IV
PRINTERS’ COLOPHONS IN OTHER TOWNS
The examples already quoted from books printed at Mainz and Venice will have sufficiently illustrated some of the general features which run through early colophons—the professions of religious thankfulness and devotion, and the desire of the printer to glorify not only the new art but himself as its most expert practitioner. These features will recur in other colophons we shall have occasion to quote, but there is no need to pick out many examples from books printed in other towns specially to illustrate them. The piety of German printers frequently prompted such devout colophons as this which Johann Zainer at Ulm added to his edition of the “Quodlibet” of S. Thomas Aquinas, and the one example may serve for all:
Immensa dei clementia finitur Quodlibet liber sancti Thome de Aquino ordinis fratrum predicatorum in eiusdem gloriam compositus. Impressus Ulm per Iohannem czainer de Rutlingen. Anno domini Millesimo quadringentesimo septuagesimo quinto. Pro cuius consummatione Rex regum laudetur in secula benedictus. Amen.
By the unbounded clemency of God there is brought to an end the book Quodlibet of St. Thomas Aquinas, of the order of Friars Preachers, composed for the glory of the same. Printed at Ulm, by Johann Zainer of Reutlingen, in the year of the Lord fourteen hundred and seventy-five. For the completion of which may the King of kings, for ever blessed, be praised. Amen.