The Chronicle which is called Fasciculus Temporum, set forth in the bountiful University of Cologne on the Rhine by a certain devout Carthusian, ends happily. Often enough has it been printed already, but by the carelessness of correctors in various places it has not been amended as justly as it ought from the true original. Now, however, not without great labor, it has been restored to its pristine state, with certain additions, by a humble brother, Heinrich Wirzburg of Vach, a monk in the priory of Rougemont, of the Cluniac order, under Count Lodovico Gruerie the Magnificent, in the year of the Lord 1481. And in the preceding year there were the greatest floods and horrible winds, overthrowing many buildings.
Save that he substituted the address, “by the humble Bernhard Richel, citizen of Basel, in the year of the Lord 1482, on February 20,” this colophon was taken over in its entirety the following year by Richel. To us, until we compare it with the Rougemont version, there may seem no reason for suspicion. But if any one in those days remembered that the year of the great floods was 1480, and not 1481, his doubts may easily have been awakened. A Genevese printer was much more wise, for, while he doubtless kept the Rougemont colophon in his mind, he adapted its local coloring very skilfully, informing us that the book was:
Imprime a Genesue lan mille cccc.xcv auquel an fist si tres grand vent le ix iour de ianuier qu’il fit remonter le Rosne dedans le lac bien ung quart de lieue au-dedans de Geneue.
Printed at Geneva the year 1495, in which year there was so great wind on January 9th that it made the Rhone mount back into the lake a full quarter of a league above Geneva.
Even when a colophon was in verse it was not safe from emendation, for when Giovanni da Reno of Vicenza in 1478 reprinted the Valdarfer Boccaccio we find him substituting for the line and a half, “Christofal Valdarfer Indi minprese Che naque in Ratispona,” the variant, “Giovanne da Reno quindi minprese Cum mirabile stampa.”
For other instances of more than one printer following the same leader we may note how Koberger in 1496, and Pierre Levet in 1497, both adopt the colophon[11] of the 1485 Cologne edition of the “Destructorium Vitiorum,” with its curious phrase “ad laudem summe Monadis”; how Han in his editions of the Clementine Constitutions in 1473 and 1476, and Wenssler in those of 1476 and 1478, copy the colophon of Schoeffer’s editions, substituting the praises of Rome and Basel for those of Mainz; and how in editions of the Gregorian Decretals Paganinus de Paganinis in 1489, and Johann Hamann de Landoia in 1491, adopted the favorite tag of Jenson and John of Cologne:
Qui non tantum summam curam adhibuere ut sint hec et sua queque sine uicio et menda, uerum etiam ut bene sint elaborata atque iucundissimo litterarum caractere confecta: ut unicuique et prodesse et oblectare possint.
Who not only have taken the greatest pains that these and all their works may be free from fault and blot, but also that they may be well finished off and composed with the most pleasing type, so that they may at once profit and delight every one.
Not to be able to boast with originality is sad indeed, but to the students of early types and of the manners of the men who used them these traces of borrowing may at any point of an investigation prove useful. A printer who borrowed the wording of a colophon probably borrowed something else as well. In most cases this was the text, with which students of early printing seldom concern themselves as much as they should, but sometimes also typographical peculiarities which may be worth some attention.
