.